Nigeria May Not Celebrate 100th Independence Anniversary – Former Governor

 ..says Nigerians live in fear

By Tosin Barakat

Former Acting National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Bisi Akande, says every Nigerian lives in fear, warning that a nation that remains like this may celebrate its 60th independence anniversary but will never celebrate 100 years. Speaking yesterday in Lagos during the public presentation of a book, “The Bisi Akande Phenomenon?” edited by Lai Olurode and Dhikhrullah Yagboyaju, he said Nigeria was most enjoyable 50 years ago. The former governor of Osun State stressed that it was high time Nigeria examined its laws which he noted were “military decree-based”. He said he believed in restructuring as being advocated in some quarters but restructuring is difficult in Nigeria. “The phenomenon of the country must be examined among three things and the first is our education. It seems to me that our education is colonial. It ends in literacy without numeracy,” he suggested. He said education of Nigerians in every community must be science-based to advance the technological base of the community. He said, “Secondly, I think our laws are military decree based and these military decree based laws cannot be used to sustain democracy. As long as we use these military decree based laws, our democracy will never prosper. “Thirdly, our religions are mostly imported and because of that, we seem neither to be good Christians, good Muslims or good idolists. We merely live in fear and when there are problems, we have no laboratories to go, so we retire to churches and mosques for vigils. “A country that remains like this may celebrate its 60th independence anniversary but will never celebrate 100 years. I think until all these three are looked at and addressed, or let me use the word; restructured – I believe in all these ethnic and political restructuring, but they are difficult to restructure.”