Our Leaders Are Pretenders-

Leadership

4 September 2011

Our Leaders Are Pretenders

... National chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Victor Umeh spoke with reporters in Enugu recently, where he expressed his position on several topical issues.NNAMDI MBAWIKE was there for LEADERSHIP SUNDAY.

President Goodluck Jonathan said his government would bring transformation to Nigeria; with the administration’s performance so far, do you see such transformation on the way?

Jonathan promised transformation of Nigeria, transformation is not about telling us you will build roads. Transformation is about creating ideal system of government that will be a clear departure from what obtained that has been failing all along. You cannot become president and preside over a failing system, and when you leave office, you join the agitation for restructuring. That is what Nigeria has continued to have; our leaders have continued to pretend. When they are in power, they pretend as if they want Nigeria to be one united country but when their tenure expires, they join one agitation from their local level for Nigeria to be balkanized and let everybody go home.

So, until we take the issue of sovereign national conference serious in this country our problems will continue to confront us. Today, Nigeria is dealing with Boko Haram  but in 2015; if Jonathan steps down and he fails to make a bid to go for second term in any guise, militancy will return to Niger Delta; I tell you that and you better go and mark my words.

If Jonathan leaves the presidency of Nigeria, there will be militant actions in the Niger Delta one more time. So we are talking about Boko Haram today; in 2015, Niger Delta militants will return. I assure you of that. They are quiet today because their son, Jonathan is the president of the country, and that being the case, Nigeria should continue as one country; they (Niger Delta militants) will have faith in Nigeria federation.

But when their son steps down, they will lose faith in the Nigerian federation, and they will start their struggle again. So, that is it; for how long shall Nigeria continue to exist in a manner that the only thing you can do are things you find challenging on the spur of the moment? How can we lay down enduring structure for governance of this country? How can we lay down an enduring arrangement for our co-existence as a country?

Nigeria is multi-lingual and multi-ethnic. America is multi-ethnic and multi-lingual but America has continued to be a world power because what they have there is structured in such a way that everybody has faith in the state. But in Nigeria, the federating units see Nigeria with suspicion. So nobody has faith in Nigeria’s structure of governance.