Nigeria’s current situation lamentable — Anyaoku

Chief Emeka Anyaoku, a former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth has described the current situation in Nigeria as “lamentable” saying the way forward is for the country to get a new constitution to salvage the situation.

Anyaoku made the assertion while delivering the 2023 Convocation Lecture of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, titled, “Management of diversity: A major challenge to governance in pluralistic countries” in Ado Ekiti on Friday.

According to him, under the Constitution, before military intervention, there was security of life and property, and there was a faster pace of economic development in the regions, adding that healthy competition among the regions facilitated rapid development across the country.

“In contrast, today if truth be told, the situation in our country is lamentable. There is an unprecedented level of divisiveness and a declining sense of national unity; the economy is in the doldrums, with 133 million of our population in multidimensional poverty.

“There is great insecurity throughout the land as we hear every day of killings and kidnappings by unknown gunmen and marauding bandits; all our infrastructure, including power supply, roads, and educational and health facilities, are in a poor state.

“Added to all this, there is a complete bastardisation of our society’s ethical values and an unfathomable level of corruption evident in the often reported massive looting and mismanagement of the country’s resources, including the continuing unbridled theft of our crude oil,” he lamented.

However, despite these, he said, “Nigeria is still salvageable” adding that “the country can still be restored to greater peace, greater security, a renewed sense of national unity, greater political stability, and a more assured pace of economic development”.