Former President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has admonished Nigerians at various levels of leadership to continuously do their bit as part of a deliberate effort to unite Nigerians.
He referenced his personal experience while in office as President to discourage the myopia of leaders who nucleated appointments within their own ethnic affiliations to the exclusion of Nigerians from other ethnicity or regions, regardless of their competence.
He admonished current leaders to ensure that in every step they take, the Peoples of Nigeria are well represented.
To drive home this point, he narrated his approach of warehousing requests for board appointments until there was enough vacancies to evenly go round the geopolitical zones.
He cautioned that it is often the failure to adopt a deliberate inclusivity strategy, based on Nigeria’s Federal Character principle, that gives rise to the current situation where most sensitive federal appointments are given to a single geopolitical zone, usually that of the president of the country.
The former president also gave the example of his decision to create twelve federal universities, based on the existing gap and in fulfilment of the constitutional provision that every state must have a degree-awarding institution, instead of merely creating three universities, each par region, to meet the number required by the southern part of the country.
He regretted that even though Nigeria is not the only country with multiple nationalities in Africa, “if you look around, you will notice Nigeria as the only country that is yet to attain adequate unity where every one sees the country as their constituency.”
President Jonathan spoke as the Chairman of the Wellman Colloquium, held Tuesday at Effurun, Delta State.
The event attracted an array of speakers including the famous pa-Africanist, Her Excellency, Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao, Prof. Mike Ezekhome, amongst others.
In his chairman’s opening speech, President Jonathan advised Nigerians, especially the leaders, to see the nation’s ecological and cultural diversity as a source of strength rather than fault lines or a problem.
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