The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), says Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, is a big threat to democracy in Nigeria following his comments that any party who fields a northern candidate for the presidency in 2023 will lose the election.
Akeredolu, who is also the Chairman of the Southern Governors’ Forum (SGF), while receiving members of the Power Rotation Movement (PRM), in his office in Akure on Tuesday, had reiterated the need for parties to field southern candidates, insisting that it was the turn of the south to produce the next Nigerian President.
“Any political party that fields presidential candidates from the north would lose the election because such candidate would not have the support of the southern governors.
“Those pushing against power rotation in the country are toying with the existence of Nigeria,” he had said.
However, in a statement on Thursday by its spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, the CNG said the Ondo governor as well as the Southern Governors Forum should be cautioned as their stance was capable of threatening Nigeria’s democracy.
According to the CNG, as far as the North was concerned, “the idea that we would be directly or indirectly threatened or intimidated or blackmailed into yielding an office which ought to be settled democratically is not acceptable.”
For the avoidance of doubt, no amount of threats and intimidation from the South would change the minds of northerners regarding zoning,” the apex Northern group said.
“Any president to be elected should be done democratically and not by unnecessary empty expressions by anyone from whatever region and of whatever status,” the CNG added.
The group also warned that “persistent threats from self-appointed enemies of the North are unconstitutional and reckless,” adding that Akeredolu constitutes a threat to the nation’s democracy.
“They are empty threats that won’t work.
“The North will not be deterred by empty, provocative statements from Akeredolu and groups in the South, who believe in threats and hate campaigns as the hallmark or defining elements for elections,” the Northern coalition said.
The organisation said that apart from Maiduguri town, there had been no community in Borno State where people could sleep with their eyes closed.
Members of the Coalition of Concern Northern Elders for Peace and Development on Monday expressed concern over the continued silence of the President Muhammadu Buhari to the growing calls for him to rejig the security architecture in the country.
According to them, the resolutions of the National Assembly that the President should act swiftly to stop the increasingly bad situation was enough for him to act, given that they are the representatives of the people.
The COCONEPD, in a statement by its National Chairman, Dr Mohammed Suleiman, and National Secretary, Hajiya Mairo Buni, said the worsening security situation in the country had caused untold hardship on women and children in both the North-East and the North-West.
The organisation said the insecurity in the country had reached a boiling point, adding that only the sacking of service chiefs as the first step in addressing the ugly development could be acceptable by Nigerians.
The northern elders said that the 2021 budget proposal that was presented to the National Assembly by the President could be difficult to fund should the President fail to address the situation immediately.
The statement read in part, We are compelled by the current state of the nation, especially as it affects the security of lives and property in Nigeria, particularly in the North to issue this press statement.
This coalition became very necessary and urgent to lend our voice to the growing insecurity and call for the sacking of the current service chiefs and total overhaul of the security architecture of our country before it is too late.
We are worried about President Muhammadu Buhari’s silence despite calls by every arm of Nigeria, including the National Assembly. Some international organisations and authorities have faulted our security architecture and called for the need to restructure the same, yet Mr President is still not moved?
Is he waiting for all Nigerians to die first? In a constitutional democracy, the people are the employers of the President, and for a President to write his name in gold, he must listen to the people.
We in this group insist that President Buhari is a good man that means very well for Nigeria and Nigerians, but we strongly believe that he is being misled daily in the happenings of the security.
No Nigerian sleep with his eyes closed anymore. Our roads and homes are no longer safe because of robbery, kidnapping, banditry and Boko Haram terrorists.
The organisation said that apart from Maiduguri town, there had been no community in Borno State where people could sleep with their eyes closed.
The COCONEPD said while malnutrition is the order of the day in IDPs’ camps across North-East, investors had been leaving the country daily because of insecurity.
The group added, We call on the President to take this first step and follow it up with restructuring the entire security architecture of the country for utmost results. Nigerians, especially the youths, are tired of the level of insecurity in the country. The large turnout by youths on the #EndSARS campaign across the country is an indication that Nigerians are tired of excuses.
Nigerian youths are complaining and showing their grievances through a nationwide protest. The inadequacies of our government brought about the protest. However, I have given up not on the possibility of a better Nigeria but I have given up on the act of complaining.
We all know how much energy the late legendary afro singer and human right activist , Fela Kuti , put into his music. He sang about the effect of corruption and bad governance. He sang for change , rebellion against police brutality and every issue that has caused Nigeria to remain in this pathetic state. Despite all he sang about, nothing has changed over the years…it only got worse. Why wouldn’t I give up on complaining ? Fela’s mother was killed by soldiers, that was his reward for singing against bad governance.
