Founder of Afe Babalola University Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Afe Babalola (SAN), has said that poor leadership may trigger third world war just like the previous ones.

Babalola, who was speaking with reference to the current Israel and Hamas war and the Russian vs Ukraine war, said: “Man, because of poor leadership, has gone through two world wars (1914-1918 and 1939-1945).

“These avoidable world wars led to loss of millions of people, all of which could be traced to bad leadership.”

The statesman spoke at the ABUAD campus, yesterday, during an international conference on Leadership and Governance for Sustainable Change and Wealth Creation, jointly organised by ABUAD and Trinity Western University (TWU), Canada.

At the event, which was part of the activities lined up for the 11th Convocation of ABUAD, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the two universities.

He said: “Adolf Hitler, derisively called the ‘bad guy of history’, was a tragic example of bad leadership. He had the negative accolade of having created gas chambers where millions of Israelis were killed. What a leader indeed!

“We also have the tragic Russian invasion of Ukraine with Putin (the Russian leader) turning deaf ears to entreaties by the United Nations, the Security Council, the injunction by the World Court at the Hague and various appeals by world leaders, including the Pope.

“Africa is not left out of this tragedy. There have been series of coups and counter coups, which happen almost every six months. Again, the reason for all these is poor leadership.”

Babalola noted that the partnership with Trinity University would widen the hope of changing the mind of students in Nigeria, Canada and the world

The legal luminary said all hopes are not lost, adding that a revolution has started and a new Nigeria has begun in ABUAD, which is producing contented leaders, who want to serve and who do not see serving as business.

Speaking at the occasion, Ekiti State Governor, Mr Biodun Oyebanji, who commended the university for organising the conference, said the state put in place the knowledge zone to enhance wealth creation.

He said: “The state has just secured a loan of $80 million from the African Development Bank through Federal Government for the knowledge zone, which is capable of generating 12,000 jobs.”