President Goodluck Jonathan welcomes former Ghanaian President
John Kufour at the Independence Day Lecture in Abuja.
By Muhammad Bello and Damilola Oyedele
Former Ghanaian President John Kufour has identified imbalanced
development as a major cause of insecurity in Nigeria saying the
situation is forcing the country to pay a higher price than it should to
sustain its role as the giant of Africa that it could and should be.
This is as President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan harped on the need for a
crises free Nigeria in order to transform the country in line with the
agenda of the incumbent administration.
Both presidents spoke at the 52nd Independence anniversary lecture
titled: ‘Nigeria: Security, Development and National Transformation’
held Tuesday at the premises of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in
Abuja.
According to Kufour, who observed that only a government that delivers
on security and development could ensure its longevity in office, the
resourcefulness of Nigerians is yet to have full impact on the
development of the nation.
He said this shortcoming is also detrimental to the country claiming
its rightful position as ‘giant of Africa’ from which other nations on
the continent could benefit from or copy from as a role model to model
or gauge their development.
His words: “Naturally, imbalanced development that involves horizontal
inequalities is an important source of conflict and that is costing
Nigeria the opportunity to be the giant nation that it can and should
be.”
“Nigeria has globally acclaimed assets which it needs to evolve into a
strong, stable state with powerful strategic influence, spanning the
entire continent of Africa and far beyond. The question then is why
Nigeria does not seem to get its act together to play its role of
destiny for itself and for the rest of Africa,” he queried
He said: “The challenge is to accelerate the pace of development by
using institutions of the federal Constitution as a nursery ground for
producing leaders who are national in outlook and with a missionary zeal
to transform this nation.
“This will help to mould the contending ethnic and religious groups
into harmony and help to remove the perceived mutual distrust among
them.
“Leaders so emerging would not be limited to championing the causes of
their home state, tribe or religious group, but rather focused on deeds
and pronouncements which convincingly and positively impact on the
entire citizenry of the federal republic.
“Nation building is the systematic evolution of the political,
economic, social and cultural well-being of all the various component
parts of the state.
“Indeed the transcendent factor should be the common citizenship of all
the stakeholders no matter the tribe, gender, religion, economic or
social status as your Constitution stipulates.
“If there is no security, there is no liberty and if there is no
liberty, life is not meaningful and society reverts back to the law of
the jungle i.e. the survival of the fittest and man’s primary objective
of forming a state is defeated
In his own speech, President Jonathan attributed the current insecurity
in the country to the handiwork of those who, despite the government's
achievements in transforming Nigeria, employ every means to discredit
it, stressing that there is no way any government can record progress
with incessant security breaches such as the ones that characterise the
Nigerian polity today.
"The key issue we are discussing is about peace and development and of
course we all know that there is no way you can talk about development
when you have a lot of crisis. In fact some people make more money when
there is crisis and when there are crisis is like a country in a state
of emergency, anything goes.
"Crisis is one aspect but generally if there is no peace is extremely
difficult for the ordinary people to survive though big players in
economy may survive. Ordinary citizens having small and medium
enterprises cannot come out to do business during crisis and of course
it affects the economy. So you must have peace to develop.
"Peace is one of the cardinal marks of a leader. In the monarchy in the
olden days, the king had maximum power but for your kingdom to be
stable you must have the military strength. So without stability of any
state we cannot development.
"I agree totally with President Kufour who really gave us the break down of the kind of security situation that we have.
"When you talk of insecurity of using bombs and guns to kill people
what has been described as physical security but in terms of social
security, food security, health and the justice system all have to do
with the security of individual.
"But I believe what we face in Nigeria though not peculiar to us, one
of our greatest problems is what I described as political security.
Government can continue to provide physical security but also very
important is the political security. When you have an ending political
conflicts in Nigeria, the country cannot develop.
