2015: Nigeria preparing for war, not election –Afenifere

Opposes amnesty to Boko Haram, state pardon to ex-convicts

Going by the utterances of political leaders in the build up to the 2015 polls, Nigeria is preparing for war not elections. This was the submission of the Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, at a press briefing in Lagos yesterday.

The group also decried the spate of insecurity, unemployment and corruption in the country. The leader of the group, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, in a speech titled: “Nigeria heading for the cliff”, also noted that the country is moving towards disintegration.

“Today, our country lies almost prostrate with palsied unemployment problems of graduates and able-bodied youth, debilitating insecurity of life and property, rife and festering corruption in our body polity, wanton killings and assassinations, indiscriminate bombings, senseless kidnappings, discordant drums of impending religious wars et cetera et cetera,” he said.

While expressing worry about the tension building up in the country ahead of the 2015 elections, Fasoranti warned political actors to desist from over-heating the polity “as no one can predict the outcome of the drive to the cliff that they are propelling the country toward.”

Fasoranti said: “We are also worried that a large section of our political class pretends not to understand the signs of the times and what needs to be done. We have in our hands a country that appears to be preparing for a war but almost all are pretending that it is all build-up to the next elections.

“The sabre-rattling going on among some major party and political actors are not healthy for the democratic project, as most of the noise going on is not even about solving any of the major challenges confronting the country but power mongering.

Rather than creating an enabling environment for rational discourse and contestation of ideas for the electorate to be able to make informed choices, many of the political actors are making inflammatory remarks to inflame passion and deepen the divisions within our country to make political gains.

“What the country needs at the moment are statesmen- politicians whose preoccupation should be the next generation and the survival of the polity not just only the next elections. On security, Fasoranti said Nigeria had never had it so bad like today.

He said: “Never in the history of our country, except in the civil war years, have our people been more insecure than they are today. Hardly is any news segment complete without the word “kill” in it. Life has become short, nasty and brutish like in the Hobbesian state of nature.

There is little or no value again for human life in our country as casualty figures would have to be in scores for any tragedy to make front headlines in our bulletins. “It is such high rate of killings that warrants presidential promise of “we shall find the perpetrators” that we hear….The regular killings of defenseless and innocent citizens by blood-thirsty Boko Haram terrorists have been unfortunately complemented by the nefarious activities of kidnappers, assassins, armed robbers and other petty criminals who, seeing themselves as deprived and abandoned are always poised to take a pound of flesh.

“Sadly, there have not been any concrete, serious and effective efforts to nip these crises in the bud and assure our people that they can sleep with their two eyes closed. “Unfortunately in the last three years, we have devoted a substantial proportion of our national budget to security with all the money without being able to buy safety.” The group also faulted the amnesty programme of the Federal Government, describing it as wasteful.

“We agree that granting amnesty in the Niger Delta per se is in order. But we find it hard to defend the monumental abuse going on especially among the elite managers of the scheme and are disturbed as to whether the scheme will bring a lasting peace given episodic restlessness still being demonstrated. Yet, we have created a set of emergency billionaires from amnesty while the conditions in the creeks remain virtually what they were.

“It is with this at the back of our mind that we have been so sceptical over the so-called amnesty for Boko Haram, which is a much more dangerous group than the Niger Delta insurgents who were known and demands were clear,” he said.

He noted that it would be a tragedy if the nation embarks on another money sharing spree in the name of “amnesty” with all the blood that has been shed. The group specifically opposed granting amnesty to the Boko Haram Islamic sect, saying the action is preposterous.

“Granting amnesty to dare-devil, blood thirsty insurgents whose identities and grievances are yet to be properly ascertained is preposterous, offensive to common sense and retrogressive in its entire ramifications.

Our stand is that any decision on Boko Haram should be holistic. We should not just be talking of the insurgents but also their victims and the causes of this menace with a view to ensure it doesn’t happen again and again,” Fasoranti said.

The Yoruba leader also said the anti-graft war is being defeated with the recent developments in the polity. He pointed out that there have been worrying signals of late that corruption may have become the fifth estate in Nigeria given the way it is being promoted almost like a directive objective of state policy.

“It is not only that state officials are corrupt but corruption has become official. In years past people talked of corruption in millions of naira, today they refer to it in billions and trillions with reckless impunity… Our elected and appointed officials continue to live large on unearned income in the midst of mass misery of our people,” he said.

Afenifere also decried the state pardon granted some Nigerians. According to Fasoranti, “Nothing riles more than the recent state pardon granted to former Governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Diepriye Alamieyeseigha who was convicted of corruption and still a wanted man for financial crimes in the United Kingdom.”