National unity will continue to be a fleeting illusion in Nigeria until the nation’s politics is developed in such a way that elections go beyond who emerges as leader, and is expanded to include engagements between leaders and citizens to facilitate initiatives aimed at addressing common challenges.
This was one of the contentions of the director-general of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, Salihu Moh. Lukman, in an opinion piece he entitled ‘Nigerian Politics and Question of National Unity’
Lukmon noted that demands for equitable representation in the country’s leadership by the six geopolitical regions and their constituent ethnic groups will remain a permanent political demand, but this will not necessarily lead to governments effectively responding to specific challenges facing particular regions where leaders emerge.
He argued that Nigerians should elevate politics to the level of active engagements to influence choices leaders make on the one hand, and contract support of citizens for initiatives being taken by leaders on the other.
According to the PGF DG, as important as the question of ensuring that there is equitable opportunity by all the six geo-political regions in terms of who emerges as Nigeria’s leader, there is an even greater need for specific governance reform agreement to be implemented in all the six geo-political regions.
He noted: “As a nation, both citizens and political leaders need to come to terms with the reality that we all need each other to be able to build a nation that guarantees good livelihood for citizens from all sections of the country.
“Nigerian politics must produce political leaders who are able to embrace all parts of the country as their constituency and engage political leaders from the regions based on the capacity to support them to provide new leadership to their people that is able to win support for political agreements, which may not be simply about cheap access to elective and appointive positions by the regions.”
Lukmon noted that the overarching challenge facing the country is how, as a democratic nation, political structures can facilitate the process of consensus building and agreement among the constituent parts.
According to him, the extent to which the details of the demands from the six geo-political regions are clarified by political leaders based on which they are able to commit themselves to agreements that translate to initiatives that unite citizens is the critical challenge confronting Nigeria’s contemporary political development.
“Difficulties in developing or strengthening initiatives to facilitate national unity in the country have engendered situations whereby all sections of the country are contemptuous of one another.
“High contempt for one another has also created unhealthy dynamics such that when initiatives for national unity are introduced, they become additional incentives for sharper divisions in the country.
“Rather than political leaders from the respective regions engaging initiatives to facilitate consensus building in the country, the initiatives escalate the problems of national unity.
“Every initiative then widens the problem of national unity. It is more of a vicious circle of endless agitations to resolve problems of marginalisation, injustice, unfairness and so on and so forth. Almost every Nigerian and every section of the country is complaining of almost the same problem,” he noted further.
He contended that today’s conflicts are a direct consequence of the inability of the nation’s political leadership, from all the regions, to commit themselves to processes of consensus building so that greed and envy arising from desire by all the regions’ political leaders for exclusive possession can be stopped or at least reduced to the barest minimum.
“Sadly, almost all Nigerians are now active participants in all the conflict and destruction that is consuming the country produced by the raging desire for exclusive possession of everything of value. Political leaders and ordinary citizens of all the regions are hardly interested in initiatives that can facilitate consensus building, which is required to end current conflicts and destructions as well as prevent future occurrences.
“All the demands coming from all the regions of the country are more about increased possession, if not exclusive possession. Choices in terms of equitable and fair access to Nigeria’s resources are at best a derived demand.
“Tragically, everybody, not just partisan politicians, engages this issue very defensively, mainly to protect current hold and win more possession. Private business people, professionals, academics, diaspora citizens, traditional, religious, community leaders, women, youth, civil society, labour activists are all active campaigners to protect current hold and win more possession for our respective geo-political regions.
“Part of the problem, which is resulting in further compounding the challenge of national unity is that Nigerian politics has succeeded in transforming almost every political leader into a regional leader, instead of nationalist leaders who prioritise initiatives that can unite Nigerians, many political leaders are simply regional leaders who only engage politics with the objective of ensuring that they protect what they imagined their respective regions control, and where possible seek to increase the scope of resources being controlled,” he noted.
As the 2023 politics is heating up, Lukmon stressed that it is important that Nigerian politics begins to focus on mobilising political leaders and establishments to facilitate national unity.
First, he said political leaders from all the geo-political regions need to recognise that they can’t have everything; that the notion of exclusive possession of everything of value in Nigeria is impossible.
“The spirit of sacrifice by all will be required in order to guarantee any prospect for regional development under a united Nigeria,” he stressed.
He also noted that followers should not expect that choices made by political leaders would be perfect or unassailable.
If choices made by leaders are to achieve the desired objectives of meeting the expectations of Nigerians, Lukmon said there must be an engagement between those leaders and the citizens.
The PGF DG said further: “How Nigerian political parties are able to transform themselves into active platforms for political negotiations to strengthen the unity of Nigeria is the major problem confronting the politics of the country now.
“The more this task is reduced to expression of regional agitations for demands for restructuring/true federalism or power shift/rotation of presidency between the northern and southern parts of the country without addressing the substantive issue of negotiating the details of what all these should mean for all the six geo-political regions, the more national unity will continue to evade our politics.”