Ex Chair of the National Human Right Commission, Prof. Chidi Anselm Odinikaku has cautioned that Nigeria might be on the brink of genocide following the threatening level of ethnicity and tribalism in the country.
Calling for the resetting of core values in Nigeria, Odinkalu in his keynote presentation titled: Resetting Nigeria noted that in spite of the prohibition against discrimination in section 41 of the 1999 constitution, discrimination has become institutionalized.
The Professor of Practice in International Human Rights Law at the Fletcher School, a guest speaker, at the 10th-anniversary annual Lecture organized by Just Friends Club of Nigeria, JFCN in Abuja said as long as Nigeria continues to dwell on indigenes rather than citizenship, insecurity may persist across the country. He added that: “Those who think they do service would only seek to serve those that they know not those who need to be served. “
Odinkalu in his paper said, “Nigeria’s diversity is a positive resource, not a curse but recognise that Nigeria’s leaders have, for the most part, failed to transcend the narrownesses inherent in this diversity.”
He said Nigerian political leaders are looking at the socio-political symptoms of Nigeria rather than the real underlying illness, stressing that for Nigeria to grow it must be reset.
Odinkalu who is the Senior Team Manager for the Africa Programme of Open Society Justice Initiative also identified Nigeria’s failure to evolve national citizenship and forging of nationhood being among the factors fuelling the crisis in the country.
He said that for the country to move forward, we must count genuinely in areas of votes, and resources, stressing that Nigerian politicians have been criminally allocating votes, and resources to undeserving areas and people.
“Fundamentally flawed political economy is compounded by long-established ethics of deliberate political innumeracy. As a political economy, we specialize in fraudulent counting and accounting, legitimized post-hoc by the instruments and skills of the law”, he said.
Prof Odinkalu stressed that the country’s “dysfunction with civics and citizenship itself is reflected in a leadership ethos that is incapable of treating citizens with dignity as well as a national preoccupation with discrimination.
“In Nigeria today, the only significant minorities are Nigerians. We are all polarized along a multiplicity of lines: Christians vs. Muslims; Militants vs. Boko; Men vs. Women; ruling party vs. opposition; Indigenes vs. Settlers; Poor vs. Rich; Army vs. Police; Police vs. Bloody Civilians, ” he said.
Earlier in the welcome address, President of the JFCN, Fred Ihwahwa also advocated for urgent resetting of Nigeria.
He said: “Whatever angle you look at it, Nigeria requires resetting. Be it in infrastructural development, the educational sector, health, internal security, the economy, our politics, our value systems, etc.
“We need to reset ourselves at the individual, communal, corporate, and government levels. We need a rebirth as a people. Otherwise, we will keep wallowing in the doldrums.”
Please find the full text of the paper below.
Resetting-Nigeria