as guest speaker proposes two-party system
The exaggeration of ethnic sentiment in Nigeria to the point that it moderates policies of government and to a large extent determines the behaviour and commitment of many citizens to the national project has been described as a dangerous trend that must be urgently checked.
The concern was raised in Lagos Wednesday at the 2015 Aelex lecture, ‘African Countries: Politics, Democracy and Ethnicity’ by Bolaji Akinyemi, a professor and former minister of external affairs; Ike Nwachukwu, a retired general and former minister of foreign affairs; Femi Okunnu, a former federal commissioner for works and housing; Sa’idu Ahmad Dukawa, a senior lecturer, Department of Political Science, Bayero University, Kano, and ‘Yemi Adamolekun, executive director, Enough is Enough (EiE).
Akinyemi, who was the guest lecturer, noted that, the fact that the majority of African states were multi-ethnic was one of the consequences of the European Berlin Conference of 1984. He listed several countries on the continent with diverse ethnic groupings, emphasising that successive governments in those countries had not really come to terms with how to manage the challenges they pose.
The guest lecturer noted that ethnicity was not only African problem; it had also remained a serious issue in other continents of the world.
According to him, “The main issue which confronts ethnicity in the electoral conundrum in Africa is how to build an inclusive electoral system, which turns the ethnic kaelodoscopy into positive factor. “Even though we tend to slide into the ‘one man one vote’ mantra when we think democracy, the practice of democracy worldwide is not based on one man one vote. Countries that practice the Presidential system come closest to the ‘one man one vote’ paradigm. “But those countries which practice a joint presidential/parliamentary system, a straight parliamentary system and proportional representation are very far from the ‘one man one vote’ mantra but close to the Lincolnian definition of democracy as ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people.’”
Akinyemi further said: “I believe that a two-party, whether imposed by the constitution or evolving naturally, is the best antidote to the invidiousness of ethnic politics.”
Earlier in his opening remarks, Ike Nwachukwu, who was chairman of the occasion, said ethnicity was at the heart of the problems of African countries. He wondered why many African countries had remained undemocratic despite series of interventions.
Making his observation, Femi Okunnu said: “If Nigeria had remained as it was 30 or 40 years back, the country would have been truly the leader of Africa. We didn’t know what they called ethnicity at that time. There was no federal character. We have turned these ethnic groups into political parties and it should not be so.”
