Hate Speech: Nigeria drifting towards anarchy; Onaiyekan, Jega, Gambari, others cry out

ABUJA – A cross section of elder statesmen and civil society actors have expressed concerns over what they described as the nation’s gradual descent into chaos fearing that if the trend was not halted, it could spell doom for the nation and its electoral process.

Those who spoke included the Catholic Archbisjop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, former Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, former Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Democracy and Development, Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim.

Others were Amb. Fatima Balla, Dr. Hussaini Abdu, Dr. Ibrahim Yakubu Lame, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, Dr. Chukwuemeka Eze, Dr. Chris Kwaja, Ms. Idayat Hassan, Mallam Y. Z. Ya’u, Yakubu Aliyu, Dr. Kole Shettima and Dr. Usman Bugaje.

They spoke Wednesday in Abuja at a conference on arresting the drift towards chaos in Nigeria, organized by the Working Group on Peace Building and Good Governance, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre CISLAC, Centre for Democracy and Development CDD and the West African Network for Peace WANEP.