Nigerian Politics need to be about negotiations and consensus building that promotes national unity rather than regional agitations for power rotation and secession.
The Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum, PGF, Mr. Salihu Lukman said this in a press statement where he added that the rotation has not benefitted any region in previous governments.
Mr. Lukman who noted that the current insecurity throughout Nigeria and the agitations for secession is due to lack of justice and fairness added that the problem lies in poor leadership and bad political system.
He said Political leaders need to be nationalist in their thinking and actions and demonstrate the political will to effect positive change.
According to the PGF DG, there has to be negotiations and agreements by the political class when deciding on which region to produce the President.
“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, specific governance reform agreement to be implemented in all the six geo-political regions are required.”
“Why should any region or ethnic group produce a President and at the end of the tenure of such a President, there is nothing in terms of physical development of the region to justify that such a region has produced the President of Nigeria? In the same way, why should the other five regions of the country support the emergence of a President from any one region without agreement that translate to regional developments, covering all the six geo-political zones?
He noted that contempt and lack of trust for one each other is another situation affecting national unity.
“Even when opposition make valid recommendations to resolve the challenges of national unity, they are not presented with the aim of winning the minds of elected leaders, and to that extent therefore get them to consider adopting and implementing the recommendations. In the same way, when elected representatives initiate actions to resolve challenges facing the country, there is hardly efforts to win the support of citizens” Lukman said.
He stressed the need for Nigerian politics to go beyond who emerges as a leader, which happens only every four years, to the point when it is expanded to include engagements between leaders and citizens to contract support for initiatives being taken or to be taken in order to address challenges.
Bilkisu Pai
