Military has fared better in promoting national unity ― Professor Jega
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Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has advised his colleagues at all levels holding elective offices to stop paying lip services to the unity of the country.
Fayemi spoke on the occasion of a National Unity Summit organised by a group, the National Prosperity Movement with the theme, “Nigeria: The Imperative of Unity.” The event took place at the Nigeria Air Force Conference Center, Abuja.
The Ekiti State governor maintained that leaders must ensure that their policies are driven by fairness and equity as the opposite fuel ethnic suspicion and division in the polity.
He said: “To be sure, unity cannot endure where injustice, exclusion, inequity and marginalisation are embedded in the practice of governance. That is why as leaders, we must pay attention at all times to ensure that as we work to deliver on our mandate, fairness and equity are made our watchwords at all times.
“Our commitment to these values must not simply be minimalist – doing only the barest minimum required of us by the constitution – or token – just for the sake of playing to the gallery – or even rhetorical – through the paying of lip service.
Our commitment must be robust, consistent, and demonstrable so that citizens have absolutely no doubt about the important place they occupy in our policy and political priorities. As leaders, we must not only embody the ideals of national unity but also be seen to be their active torchbearers at all times. This way, we build popular trust in our actions and erase doubts about our intentions.
“In the face of some of our recent challenges, I have often shuddered at the spectacle whereby some among us who have been entrusted with leadership responsibility very easily slide into the role of ethno-regional champions, xenophobes, and zealots. While it is normal that leaders must have their ears to the ground and feel the pulse of the people who have elected them – imbibing, reproducing, and spilling out raw and crude bile and pushing scorched earth solutions crosses the line of representation to become an exercise in the shirking of responsibility.
“Unlike the bulk of their followers, leaders are positioned and privileged to know that in matters of the nation- and state-building, the world is far more complex than the simple and many atimes simplistic binary divisions that are frequently deployed to oppose black and white. Leaders must truly lead by using the broader, more complex, and better-nuanced understanding they have to help moderate and modulate seasons of deep division in the polity, rather than becoming the ones who add fuel to a raging fire.”
The Ekiti State Governor further expressed confidence that the nation would survive the agitation for autonomous nations by several separatists movement as he noted that the various ethnic groups that make up the country are desirous of living together.
“All things considered, I believe that most of us will easily and effortlessly opt to be part of and live in a united Nigeria as long as it can be made to work for us in equity, justice, inclusivity, and harmony. I submit that the duty of ensuring that type of a united country belongs to all of us collectively even if leaders at all levels and from various walks of life also carry a special responsibility.
“For a people who have been in interaction with one another through commerce, migrations, diplomacy, religion, and inter-marriages centuries before the onset of colonial rule and the Amalgamation of 1914, it is clear that innumerable webs of interconnection and interdependence have been woven over the ages that have served as important glues in the fabric of the country. Indeed, based on the evidence of history and the contemporary sociological patterns of our country, it is incontestable that we have at least as many ties – if not more – that bind us together as differences that arise from time to time to pitch us against one other. For those commentators who have often wondered aloud how and why in the face of recurrent episodes of adversity, the Nigerian centre still manages to hold where in other countries faced with far lesser and fewer challenges they buckle precipitously and even flounder, they may wish to look more closely at the many tangible and intangible ties that form the strong underlying bond that holds the country together. ”
Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC who incidentally was the keynote Speaker, Professor Attahiru Jega, in his appraisal of the nation under the military regimes and civilian administration declared that the former had fared better in terms of managing our diversities.
Professor Jega accused the political class of promoting primordial sentiments and instigating ethno-religious differences for political gains.
“In any case, the attention paid to the question of national unity and integration by successive military regimes has not been matched by successive civilian administrations. “Except for sloganeering in the Third Republic, when Shehu Shagari as NPN’s presidential candidate, and subsequently as president, popularised the slogan of “One Nation, One Destiny”, subsequent civilian administrations, especially since 1999 seems to have, more or less, presided over the undermining if not the destruction of the bases and foundations of national unity and integration in Nigeria.”
Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, who was represented by the Emir of Keffi, Alhaji Sheu Yamusa 111, commended the organizers of the summit and expressed the hope that it would stimulate “the needed unity, makes national cohesion and consensus much easier.
“National unity is one of the most effective weapons for prevention of crisis that could drain a nation resources.”
The Sultan advised Nigerians to begin to see diversities as an asset rather than an encumbrance to national development and growth.
“Diversity is a fortune and it must be managed very well to reap its fortune. Some of the problems we blame on our diversities are actually as a result of our failure to manage our diversities.”
