Agbakoba decries hollow campaigns, seeks national order

FORMER President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) has decried the inability of the presidential aspirants to address key challenges facing the country in their campaigns.

   He said the issues being raised in the campaigns would not get the country out of the doldrums unless national order is created.

   Agbakoba noted that despite their efforts, all the past Presidents of Nigeria have failed in varying degrees to address the key challenges.

   According to him, the big issue in 2015 is not lack of electricity or corruption as some aspirants are pointing at, but the creation of the national order. “Our basis is that although the problems of corruption, electricity and job creation are important issues, they can only be resolved in the context of an order,” he stated in a press conference weekend which he jointly addressed with a partner in his chambers, Dr. Wilfred Mamah. 

   He explained that the national order must set the agenda with respect to late Bola Ige’s question: “Do we want to remain as one country? If the answer is yes, under what condition? 

   “It is our view that to answer these questions in the positive, we must revert to the core issues of the national order that is, balanced federation.”  

   He recalled that the only framework close to the formulation of national order was the national conference organised by President Goodluck Jonathan, but he regretted that the conference was hijacked.

   His words: “The national conference which was delivered under the watch of President Jonathan, though commendable as perhaps the first major opportunity for creating a workable framework for a national order, failed because it was hijacked by ethnic libertarians. 

   “The conference was too unwieldy; many participants came to the roundtable, inflamed with preconceived ideas. Also, it failed to galvanize an intellectual arm that ought to have driven the process.”

   He said that the postponement of the election in any case has given the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) the opportunity to prepare more.