Premium Times
March 29, 2013
Nigeria is on the brink of collapse, and might descend into a civil if the growing insecurity in the country is not arrested, The Nation newspaper is quoting Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, as warning Thursday in Lagos.
The paper also quoted the National Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as having faulted the Federal Government’s handling of the Boko Haram crisis and suggested “a carrot and stick approach”.
On his own, according to the report, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, faulted the current political arrangement, where people without known pedigrees find their way into public offices. He suggested a review to enthrone the best.
Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make public the process for mergers to ensure that parties willing to fuse together do so easily. This, he said, will prevent unnecessary acrimony and reduce the cost of elections.
Other speakers were young professionals —members of the new generation.They include Managing Director, Frontier Capital Limited, Femi Edun; Chief Executive Officer, Venia Consulting, Kolawole Oyeneyin; lawyer Myani Bukar; musician Olubankole Wellington (Banky W) and Special Adviser to Ogun State Governor on Millenium Development Goals Mrs. Hafsat Abiola-Costello.
Mr. Soyinka particularly faulted the way President Goodluck Jonathan appears to be treating the threat posed by the Boko Haram insurgency. “Let’s face it. This nation is on the brink. There are those who don’t understand this, who won’t accept this. I feel very sorry that they will wake up and find out that we have fallen over the brink. It is not what we envisaged during our struggle for independence,” Mr. Soyinka said.
“It is not what we envisaged when we struggled to overthrow dictatorship and install the rights and dignity of human beings and citizens in the society. But, whether we like it or not, it has come upon us.
“My problem with the government right now, especially the President of this nation, is that he doesn’t seem to realise it.
“By now, we should be tightening our belts in many different directions. By now, we should never have persuaded ourselves to see what is happening in the North as being confined in the North. It has been obvious all along that this is not a Northern affair alone; no!
In Mr. Tinubu’s view, Nigeria is drfting apart because “we have leadership that is dividing us more and more every day”.
He called for value reorientation among the leadership and suggested a reversal to the old national anthem that de-emphasises differences.
“We must question ourselves in Nigeria. I disagree with my brother and friend Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who says youth may form your own party. Politics is not economic policy where you can change a bank note.
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