Only Govt Of National Unity Can Heal Pains Of Nigerians – Prof.  Hagher

Some people have said that after the 2023 elections, Nigeria has become so divided along ethnic and religious lines. What’s your view on this?

I don’t agree with the former president that Nigeria is more widely divided along ethnic and religious lines after the 2023 elections. Look at Kano, Osun, Lagos and Abuja and see that Nigerians are beginning to unite and cohere along party and ideological lines. Look at Benue State, a predominantly Christian State which went for a Muslim-Muslim ticket. Neither religion nor ethnicity motivated their rebellion. The 2023 election was a time-bomb. Rigging and militarisation of the process affected victory in many polling units. The hasty announcement of a winner lit the fuse, and an explosion is inevitable, if and when the Supreme Court gives its verdict on the INEC results cases in the courts without fidelity to law and facts. The presidential and governorship elections were fought like wars.  The national elites are pathetic. They are driving the nation apart because they have no loyalty to Nigeria, but to their bloated egos, and maniacal obsession for money.

Others have complained about ethnic profiling and incendiary statements by some ethnic groups against one another. Are you not afraid that we are on the road to Rwanda?

Nigeria has been on the road to old Kigali for a while. The new Kigali is a beacon of democracy, peace and progress. The leadership at the top level is unconscious of its responsibility to the nation. There has been no serious agenda to unite Nigeria and promote diversity through nation-building since our much touted return to democracy over 23 years ago.  Yes, we have even arrived in old Kigali where senseless killings and kidnappings and ethnic genocide have thrived for eight years, and are getting set to be repeated with no respite in sight. When the institutions of state; the Armed Forces, and the judiciary are compromised, partisan and unjust, the ground is open for hate, vengeance, intolerance and anarchy. The visible collapse of the university system as the last bastion of moral values took place in the last elections as many vice-chancellors and professors were caught committing electoral frauds.

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Can it be said that we haven’t learnt any lesson from the civil war?

No, we have not learnt lessons from the civil war. The history books have been replaced by spurious propaganda. The main leaders of the nation today did not experience the pains of the war where we all suffered and many other communities outside the South-East and South-South suffered greatly. The literature on the civil war is still scanty and one-sided. Nigerians have pushed the civil war experience under the carpet. This is wrong. We must go back and re-examine what went wrong from the Biafran side and the Federal Government side. Only then can we learn the lessons of the civil war to realise that all wars are the outcome of sinful stupidity, and all sides lose in all wars and nations self-destruct in all war situations.

How do you expect the incoming president to begin the healing process?

I do not expect the incoming president to heal the nation alone. The problems of the country are beyond one person. All across the land are triumphalist cries and gloating of the ruling party, while the opposition parties are in sizzling rage and the security agents are being goaded towards high-handedness to quell dissent. This is dreadful. The future is portentous. The nation needs now a government of national unity, rather than winner takes all. Only a government of national unity can assuage the pains of those hurting and grant all interest groups the opportunity to be heard and participate in the nation building.

But the president-elect has said he would rather have a government of national competence. What is your take on this?

Competence is found in every segment of the nation. It is only subjective. You cannot say you don’t want nation building, but the competent people you are talking about, are they competent in rescuing the nation? Any competency that is not aligned with nation building is not competence; any competence that is not aligned with building a new and greater Nigeria is not competence.

Obasanjo as President in 1999, set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission headed by the late Justice Oputa, but nothing came out of it. Do you expect this kind of commission as part of the healing process?

I don’t agree that nothing came out of it. At least people ventilated their hurts and citizens heard of sins committed in closets. We need to reconcile with one another. Politics has ripped friends, communities and families apart. We need desperately to examine the Fulani question as a national question. We cannot have the last nomadic society on earth, killing its way across the country to occupy other people’s lands and kidnapping with impunity. The nomadic culture should give way to grazing within fixed boundaries. The rule of law should be enforced. Without the rule of law, the glue binding Nigeria will give way. There is need for various groups, think-tanks, participatory conferences and conversations to take place to allow Nigerians to be heard and their pains assuaged.

Do you think we can ever forge ahead as a nation-state where ethnicity and religion won’t be an issue whether in politics or appointments?

I do. If there is political will, we can overcome tribalism, religion and corruption forces dividing and ripping us apart. We can achieve this in four years when a new leadership by example sits in the saddle and Nigerians can say with pride, “we are Nigerians” rather than being tribesmen and women. We need to give trust and loyalty to Nigeria. This has happened in Rwanda.

As an influential citizen of Benue, how can the Fulani herdsmen issue be resolved in your state?

All Benue indigenous Fulani before 2015, should go back to Benue State without molestation and be guided by the local norms and appropriate laws of the state. All the IDPs of Nasarawa and Taraba states nestled in Benue should be allowed to go back to those states and be guaranteed of peace. The Fulani terrorists coming across West Africa seeking to forcibly take over land should face the strong arm of the law and be expelled. They are foreign invaders. Whenever the DSS, the Army and the Police fail to arrest those that kill our harmless, unarmed citizens, it fuels the belief that the government is the sponsor of terrorism.

In the face of the Benue massacre, President Buhari ordered security agencies to go after the killers. Such orders given in the past were hardly obeyed. Do you think this one would produce results?

President Buhari’s orders are mere grandstanding and a personal requiem. It is very sad that he found his voice a little too late. He will be remembered for not stopping bloodshed.

The presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, and that of LP, Peter Obi are challenging the result of the election. What are your expectations from the tribunal and the courts?

I expect that the Nigerian judiciary will save the nation. Attempts will be made to bribe the judges; there will be threats to their lives, and ethnic pressure will be mounted on them. I expect them to save the nation through a dispassionate examination of facts and evidence and doing the right thing. The survival of Nigeria depends on them.