Obasanjo marks third year, raises concern over violence

Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo marked his
third anniversary in office on Wednesday with a national broadcast in which he raised concern about the threat of violence clouding the runup to crucial elections early next year.

Obasanjo took office on 29 May 1999, ending a decade and half of brutal military rule. But the optimism and enthusiasm that ushered him into power soon waned as Africa’s most populous country was gripped by the worst cycle of ethnic and religious violence it has experienced since civil war in the late 1960s.

In a speech focusing on political violence and past human rights violations, Obasanjo blamed Nigeria’s current situation on the country’s political elite. "It is a sad commentary on our conduct that Nigerians live more in fear of violence than excitement at the opportunity to exercise a choice in
who governs them," said the president, who is bidding for a second term in the coming elections.

"Primordial groupings, disguised as cultural or regional associations have made crippling inroads into the political arena, and are at this very moment influencing the political direction of our nation without any responsibility
for their actions," he added.

In a country of over 120 million people, comprising more than 250 ethnic groups and almost evenly split between a mainly Christian south and a predominantly Muslim north, Obasanjo inherited a particularly difficult task of building national cohesion. More than 30 years of military misrule under
mainly Hausa-speakers from the north, bred widespread resentment
among other ethnic nationalities that felt cheated out of the common wealth.

His assumption of office coincided with the emergence of a plethora of ethnic and regional organisations, some of them very militant, asserting rival group rights and pride. Among the groups fronting for the country’s three biggest ethnic groups are the Arewa Consultative Forum, representing
interests of northern Hausa-speakers; the Afenifere, whose influence covers Obasanjo’s Yoruba homeland in the southwest; and the Oha na Eze, for the Igbo southeast.

Some of their aspirations are often associated with militia groups, such as the Arewa People’s Congress in the north, the Oodua People’s Congress in the southwest, and the Bakassi Boys in the southeast. These groups have been implicated in some of the worst cases of ethnic and religious violence that
have rocked Nigeria in the past three years.

"The manner in which we resolve the inherent disparities," Obasanjo said, "will determine the future of our politics."

The president also used the opportunity to declare his government’s acceptance of the recommendations of a special commission which in the past three years investigated three decades of human rights violations. The report of the commission, he said, would provide the foundation for national
reconciliation and strengthen the pillars of democracy in Nigeria.

"In this regard, 29 May of each year will henceforth be Democracy and Human Rights Day," Obasanjo said.

He declared three days of national prayers and fasting, starting on 31 May. "Let us mark the experience of these three days as the beginning of genuine spiritual regeneration, righteousness, reconciliation, love and brotherhood in Nigeria," he said.