Former Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, has described Nigeria as a country in an unprecedented level of divisiveness and declining sense of national unity.
Anyaoku said the nation’s economy is in doldrums with 133 million of our population in a multi-dimensional poverty, great insecurity, killings and kidnappings by unknown gunmen and marauding bandits.
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The elder stateman made the remarks at the 2023 Convocation lecture at the Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Ekiti State, held at the Alfa Belgore Hall of the university.
In his topic: “Management of Diversity: A Major Challenge to Governance In Pluralistic Countries”, noted that Nigeria’s diversity was more successfully managed in the early years of the country’s independence.
“But all this has changed when the military intervened in the country’s governance in January 1966 and changed the existing constitution”.
Anyaoku pointed out that the regions engaged in healthy competition which facilitated rapid development across the country.
He added that in Nigeria today, all our infrastructures including power supply, road and education, health facilities are in poor state.
He pointed out that there is complete bastardization of our society ethical values, and an unfathomable level of corruption evident in the often reported massive looting and mismanagement of the country’s resources including the continuing unbridled theft of crude oil.
He called for a national constituent assembly of directly elected on a non-party basis representatives whose task would be to discuss and agree on a new constitution for Nigeria, taking into account the 1963 and the 1999 constitution and the recommendations of the 2014 national conference.
Founder of ABUAD, Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, who condemned the present situation in Nigeria, said the wealth of the nation is in the hands of few politicians who have made politics a lucrative business.
Babalola called and supported Anyaoku’s position that Nigeria needs a new constitution for the betterment of the country, which he had been clamouring for over 33 years.
