Yola — Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and The United Nations Under-Secretary General, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, on Saturday gave their own recipes for national growth and development by telling Nigerian leaders that the task of Nation building is a continuous exercise which every serious nation must continue to replenish the basis of its institutions, economy and collective will.Both leaders also hinged the corporate existence of the country, on ensuring that future elections of whatever type in the country are free, fair, transparent and above all devoid of crisis.

Atiku and Gambari, who spoke in Yola weekend at the Founder's Day of American University of Nigeria observed that credible conduct of elections in a democratic setup is a major cardinal ingredient in nation building of such country.

In Gambari's, keynote address titled "The Pursuit of Excellence in the Task of Nation Building", the envoy opined that free, fair and crisis free election as well as individual sacrifice and quality of excellence symbolizes the entire nation.

"Free and fair elections is what we want to see in Nigeria next year. Anything short of that will not take us anywhere and will be drawing back the hands of our development backward. Except you give leaders their mandate, there is no way, you can tell them to be transparent", he observed.

He added that for leaders to be held accountable in the discharge of their responsibilities, their mandates must not be denied, stressing that in a situation where those who do not win elections are sworn-in and assigned responsibilities creates room for corruption, ineptitude and disenchantment.

The UN envoy maintained that an individuals sacrifice and qualities of excellence symbolize the entire nation, adding that "though nations are a collective expression of the people, yet individuals play an important role in the founding and development of such nations".

Gambari added excellence and nation building are the products of the sweat of outstanding individuals, even as nations are built by outstanding individuals and sustained by collective institutions.

According to him, the challenges of nation-building facing Nigeria are enormous and "do we have the necessary excellence to address the challenges"?

He stated that many Nigerians argued that excellence is impossible in Nigeria due to poor governance, institution, poor moral standing and widespread indiscipline.

"What all these answers remind us of is the so-called Nigerian factor, that mixture of cynicism, pessimism, opportunism and sycophancy through which we often try to justify our failures, individually and collectively," he regretted.

Gambari, described the Nigerian factor as a lame excuse and not an explanation that could be adduced to the nations stagnation, adding the purpose excuse is not in the country's vocabulary in the past and suddenly need not be used to justify individual or collective failures in the future.

He extolled the vision of the founding father of the American University of Nigeria, yola and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for establishing the institution and called on the students to be good ambassador of the University wherever they found themselves.

Speaking at the occasion, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar equally challenged present Nigerian leaders that they have critical roles to play in creating the necessary political and regulatory environment for excellence to emerge and flourish for nation building.

He added that services that government provides such as public safety, infrastructure, public education and public health care will help Nigeria to succeed especially when they are provided efficiently.

Abubakar challenged those tasked with the responsibility of providing such services to the people must be accountable to the people.

The former vice president stated however that accountability cannot thrive in a situation where people played no real part in the selection of their leaders. "Only when vote count and with those who emerged as leaders fully obliged to account for their stewardship to their people, knowing fully well that the people can also put them out of jobs", Atiku observed.

He suggested that Nigeria needs to have in place, mechanism that will ensure that the will of the people always find expression in the political leadership that emerges.

He wants all Nigerians to work hard and foster democratic culture, good governance and accountability in our various endeavors and the broader society.