Nigeria remains an assembly of leaders with individuals’ interest without national commitments, former President Goodluck Jonathan stated on Tuesday.
Jonathan made the statement as chairman a national dialogue on How To Make Nigeria Work to mark the 60th birthday of Professor Udenta O. Udenta and the presentation of his 21 Books at NAF Conference Centre, Abuja.
Jonathan stated that Nigeria is not yet a nation but an assemblage of people with individuals’ interests.
The former president said he was not blaming Nigeria’s forefathers, but added that they failed to integrate the people into a proper nation; “we operated as individual interest,” Jonathan said.
He stressed, that comments of some former leaders indicated that there is no nation called Nigeria.
“Yes it is a geographical entity, it is a country, it is a state, it has laws but there is no nation. The country was so especially during the early political party formation, and the parties were regional parties.
“There was no sense of commitment to integrate Nigerian into an entity that you can say yes, this is a nation with core values, with common philosophy and people who will be patriotic to that nation.
“Most of the parties belong to regions, then there were so alliances for the purpose of ruling the country,” he noted.
The former president compared Nigeria with Tanzania, but stated that Julius Nyerere abolished tribe and religion.
“They have two major religions -Christianity and Islam. Nyerere did not want multi-party, not that I am against multi-party, but he said if I go multi-party, the parties may take regional cleavages or go into religious cleavages. Maybe you will have a Christian party or a Muslim party.
“And when we go that way, they will have problems, the country will be divided and that sense of nationality will not be there, that is why he advocated for one party.
“Late Kenneth Kaunda did the same thing in Zambia. He advocated for one party to unite the people first, that is at the beginning of their independence.
“Another thing Nyerere did was that he selected the language that is presently pan-East Africa, the Swahili. But as that time, it was not even a pan-East Africa,” he said.
Also in his submission, former governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi accused the nation’s political elite of recruiting unprincipled leaders into political offices, saying Nigeria is not working the way it ought to be.
He agreed that Nigeria has not realised her potentials and accused the elites of not producing principled leadership.
He argued that what Nigeria needs is alternative politics and not alternative party.
Fayemi condemned winner-takes-all in Nigeria politics, and recommended for proportional representation in government, among political parties who participated in an election.
“Making Nigeria work is how you build a consensus. We should begin to look at what we call proportional representation. We must ensure that everybody is critical stakeholder and stop the winner takes all syndrome,” he said.
Also speaking was former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili who explained that Botswana is the only country that practise democracy in Africa, adding, “democracy has not failed in Africa but the problem of Africa is corruption in leadership.
“African problems are created by the elites. We have resorted to practicing pseudo-democracy and we must pay the price for it. Most African countries practice democracy in the breach and we must face the consequences.
“Democratic decisions has not reduced poverty, enhance productivity; did not increase life expectancy, did not improve delivery of services,” she said.
Prof. Udenta O. Udenta was the first National Secretary of the Alliance for Democracy (AD).