"I believe political security is a big issue. There is this axiom that
the pen is mightier than the sword. The sword is used to kill and
destroy but what we use the pen to do is also very critical. When you
have society with these unending political conflicts, it is there on the
media whether print, electronic or social media, it brings a lot of
insecurity to the system and some times people begin to doubt your
government.
"For example when we were contesting election we promised it will be
free and fair, I was convince I must do that even if I will loss the
election. After our election in 2007, even the presidents in our
neighbouring West African states were finding it difficult to
congratulate us because the observers felt the election was not properly
done. That haunted us even when we travelled out and I promised myself
that if I have the opportunity to preside over an election, I will do
something different even at my expense at least for the sake of the
country. And we did that but unfortunately, even though there were
crisis in some parts of the country, observers felt the election was
reasonably free and fair compared to others. But immediately after that
election, not quiet six months, the kind of media hype that started
hitting us made us to stop and ask where is this coming from?
"I said I did not just come out from the blues to contest the election,
I was deputy governor for six and half years, I was a governor for one
and half years, I was a vice president, and before election, I was the
president up to April when the elections were conducted, people knew me.
So within this period including when I even acted, if I was that bad
will people have voted for me? So for Nigerians to have voted for me
overwhelmingly that means there must have been something they were
expecting and definitely six months would have been too short to pass
any valid judgement. But the media condemned me.
"And I believe is not just the media, like when we talk about the Boko
Haram, we have political Boko Haram, religious Boko Haram and criminal
Boko Haram. So also in the media, you have the professional media and
the political media. That is why I talk about the political media,
because of the interest of 2015 whatever you do is immaterial, the
government must be brought down. And that mentality cuts across most
African countries and even outside Africa.
"So addressing insecurity is critical in developing African state. When
you have this ending political conflict especially in a country like
Nigeria that is highly religious and with high ethno-tribal sentiments,
it becomes very potent to even create a lot of problems for government.
"So I will plead with us as Nigerians that whenever we elect government
into power at whatever level, at least for the sake of the country
allow the government to work before going into unnecessary overheating
the system.
“So as government we are committed to creating the environment. I'm
pleased with the way President Kufour spoke on the issue of
transformation. I agree that the leader must be the key actor for
transformation but those who will implement are the citizens. For
instance, during the election, we advocated one man one vote, we were
totally committed and I said it that nobody should rig election for me.
But Nigerians believed that we were sincere and because they knew we
were sincere, that took the life of its own. No I don't need to go and
preach again. We have monitored elections in Edo and other places,
nobody wants to compromise with his vote. Is government that created
that environment but is not government that will enforce it, it is the
citizen.
"That is why we are a bit worried that sometimes when government create
the environment, whether economic, social or even the media, but how
the citizens use those privileges matters so much.
"Take the media environment for instance, we signed the Freedom of
Information bill into law, it became the freedom of Information Act, but
are we using it in the way we are suppose to use it? Are some of us not
abusing the privileges? The media environment that should have helped
our transformation agenda are being used negatively, these are some of
the issues we need to address.
"The way Nigerians challenge and abuse me, yes the president has
enormous power but if you use that enormous power to some extent you
will look like a dictator. In a democratic setting, you want to create
an environment where people can create their opinion and that is why
people are allowed to talk freely and demonstrate. But are we doing so
properly"
One of the discussants, Prof. Ihedu Ivwerebo, said Nigeria has been
attempting to enshrine democratic system which is a culture. He said all
the past 13 years experience was part of the culture.
He stated that the challenge facing the country was leadership
infidelity. "The elites are unfaithful to Nigeria that made them. They
go out and speak evil of the country," adding that impatience of
Nigerians that we ought to have arrived was also contributing to the
challenge.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius
Anyim, said the lecture marked another critical milestone among
programmes of independence. He said deeper knowledge of national issues
would offer solutions to national problems, assuring that the President
will remain committed to discussions and that the anniversary lecture
has come to stay.
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