A former Nigerian Ambassador to Germany Professor Akintola Osuntokun, has advised that for Nigeria to succeed, it must discover a collective and equitable solution to the way it decides it government and open the administration of the country to talents through a merit-based system.
Osuntokun gave the advice on Monday in Lagos state, while delivering a public lecture on ‘Nationalism and Nation Building in Nigeria History’, organized by Ohnaneze Ndigbo, a socio-cultural organization in Nigeria.
“Since 1966, Nigeria has struggled to find a modus operandi of ruling a multinational state balancing regional desire for autonomy under an overarching national structure.
“As a former Ambassador of Nigeria, I am in favour of finding a solution to our constitutional and structural problems. As late President Nelson Mandela said until Nigeria is successful, no one will have respect for the black man,” he reiterated.
Taking his audience through the lanes of history, Osuntokun recalled that a former Nigeria military leader Ibrahim Babangida had set up a committee of Scholars from various universities in the North and South regions of the country, including himself, to design a formula for solving what was then called the “national question”.
The committee, he said, worked under the Ministry of Special Duties in the presidency to come up with a the recommendation of a collective presidency where if someone from one geo-political zone became president, the remaining five zones would produce five vice-presidents, each of them heading the Ministries of Finance, Defence, Interior, Foreign Affairs and Education.
Based on the committee’s recommendation, the presidency would be rotated every five years so that each zone will have the chance to head the country and no zone would be kept out of power.
“Political parties will contest for power on this basis and whoever wins must locate people representing all the six zones within their parties…some members of the PDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) later claimed zoning was their contribution to political engineering in Nigeria. This is not true, ” the former envoy stated.
He added that Nigeria was running out of time to find an appropriate constitutional architecture to administer its affairs and called to the leadership of the country to give consideration to the various demands for restructuring the country and “control events from above rather than leaving the people to demand by force of numbers from below”.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and chief host of the event Ambassador George Obiozor, CON, noted that throughout the history of Nigeria, the national elites have been engaged in deadly competitions and conflicts of hostile sub-cultures, resulting in various danger signals that often threaten the survival of the country.
Obiozor stressed that contrary to the popular statement by some members of the political class that the unity of Nigeria was non-negotiable, the unity of the country must be re-negotiated for it to stand or survive the test of time.
“Our national unity must interfere seriously with our freedom and liberty or it will be interpreted as tyranny of the majority or minority, none of which is acceptable,” he said.
He added that citizens of the country continue to live in a state of denial, as the reality over the years remain that in spite of the best efforts of past and present leaders, Nigerian unity is not guaranteed.
“It is simply, at best, an aspiration and not yet an achievement. If we are to salvage our country, we must begin to face reality, stop the syndrome of self-deception and self-delusion about Nigerian historical exceptionalism.
“The disparity between claims to nationhood and the political realities in Nigeria are responsible for the political instability, military coups, sporadic levels of warfares, crisis, and violence that have characterized Nigeria’s history,” he said.