NIGERIA AND THE CHALLENGE OF UNITY: BEYOND THE 2023 ELECTIONS
A Keynote Address at the Savannah Centre
Leadership Effectiveness
and Accountability Dialogue, at Ibeto Hotel,
Abuja, on June 6, 2022
By
Rev. Fr. George EHUSANI
Executive Director, Lux Terra Leadership
Foundation
_____________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION: Nigeria is Today Teetering on the Precipice
Nigeria as a national entity is on the verge of collapse. All the indices of state failure are in place. There is an unprecedented level of impunity, and a never-before witnessed orgy of violence across the land. Criminal gangs are holding swathes of the Nigerian territory, bombing state infrastructures, collecting taxes, kidnapping travellers for ransom, sacking whole villages, burning down police stations, dislodging soldiers from their military outposts, abducting school children – transforming some into child soldiers and others into sex slaves, carrying out mass executions, and sending periodic threats to the Federal Government.
In the face of these brazen attacks that are equivalent to an open declaration of war, the government in place appears either utterly incapable or inexplicably unwilling to perform the primary duty of government, namely, to protect the lives and property of Nigerians, to such an extent that many Nigerians in exasperation now wonder if high level agents of government are not actually complicit in this genocidal war against innocent Nigerians. Indeed, many are beginning to believe that there are treasonous persons within the governance structure, who have resolved to destroy the Nigerian state in the manner we are witnessing today.