Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Much ado about regional interest groups


 

 I am not a fan of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, but I support his call that regional interest groups be banned. Ok, maybe not banned per say- but thier activities should be moderated by security agencies and authorities. Like seriously, if we are to progress as a nation, then all these agents supporting ethnic and regional supremacy and intolerance of other Nigerian tribes should be banned.

Whose interest are they serving? The first thing that we as citizens of this country need to know is that we are Nigerians- be you from the North or South, East or West. From what I see, some disgruntled politicians just use this platforms to gather cheap publicity by criticizing officials in power, especially the ones that are not from their geo-political region.

For instance, even when PDP governors ruled the south-west, I never heard any OPC member berate them. Instead, they were busy streamlining how to grab power at he centre with gists of zoning or no zoning. Same goes to other so called socio-cultrural organizations. When Obasanjo and Yar'adua were in power, a lot of Niger-Delta groups sprung up complaining of marginalization of their areas and lack of development in their communities. Now that the president is from the Niger-Delta, much noise isn't heard from such groups anymore- even if development in the area hasn't improved.


What youth groups ought to be doing is organizing themselves into bodies that will educate, promote and preach unity, equity, justice and fairness. With the way things are in this country of ours right now, what we need is just good leadership- irrespective of what tribe or religion the leader is.

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