#Editorial

Towards A New Nigeria (2)

…Securing The Unity of The Country

THERE is a gain saying  that Nigerians may not have been palpably and visibly divided along ethno-religious lines since after the Civil War that raged between 1966 and 1970, as witnessed under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, for the past almost eight years. This is more so as insecurity and particularly the linking of herders of Fulani extraction with murderous activities and kidnapping across the country typified both appropriate compartmentalisation and redundant criminal ethnic profiling. The foregoing notwithstanding, the notoriety of vicious Boko Haram and ISWAP members that has pervaded the northwest and northeast, which has also percolated some states in the north-central, with some showings in the south, has left bile in the mouths of most Nigerians.

THE ethno-religious mistrusts in the country got exacerbated with the conducts of the presidential primaries of four of the 18 political parties that fielded candidates for the position of the president. The insistence of some northern blocks within the major opposition political party, the Peoples Democratic Party,  PDP, that the constitution of the party does not prescribe rotation between the south and the north, led to the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as the candidate, with Nyeson Wike, the vociferous governor of River State, leading four other governors from the southern hemisphere to form G5, which stubbornly pushed for the resignation of the former PDP Chairman, Iyochia  Ayu, to achieve what they termed as balancing of political positions, and ended up withdrawing their supports for the ambition of Atiku  Abubakar.

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PETER  Obi and New Nigeria Peoples Party, Rabiu Kwankwaso had earlier left the PDP to emerge  candidates of the Labour Party and NNPP respectively. The ruling APC under whose presidency of PMB the country was sharply divided ended up choosing a southern liberal Muslim, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the national leader of the party, as its presidential candidate, and was forced by the imperative exigency of getting sizeable votes from the north for political victory to choose a Muslim, Kashim Shettima, as his running  mate. Unfortunately, and characteristic of the devious political behaviours of Nigerians, political merchants went to the market with the configuration as a calculated attempt to emasculate Christians who had legitimately nursed existential fears due to the sustained attacks on churches across the nation.

UNEXPECTEDLY, political campaigns were held with politicians fanning ethno-religious embers to sway electorate. As common to democratic practices, the presidential election produced winners in Ahmed Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, as president and vice president-elects respectively. However, we consider it as most unfortunate that few weeks after the election, and just a short moment to the inauguration of the new democratic regime, tribal divisions, particularly between the Igbo and Yoruba of southern Nigeria have threatened to rudely put a knife on the remaining cords holding the country together.

Of special note  is the conversion of the cosmopolitan city of Lagos to a theatre of war, as claims and counter claims about political ownership of Lagos have raged to vexatious ends. Rumour mongers and political profiteers have similarly revved up obnoxious narratives about tribal-induced attacks on the business interests of Igbo in Lagos, with alleged referencing of IPOB to have issued a threat to protect Igbo in Lagos, should the government fail to do that. This was as a businessman of southeastern extraction, Chief  Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, was alleged to have called Yoruba political rascals in his own reaction to unfounded claims of attacks on Igbo in Lagos.

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THE  divisions in the country did not exclude the pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere, whose leaders, Fasoranti and Adebanjo, have spoken to support the ambitions of Tinubu and Obi respectively at different times, with Adebanjo’s redundantly and provocatively insisting on Obi as the winner of the election.                         

THE Hope is worried about the ethno-religious divisions and tensions in the country, which have been worsened by different shades of insecurity, mostly kidnapping. We believe that it was too bad that people no longer see themselves as Nigerians, leading to people voting in the last presidential election based on both ethnicity and religion lines which is antithetical to unity and nation-building.

WE are of the opinion that the President-elect should sustain his pre-inauguration rapprochements with opposing views, as he ensures that the fault lines that have been widened and exploited by detractors for nefarious intentions are quickly doused and fixed, for Nigeria to remain an indivisible country. Disenchanted individuals that are belligerently in their outbursts on the various political sides should bury their hatchets and be more concerned  the unity and development of the country.

NO doubt, we vehemently believe that the diversity of Nigeria, in a pluralistic country, should be an asset, and not a liability! This is more so as an interim government, allegedly desired by some enemies of democracy, cannot suffice because of their definition of an unconstitutional regime in a constitutional democracy. 

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