2023: Why Nigeria’s Democratic Process Is Threatened – NEF

The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) says the country’s democratic task ahead of the 2023 frequent elections is threatened by non secular and ethnic sentiments.

NEF Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed mentioned this in a assertion on Wednesday in Abuja.

Baba-Ahmed argued that these sentiments would frustrate the capability of the country to flip round its fortunes in 2023.

He accused politicians of desperately dividing Nigerians into two irreconcilable non secular and ethnic divides in a announce to garner undeserved advantages at some level of elections.

Baba-Ahmed mentioned that the controversy surrounding the Muslim-Muslim designate means that politicians won’t allow the country’s democratic intention to grow previous the narrowest of confinements.

He mentioned, “These developments threaten our already distressed democratic task. Our politics now operates originate air stable and tolerable boundaries, and the nation will pay dearly for the desperation and limitations of these who ought to blow their own horns management and accountability among our politicians.

“It is now not to blame to face up to the scuttle to caution politicians finest on the bottom that many matters that will impact on our lives and the positive of our national existence are purely interior affairs of political parties.

“The look for a running mate for the APC’s presidential candidate with the non secular faith of two folks as the sole real challenge at stake represents a unhappy reminder that our politicians won’t allow our democratic intention to grow previous the narrowest of confinements.

“Nigerians net their faith seriously, but we are moreover painfully conscious that the faith of our leaders has never been a element in the vogue we are governed. The political manoeuvres in the APC now divert attention from severe points across the positive of governance and blow their own horns the hazard that we are a multi-non secular country whose electorate will pay dearly if one baby-kisser is now not a Christian or Muslim.”

Baba-Ahmed moreover weighed in on the crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the alliance talks between the Labour Party (LP) and the Modern Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) which broke down.

He mentioned: “The melodrama round a series of the PDP’s presidential candidate’s running mate, and the role of Rivers Bid Governor Nyesom Wike will dwell constant reminders that energy and wealth, with out reference to how they are obtained, beget made our political task hostage.

“The ransom that will doubtless be paid to free our democratic task could well very smartly be such that the nation can’t give you the money for it. Our nation is being carved into strongholds controlled by mighty particular person politicians who must be placated at all tag, and we will pay a sizable tag if these politicians save stamping their personalities into the democratic task.

“Among a handful of diversified parties with the aptitude to form a incompatibility, ethnicity and greed are threatening to frustrate the emergence of a nation with the capability to flip round its fortunes in 2023.

“As an various of exploring alternate choices and opportunities that will make stronger their potentialities of giving Nigerians right and credible, we finest glimpse upsetting phases of hostility and ethnic chauvinism, as we noticed recently in exchanges between Labour Party and NNPP leaders. Ethnic identification in recount appears edifying of being elevated to a diploma the put it on my own can cripple a a success transition to 2023 and previous.

“Our politics has change into an additional burden on the Nigerian citizen, even dwarfing the spreading insecurity, poverty and cynicism over the potentialities of our survival as one nation. If the vogue our politicians are in search of out energy is any indicator of the positive of management they’ll offer, then the nation has a extraordinarily apt motive to disaster over its future. Assorted leaders representing recount pursuits compound our worries with periodic threats and ultimatums that an already weakened management has no solution for.

“The potentialities for the stable conduct of electoral activities and a free and honest election are being threatened by the conduct of our politicians. We must derive the resolve and the energy to step support and pull the nation away from its contemporary precarious put. What is at stake is bigger than an election. It is a ways the survival of our country.”