Daily Independent Online.
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Wednesday, June 16, 2004.
Restructuring only solution to
Nigeria’s crisis, says Nwankwo
By Bolaji Adepegba
Senior Correspondent, Lagos
Leader of the Eastern Mandate Party (EMP), Dr Arthur
Agwuncha Nwankwo has reiterated that there is no alternative to the proper
restructuring of the country, noting that the problem of the country is not
about those in power.
Nwankwo, who was in Lagos to celebrate the
anniversary of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, held that democracy in
Nigeria was hard-won and needed to be sustained.
In an a speech he gave earlier at the launch of
Osibakoro, a new pro-democracy journal of the Democratic Sustenance Initiative,
Nwankwo decried the mess which political actors have made of democracy in
Nigeria. He recalled the struggle that he and other well-meaning Nigeria went
through in the bid to get the military out of power in the country.
“Today, I feel disturbed that while many
countries of the world are busy strengthening their fledgling democratic
institutions and humanising the principal pillars of their existence, a few
others, including Nigeria, are pursuing shadows instead of the substance. Such
countries remain a painful abnormality and aberration on the pages of human
history and represent an embarrassing question mark on the sentences of human
civilisation. We cannot allow Nigeria to suffer this kind of fate,” he
said.
Nwankwo expressed disappointment that those running the affairs of the country
today include those who encouraged the military government of the late Gen.
Sani Abacha to continue in power, while they riled those who, at the risk of
their lives and certain incarcerations, fought for the return of civil rule to
the country.
“Democracy as a form of governmental
arrangement guarantees equality of rights, unfettered participation in the
political process, probity and accountability and freedom of expression,”
he said.
He expressed misgivings at the arrangement in Nigeria
where political actors hide behind the concept of “mainstream politics” to crowd themselves into
one party and use the process to render opposition impotent. He held that
democracy cannot be sustained where entrenched forces would not allow
opposition to thrive.