In Nigeria today , we have no freedom to express our grievances without getting arrested by policemen. Take a look at what is happening nationwide at the moment…many youths took to the streets of various states in the country to protest peacefully, yet so many got killed and brutalized by people who are meant to protect us , “The Nigerian Police Force”.
The sovereign of our past hero are typically wasted today, do you know why? Majority of our politicians are still corrupt. In this case, how do the situation of things change? The few who raise their voices to speak are mercilessly dealt with. This is our reality !
Nigeria’s independence: Six images from six decades
History studies the past, reconstructs the present and attempts to plan the future. Nigeria as an entity will be 60 soon. The pictures, one from each decade, represents moments in the country’s 60 years of self-rule.
1960s – HERE COMES THE GIANT OF AFRICA
After decades of British colonial rule, Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa took on the reins of power and led independent Nigeria’s new coalition government. The celebrations lasted for weeks in some parts of the country and for those present at the Race Course (now Tafawa Balewa Square) in Obalende, Lagos, on 1 October 1960, it was an unforgettable experience.”Just before the stroke of midnight, they switched off the lights and lowered the British Union Jack,” Ben Iruemiobe, then a bright-eyed 16-year-old student who witnessed the raising of the Nigerian flag, told the BBC.”Then at midnight, the lights were switched back on and the green-white-green stood majestically for all to see. This was followed by a volley of fireworks, then the military band played and we rejoiced,”
1970s – A civil war that killed millions
Seven years after independence, a civil war erupted as Nigeria’s eastern region tried to form the breakaway Biafra state.The three-year conflict, which ended with Biafran surrender, resulted in the death of more than two million people, most of them women and children who died of starvation in eastern Nigeria.For many easterners, the 1970s was a period to recover both emotionally and financially, especially for those who had lost their houses – termed abandoned properties – and all their savings.US-based novelist Okey Ndibe, a child during the war, describes it as the defining event in Nigeria’s difficult history.”The [government’s] main goal was achieved, but at grave human and moral cost.”The ghost of Biafra continues to haunt Nigeria. Festering violence in the north-east zone, renewed agitations for Biafra, and demands by residents of the oil-rich Niger Delta for resource control, are consequences of Nigeria’s failure to use justice as the arbiter of public policies,” he told the BBC.
1980s – ‘Ghana Must Go!’
In 1983 the government of Shehu Shagari ordered more than a million West African migrants, most of them Ghanaians, to leave Nigeria at short notice as the country faced an economic downturn.The red, white and blue chequered plastic bag that the desperate departing Ghanaians used to carry their possessions became known as “Ghana Must Go”. But now they are more often seen as a symbol of sleaze in Nigeria, preferred by corrupt politicians to ferry huge amounts of cash.
1990s – Democracy returns after years of military rule
After 16 years of brutal military rule, interrupted by 82 days of a civilian government in 1993, democracy returned to Nigeria in 1999. Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar transferred power to Olusegun Obasanjo, who had won nationwide elections.The 1990s was a packed decade in Nigeria’s political history – including the annulment of an election by the military in 1993, the global condemnation of the 1995 hanging of nine environmental activists, among them Ken Saro-Wiwa by military ruler Gen Sani Abacha, and Abacha’s own death in 1998.The handover to democratic rule was seen by many as a culmination of these three events. The 21 years since have seen the longest uninterrupted republic in Nigeria’s history.
2000s – ‘New millennium.
On 16 November 2001, when a group of women competed for the judges’ attention at the Miss World beauty pageant in South Africa only a handful of Nigerians were aware of the event.But by the end of the day, millions in Africa’s most populous country had become familiar with the name of 18-year-old Agbani Darego – the first black African to be crowned Miss World.”Prior to Agbani winning it wasn’t easy to get Nigerians and Africans to participate in pageants because they didn’t see themselves winning.”But from having 20 to 50 participants we had hundreds of thousands who wanted to participate. Now the world wants African music, they want African dance. We are black, we are beautiful and we are in demand,” Ben Murray-Bruce, a former organiser of the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria contest, told the BBC.
2010s – Bring back our girls!!!
In April 2014, Islamist militant group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their school in Chibok in Nigeria’s north-east, where there is still an insurgency.Boko Haram had kidnapped many girls and women before but the abduction of the schoolgirls sparked a global campaign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.Bukky Shonibare, one of the leaders of the Bring Back Our Girls Group in Nigeria that protested relentlessly for government intervention to help free the girls, says the abduction greatly affected education in northern Nigeria.”Children – boys and girls – became scared of going to school, and parents had to make a choice of either keeping their children alive or sending them to school.”Efforts at achieving gender equality were greatly affected. Gains recorded [previously], especially around girl-child education, were immensely affected,” she said.After six years, more than 100 of the girls are still missing.
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