The Akarigbo and paramount ruler of Remoland, Oba Babatunde Ajayi, has advised Nigerians against trading competence for nativism in selecting candidates for appointments.

He spoke on Saturday in Sapade at the send-forth ceremony of Isaiah Oyeyinka, the immediate past rector of Gateway ICT Polytechnic.

“Honestly, a lesson to be learnt in this country is that it is not every time that a person who would turn around an establishment must be an indigene of that particular area,” he said.

Mr Ajayi, the Ogun State Traditional Council chairman, said appointments should not be based on where people came from but on their competence and integrity.

The traditional ruler noted that in as much as people were free to push for the appointment of an indigene to head any establishment, such a candidate must be competent to do the job.

He said shortly after he ascended the throne in December 2017, he was inundated with complaints and demands for Mr Oyeyinka’s removal because he is not from Remoland.

The traditional ruler said after he visited the institution, he was convinced that Mr Oyeyinka, an Egbaman, had turned the polytechnic around for good.

“Therefore, I want to urge our people, instead of us to be insisting that certain appointments should be given to an indigene, we must, first of all, look out for competent sons and daughters of the land.

“But if you can’t find such, anyone from anywhere that is capable should be made to do the job,” he said.

Also speaking, Biyi Adeleye, the former political adviser to Governor Dapo Abiodun, saluted the immediate past rector for his tremendous achievements in the polytechnic.

The former rector described the institution as the neatest and fastest growing in Nigeria.

(NAN)