By the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo (being remarks made at the Institute for Security Studies seminar themed: Unity in Diversity, On August 2, 2017)…
Let me say how honoured I am first to share this platform today with General Yakubu Gowon who is rightly described as a living symbol of Nigerian unity. But I believe that his greatness lies in his policy of ‘no victor no vanquished’ when he began the process of healing a nation, bruised, damaged and embittered by a 3-year civil war. There is no question at all that great leadership comes from some sort of self-sacrifice, great leadership comes from some sort of compassion. I want to thank General Yakubu Gowon for playing that role at a crucial moment in our history.
I am glad to see that he is here today, again to advise that we must not repeat the errors of the past. I must also commend the Institute of Security Studies for providing this important platform for reflection on the subject of the corporate existence of Nigeria and its diversities. It is easy to take for granted the work that thought leaders such as the distinguished faculty here do. But we must remind ourselves that often the difference between tragedies of human conflict, hate and disunity is what is said and done or what is not said and done by those charged with thinking and planning for society in crucial times.
I believe it is the bounding duty of institutes like this to dispassionately interpret and apply sociological circumstances and especially history to present the choices and alternative pathways for our nation and its people. For example, let us just take history; reading and hearing history is a much different experience from being a part of history. Both have their advantages and drawbacks. The witnesses of the horrors of war will not wish it on their worst enemies, even recalling it may bring back the trauma of that period. The mental and physical scars of war are sometimes so deep that rational thoughts on the subject is impinged.
On the other hand, those who only read or heard history may have the advantage of approaching life without the bitterness and burdens of history, but they are often so far removed that they tend to minimise or even dismiss the ramifications of history. My wife turned 50 last month and I had to say to her that any one of her age was born in the year the civil war began and that such persons including those who are under 40 are probably largely responsible for many of the inflammatory statements that we are hearing today stoking up war. As you can imagine, I endangered my dinner that evening!
But I think that it is true that the farther away one is from the horrors and deprivations of war, the less impact it has on one’s thoughts, one’s motivations and one’s worldview. We must not allow dangerous amnesia that leads nations unwittingly to the fatal repetition of tragic errors. Permit me to share a few thoughts, some of which emerged from my interactions with the thought leaders from the Southeast and the North in the wake of secessionist threats by some youth groups in the Southeast of Nigeria and the ultimatum issued by some youth groups in the North. I want to look at what I describe as false narratives; the first false narrative is that we often say countries formed the way ours was formed are doomed to fail. In other words, countries formed without a deliberate agreement of people to come together are bound to fail.
This is what some people have said, that Nigeria is a mere geographical expression and for that reason it is not likely to succeed as a united whole. But those who say so do not know that even the expression, mere geographical expression used in relation to a country was not first used in relation to Nigeria. As a matter of the fact, it was the German statesman Klemens von Metternich who used this same expression for Italy. He simply summed up Italy as a mere geographical expression exactly a century before Nigeria was born.
Italy is still a mere geographical expression but still a nation. So we must not be misled by those in some pseudo-intellectual way suggest to us that the mere fact that we did not deliberately one day hold a conference to come together means that we should not or cannot stay together. Indeed we can. Most countries of the world came together by some accident of history, one way or the other, many were put together, many were forced together, but the wise have stayed together, the wise have remained united. The second false narrative is that one particular ethnic or religious group is more responsible for the Nigerian problems than the other, or for that matter that one is superior to the other.
My experience is exactly the opposite. As a matter of fact, I have found and I have repeated this several times that whenever you look at a charge sheet, that is a sheet where people have been charged with an offence especially those who have served one way or the other in the Federal Government of Nigeria, charged with stealing or corruption, you will never find one ethnic group alone represented. You will always find an equal representation of the ethnic groups.
There is complete unity in this business of stealing. You will also not find one religious group, you will find that there is nobody arguing about religion when it comes to these matters. The truth of the matter is that where we have won, it is where we have not paid attention to religious or ethnic differences; our football teams – because we want to win we do not ask ourselves questions about whether the people are from one side of the country or from another or whether they are Moslems or Christians or whether they do not believe in God at all.
