Nigeria may break unless… -Professor Akinyemi

Posted by admin Headlines Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

FORMER Minister of Foreign Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akin-yemi, has warned that unless the country is bold enough to appropriate steps to resolve its contending issues in a consensual way, it may break into pieces in a violent way.

Speaking as a guest lecturer at a public lecture organised in honour of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national chairmanship candidate, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, in Abuja, on Tuesday, he also dispelled fears that the proposed National Sovereign Conference (SNC) would strip the National Assembly of its powers.

According to him, “there should be no complacency in handling the issues confronting this nation. The Nigeria project is work in progress. The international environment may not provide too many windows of opportunities to resolve all these outstanding issues.”

Professor Akinyemi noted that since the Nigerian civil war, “the international environment has been more amenable to the rights of self-determination being exercised by units within independent state.

“The Soviet Union has broken into two constituent units; Yugoslavia has broken into several units; and Scotland is going to have a referendum on whether to remain part of the United Kingdom or not; nearer home, Sudan has broken into two and Ethiopia has had a part broken off.

“I have gone through these examples to warn Nigeria and Nigerians not to push its luck in refusing to address these issues in a consensual manner. No more arrogance, no more threats and no more ego trips,” he said.

Akinyemi said though he was not a member of the PDP, he was endorsing Alhaji Tukur for the position of the national chairman because whatever the “PDP does affects me,” adding that country’s complex problems required persons of strong personalities such as Tukur to tackle them.

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