Northern, Southern elders forge common front to address poor governance

Northern Elders Forum members [Photo: Daily Trust]

The Northern Elders Forum and the Southern Elders Forum have decided to set up another group to be known as the Nigerian Elders Forum (NEF) to address challenges confronting the country.

Addressing journalists after a three and half hours closed door meeting on Saturday in Abuja, the spokesman of both groups, Banji Akintoye, said the forum when established will “find a way to meet, study situations, provide solutions and make sure that the decisions have impact on the lives of the people.”

He said the country’s elders are worried, “that things are not well with our country”. He added that a lot was happening in the nation that “ordinarily should not happen.”

Aside Mr Akintoye, other elders at the meeting were Yime Sen, Yinka Odumakin, Alfred Mulade, Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele, Chris Anyanwu, Francis Doukpola, Chike Dike, Bello Suleiman, Ibrahim Lame and Bala Sani.

The meeting was also attended by Sam Nda-Isaiah; Idris Hayatudeen, Saidu Dansadau, Falalu Bello, Doyin Okupe, Yerima Shettima, Charles Nwekeaku, D. G Darah, Abdullahi Usman Toro, Rahila Gowon and Abdulrazaq Adamu among others.

The statement released by the group read in part:

“We are elders, we are not active politicians. Most of us are not active politicians. We have come together because we are worried about the condition of our country. Things are not well with our country. A lot of things are happening in our country that ordinarily should not happen. Ours is a land of promise, a land well-endowed by nature with a lot of wealth but we are not using the wealth to enrich our people. Instead, we are going down, down and down in terms of prosperity and progress.

“So, we have decided to work together – that is the most important thing because the problems are many. There is a general problem like the problems of ecology. The desert is moving South on upon us, upon our country and we are not doing anything about it. The ocean is moving in from the South, parts of Lagos already under sea level and we are not doing anything about it.”

“What we have decided is to set up, and this is the height of our decisions, to set up a Nigerian Elders Forum. The Nigerian Elders Forum that will establish its own means of meeting and study situation and provide solutions and make sure that the decisions have impact on the lives of our country. Those are the things we have decided today.”

Pointing out some of the problems facing the nation, the statement said parts of the South and South-south “has gone under sea”.

“There is the issue of erosion in the East, people now resort to killing each other and the nation lacks leadership. Parts of the South-south too already under the sea and we are not doing anything about it, and in the East, there is serious strange problem of gully erosion. Nobody seems to know what to do about it.

“And then, economy itself, we have become a country that is longer productive because lack of productivity is the big problem now of our country, and we have to do something about it. We also have this huge problem of poor governance. It is no longer a question of a party, it is no longer a question of one party is doing better than the other, you can see now clearly, even though our political parties are rarely no longer political parties, they are just neighbours or combination of people who want to gather together and win elections and control the wealth of the country,” the group added.

“That is what it has become, and the quality of leadership has fallen so drastically that it is not possible to have any progress in the hands of such poor leadership and then now we have reached a point at which where we are actually killing one another. People burning around killing their countrymen and destroying their livelihoods.

“So, we cannot go on like this, we elders of the country have decided that we cannot go on like this. We must change actions to change these things.”