All we are interested in is just the score, just win. I want to say that that is exactly where we should be as a nation today. We should just be telling ourselves – just win, just score, it does not matter where you are from so long as you are in government or wherever you are, just win for this nation and we do not want to ask questions of where you are from. Another false narrative is that we are better off when persons from our own ethnic group are in charge, that we are better off.
The experience of history and our experience is of course the exact opposite of that, as a matter of fact, what history has shown us, what the facts have shown us is that no ethnic group has necessarily been better off either economically or even socially merely because a member of its ethnic group was the leader of this country at that time. There is no fact to support that whatsoever and that is how it has always been. The fifth narrative which I want us to look at and which I also believe is false is that those who make discharges of marginalisation are altruistic. Those who say my ethnic group has been marginalised, my religious group has been marginalised, that they say so for altruistic reasons or altruistic purposes. I want to say that is not necessarily the case.
As a matter of fact, most times when people say for instance that the Southwest has been marginalised, what they are saying is I have been marginalised, appoint me because I am from the Southwest. That is simply what it is. Whenever people make this charges of marginalisation, it is usually self-serving. I sat with the President once when two members of the National Assembly came to him and said that, we, referring to states in the North have been marginalised. They went on to explain why; they mentioned some states had no senior ministers, one of them said “Kaduna had no senior minister, the only minister is the minister of state”, he mentioned also “Sokoto had no senior minister even Katsina, your own state Mr. President has no senior minister. All of the ministers are ministers of state”. Then he mentioned another group and he said, all these people have senior ministers, some groups in the South have senior ministers.
The President as you can imagine reflected for a moment but before he answered, I answered. I said the truth of the matter is that there was no consideration at the time that these appointments were made about whether or not we wanted to appoint a senior minister from this side or the other or from that side or the other. And that is why you find that many including the President’s own state does not have a senior minister.
The distinguished members were not very happy with my contribution but the truth of the matter is, if you look at any group, if you look at any particular situation, you can bring up a narrative that will satisfy your own particular idea or whatever it is that you believe. You can bring up that narrative. A group of people came up to me once and said “this Cabinet is full of Moslems. You are a pastor surely you should be taking care of the Christian community”. When we looked at the names and religions of these people, we found out that there were two more Christians than Moslems in the Cabinet.
By the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo (being remarks made at the Institute for Security Studies seminar themed: Unity in Diversity, On August 2, 2017)…
Let me say how honoured I am first to share this platform today with General Yakubu Gowon who is rightly described as a living symbol of Nigerian unity. But I believe that his greatness lies in his policy of ‘no victor no vanquished’ when he began the process of healing a nation, bruised, damaged and embittered by a 3-year civil war. There is no question at all that great leadership comes from some sort of self-sacrifice, great leadership comes from some sort of compassion. I want to thank General Yakubu Gowon for playing that role at a crucial moment in our history.
I am glad to see that he is here today, again to advise that we must not repeat the errors of the past. I must also commend the Institute of Security Studies for providing this important platform for reflection on the subject of the corporate existence of Nigeria and its diversities. It is easy to take for granted the work that thought leaders such as the distinguished faculty here do. But we must remind ourselves that often the difference between tragedies of human conflict, hate and disunity is what is said and done or what is not said and done by those charged with thinking and planning for society in crucial times.
I believe it is the bounding duty of institutes like this to dispassionately interpret and apply sociological circumstances and especially history to present the choices and alternative pathways for our nation and its people. For example, let us just take history; reading and hearing history is a much different experience from being a part of history. Both have their advantages and drawbacks. The witnesses of the horrors of war will not wish it on their worst enemies, even recalling it may bring back the trauma of that period. The mental and physical scars of war are sometimes so deep that rational thoughts on the subject is impinged.
On the other hand, those who only read or heard history may have the advantage of approaching life without the bitterness and burdens of history, but they are often so far removed that they tend to minimise or even dismiss the ramifications of history. My wife turned 50 last month and I had to say to her that any one of her age was born in the year the civil war began and that such persons including those who are under 40 are probably largely responsible for many of the inflammatory statements that we are hearing today stoking up war. As you can imagine, I endangered my dinner that evening!
