In countries with striated and differing cleavages, that is, linguistics, ethnicity, religion, and geographical spread, political stability will depend on the maintenance approaches of various operational systems, strict adherence to laws, and others. Besides, leaders must adhere to the tenets of constitutional dictates, which gives vent to civil order and political legitimacy. That is why we operated the quota system and Federal Character Principles as legitimate tools in Nigeria to deal with our differences before and after independence.
The Federal Character principle Section 14 (3) promotes national unity to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or any of its agencies.
So, the Federal Character Clause is not supposed to supplant merit principles. It was enshrined to promote inclusiveness in our diverse nature. Unfortunately, the direction has encouraged unmerited favors, iniquities, ungodliness, selfishness, disvalues, tribal centeredness, and parochialism.
The only way to reverse the worrisome trend is to vote for people that have a fear of God. We must identify those that love Nigerians irrespective of where they come from in 2023 and vote for them. We should vote for transparent and accountable leaders who would in their everyday interdependent relationships and pronouncements with the masses strictly adhere to kingdom principles, especially “doing to others what we wish them to do to us. Luke 6:31, Matthew 7:12.”
Anything short of the above will be an exercise in futility.
Grace and peace!!!
