The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) said on Monday that Nigeria was still far from achieving the vision of its founding fathers.

Muiz Banire, National Legal Adviser, ACN, and Adebamigbe Omole, Chairman, NBA, Ikeja Branch, stated this in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday ahead of Nigeria's 51st Independence Anniversary.

Mr Banire told NAN that there was little or nothing to celebrate considering the current realities in the country.

"It's becoming increasingly difficult to know the way forward about Nigeria. That is the reality now because it doesn't appear as if we are progressing.

"In my own view I think we are stultified and institutions are breaking down, collapsing at an alarming rate and new dimensions are even coming into the system. Security concerns, survival concerns, infrastructural concerns. So we are at a limbo."

Mr Omole expressed a similar view. "There is nothing to show that we are moving forward. At 51, the poverty level is still high. At 51, our educational sector is nothing to write home about. At 51 the transportation sector is nothing to write home about. So where are we heading to?" The NBA chairman said the country was in dire need of qualitative leadership to actualise the visions of its founding fathers.

"This has to do with our leaders because all along we have not been having leaders; we have been having rulers. Until in Nigeria we are able to have leaders, that is when this country will get better. But as long as we continue to have rulers, then we are still going to have problems."

On his part, Mr Banire proffered solutions to address the challenges of unemployment, poverty and insecurity in the country.

"The major way out first and foremost is to ensure that we have power supply. That will cure and, to a large extent, reduce drastically unemployment because that would open a vista of opportunities for the youth.

He said the ACN as a party was committed to good governance, stressing that it was the party's agenda to deliver the dividends of democracy to the states under its control.