But I think that it is true that the farther away one is from the horrors and deprivations of war, the less impact it has on one’s thoughts, one’s motivations and one’s worldview. We must not allow dangerous amnesia that leads nations unwittingly to the fatal repetition of tragic errors. Permit me to share a few thoughts, some of which emerged from my interactions with the thought leaders from the Southeast and the North in the wake of secessionist threats by some youth groups in the Southeast of Nigeria and the ultimatum issued by some youth groups in the North. I want to look at what I describe as false narratives; the first false narrative is that we often say countries formed the way ours was formed are doomed to fail. In other words, countries formed without a deliberate agreement of people to come together are bound to fail.
This is what some people have said, that Nigeria is a mere geographical expression and for that reason it is not likely to succeed as a united whole. But those who say so do not know that even the expression, mere geographical expression used in relation to a country was not first used in relation to Nigeria. As a matter of the fact, it was the German statesman Klemens von Metternich who used this same expression for Italy. He simply summed up Italy as a mere geographical expression exactly a century before Nigeria was born.
Italy is still a mere geographical expression but still a nation. So we must not be misled by those in some pseudo-intellectual way suggest to us that the mere fact that we did not deliberately one day hold a conference to come together means that we should not or cannot stay together. Indeed we can. Most countries of the world came together by some accident of history, one way or the other, many were put together, many were forced together, but the wise have stayed together, the wise have remained united. The second false narrative is that one particular ethnic or religious group is more responsible for the Nigerian problems than the other, or for that matter that one is superior to the other.
My experience is exactly the opposite. As a matter of fact, I have found and I have repeated this several times that whenever you look at a charge sheet, that is a sheet where people have been charged with an offence especially those who have served one way or the other in the Federal Government of Nigeria, charged with stealing or corruption, you will never find one ethnic group alone represented. You will always find an equal representation of the ethnic groups.
There is complete unity in this business of stealing. You will also not find one religious group, you will find that there is nobody arguing about religion when it comes to these matters. The truth of the matter is that where we have won, it is where we have not paid attention to religious or ethnic differences; our football teams – because we want to win we do not ask ourselves questions about whether the people are from one side of the country or from another or whether they are Moslems or Christians or whether they do not believe in God at all.
All we are interested in is just the score, just win. I want to say that that is exactly where we should be as a nation today. We should just be telling ourselves – just win, just score, it does not matter where you are from so long as you are in government or wherever you are, just win for this nation and we do not want to ask questions of where you are from. Another false narrative is that we are better off when persons from our own ethnic group are in charge, that we are better off.
The experience of history and our experience is of course the exact opposite of that, as a matter of fact, what history has shown us, what the facts have shown us is that no ethnic group has necessarily been better off either economically or even socially merely because a member of its ethnic group was the leader of this country at that time. There is no fact to support that whatsoever and that is how it has always been. The fifth narrative which I want us to look at and which I also believe is false is that those who make discharges of marginalisation are altruistic. Those who say my ethnic group has been marginalised, my religious group has been marginalised, that they say so for altruistic reasons or altruistic purposes. I want to say that is not necessarily the case.
As a matter of fact, most times when people say for instance that the Southwest has been marginalised, what they are saying is I have been marginalised, appoint me because I am from the Southwest. That is simply what it is. Whenever people make this charges of marginalisation, it is usually self-serving. I sat with the President once when two members of the National Assembly came to him and said that, we, referring to states in the North have been marginalised. They went on to explain why; they mentioned some states had no senior ministers, one of them said “Kaduna had no senior minister, the only minister is the minister of state”, he mentioned also “Sokoto had no senior minister even Katsina, your own state Mr. President has no senior minister. All of the ministers are ministers of state”. Then he mentioned another group and he said, all these people have senior ministers, some groups in the South have senior ministers.
The President as you can imagine reflected for a moment but before he answered, I answered. I said the truth of the matter is that there was no consideration at the time that these appointments were made about whether or not we wanted to appoint a senior minister from this side or the other or from that side or the other. And that is why you find that many including the President’s own state does not have a senior minister.
The distinguished members were not very happy with my contribution but the truth of the matter is, if you look at any group, if you look at any particular situation, you can bring up a narrative that will satisfy your own particular idea or whatever it is that you believe. You can bring up that narrative. A group of people came up to me once and said “this Cabinet is full of Moslems. You are a pastor surely you should be taking care of the Christian community”. When we looked at the names and religions of these people, we found out that there were two more Christians than Moslems in the Cabinet.
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