By KUNLE ODEREMI

As year 2021 winds down, First Republic Minister of Aviation, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi; former Minister of Information, Professor Walter Ofonagoro; general secretary of the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), Dr Kunle Olajide, and other senior citizens have suggested a path Nigeria should travel in 2022 and beyond in order to rekindle hope in Nigerians.

Their suggestions include the need for economic policies that have a human face; end to bloodshed across the country; inclusiveness in governance, less emphasis on money politics and evolving a true federal constitution.

According to Chief Amaechi who is the nation’s first aviation minister, the outgoing year brought blood, tears and sorrow to a lot of homes as criminal elements unleashed terror on Nigerians.

He noted that in spite of the severe security issues, Nigeria is ending the year as a united entity.

“There has been much bloodshed across the land this year. I pray that there should be peace in 2022. But I urge the leaders to do something to secure the country. I urge the presidency to do more to secure peace in the country and to make peace.

“It is a matter of give and take. Those in authority should listen to the complaints of those they rule. They should not just listen to their advisers who may want to advise them on what they (leaders) want to hear as opposed to what they should hear and know to be able to balance their judgment,” he said.

Describing the incoming year as “very a vital year for 2023”, he said the wish of many Nigerians is that the country remains together after the 2023 general election.

However, he called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to assert its independence by being transparent in the conduct of elections, just as he warned against do or die by politicians.

Also speaking, Professor Ofonagoro lamented what he considered as the “attitude of business continues” after attendant public outrage on activities of marauding abductors of schoolchildren and operations other criminal elements.

“I believe that after 61 years of trial and error, it’s about time Nigeria got its acts together. I wish Nigeria a much more resolute march towards a peaceful, prosperous future for our citizens.

“I always believe that what Nigeria needs is a leader that can pilot the nation in such a way that Nigerians would not want to run away from their country but would want to come back to it. I look back 45 years ago, 1976, when I left the United States for Nigeria, I came back full of hope for the future of Nigeria; burning with ideas on how to make Nigeria a better place; and all of us came back determined to contribute our own quota to the development of the country.

“Today, nobody feels that way. Nigerians abroad are not thinking of coming home. It doesn’t augur well for the country,” Ofonagora stated.

On his part, Dr Olajide, who charged the political class to give Nigerians a constitution, based on Nigeria’s ethnic and heterogeneity, added that a new Electoral Act should be in place in the first quarter of 2022.

He emphasised: “We must make a conscious effort to demonetise our political system and this why I support direct primary election, rather than the delegate-based indirect primary that is heavily monetized. And electronic transmission of results is very important because we all know that people write figures; change results in transit while going to collation centres.

“We must make our elections free, fair and credible, as well as make people central in politics because democracy is about the people. We have enough time to put pressure on those in charge to provide necessary infrastructure in that regard.”

In his contribution, a prominent politician in Edo State, Chief Anselm Ojezua recommended that every political party should be encouraged to obey the rules contained in their constitutions as they conduct their activities, because most of the crises confronting them stemmed from flagrant disobedience of the rules and arbitrary conduct of the main stakeholders.

Acting national chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Chief Supo Shonibare, decried that the country had been at the precipice of disintegration, pervasive insecurity, religious implosion and economic downturn with mass unemployment for the past five years.

He opined that Nigerians had “never had such a cocktail of ethnic discord, centrifugal forces pull, political instability and economic ruin, all at the same time.

“Our hope must be to arouse whatever remnants of patriotism are left in the hearts of the silent majority, who have not been leading elements partaking in the pervasive looting and overt determination to run the country aground, to stand up to be counted to reverse this trend.

“Our rulers and power brokers have piled up and stocked up resources from our commonwealth, in other jurisdictions, with an eye to flee, after bleeding us dry,” he claimed.

He said a president assent to the Electoral bill would have further assured voters of the integrity of the votes cast and observed that the presidency had not “addressed the issue of electronic transmission of votes, which is also contained in the bill.” Speaking against the background of the potential of the country, Second Republic Minister of Steel Development, Chief Paul Unongo, said the elite should see the incoming year as another opportunity to appreciate the huge sacrifice ordinary Nigerians made to sustain the elite over the years.

He called for a spirit of forgiveness among Nigerians generally as the rest of the world looked up to Nigeria for leadership beyond the continent of Africa.

“I will suggest that the political elite should focus less on their personal aggrandisement; they should, for the first time work honestly for the ordinary people. They have given so much to the political class elite and worked for the elite. Let the elite put something back for the ordinary people.

“The leadership should stop dividing us. The time has come Nigeria being regarded as northern Nigeria and southern Nigeria. There is a lot of plenty in the south; there is a lot of challenge in the North,” Unongo counselled. (Courtesy Nigerian Tribune)

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