Posted by GBENGA OSINAIKE on
A FORMER Minister of External Affairs, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi has warned that the emerging political storm in Nigeria was akin to events which preceded the 1967 - 70 civil war.
A FORMER Minister of External Affairs, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi has warned that the emerging political storm in Nigeria was akin to events which preceded the 1967 - 70 civil war.
Akinyemi, who was among the arrowheads of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), that championed the exit of the military from political power in 1999, identified the acrimony over power shift as an ominous sign.
Reviewing current events in the country in an interview with Sunday Punch in Lagos on Thursday, he remarked that it is frightening that divisive tendencies have found their way to the front burner of political discourse 36 years after the end of the civil war.
Akinyemi, who disclosed that his former colleagues and he were thinking of resuscitating NADECO, accused the political class of using the issue of power shift to re-enact the era of north-south divides for pecuniary interests.
He recalled how some Nigerians fumed with fury when a United States group warned of the possible disintegration of the country by 2015, if nothing was done to resolve the various contradictions in the present federation.
Warning against the grave implications of the current polarisation of the polity over power rotation, the former minister strongly criticised the resort to regional meetings by stakeholders in the country.
'It was in 1966 that we had something like this. We are now in 2006 and we are back to the northern forum and southern forum, which was the norm in 1966. I never thought I would again hear the word confederation. I never thought I will never hear the word boycott of election.
'What I can say is that all the vocabularies of 1966 are being revived. The question is: Have we forgotten the civil war of 1967 when the lives of brilliant young people were lost? Have we forgotten so soon that Nigeria lost a generation during the war?"
Northern leaders have met under various political groupings and insisted that the next president in 2007 must come from the north.
Various pressure groups from the three geopolitical zones in the south recently formed the Southern Leaders' Forum (SLF) and also declared that the presidency must remain in the south in the interest of justice and equity.
The southern leaders are insisting that power should rotate among the six geopolitical zones and not necessarily between the north and south, as being demanded by northerners.
Akinyemi said he was opposed to the concept of power shift because it 'reduces governance to the commonest denominator as well as denies the people their democratic rights."
He emphasised that the crisis of confidence created by the hot public debate over power shift required an urgent intervention from non-partisan senior citizens so as to save the country from further drifting towards the precipice.
'I think there is the need for mediators; for people who have been able to live above party sentiments. People who have never been part of the day-to-day conflict and crisis can come together and come up with compromise proposals.
'The tragedy of the Nigerian situation is that former heads of state have continued to be driven by the greed of office. Ordinarily, they are people that should be the reference point in time of trouble. When such people are driven by the greed of office, then who will play the role of national reconciliator?"
SUNDAY PUNCH, January 22, 2006