Nigeria cannot survive another civil war and those beating the drums of war ahead of the 2015 elections must stop, according to David Mark, president of the Senate.
“Those beating the drums of war should realise that no nation can survive two civil wars in one lifetime. These trends must stop, and we must all remember that the nation is greater than the sum total of its parts.” Mark said.
He stated this in Abuja while addressing his colleagues during a special plenary session to mark the end of the Second Legislative Session of the 7th Senate.
Recall the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian–Biafran War, fought from July 6, 1967 to January 15, 1970 which cost the country a great deal in terms of lives, money and infrastructure.
The war which claimed some three million lives was fallout of the economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions among the various peoples of Nigeria at that time.
Mark said that Nigeria must avoid a repeat of the issues that led to the civil war adding that the vaulting personal ambitions among politicians was over-heating the polity and distracting officeholders from the onerous task of governance.
“Elections are two clear years away, yet the collision of vaulting personal ambitions is over-heating the polity and distracting the onerous task of governance. Overheating the polity is unnecessary, diversionary, divisive, destructive, unhelpful and unpatriotic.” He stated
The Senate President also spoke of the critical interventions by the Senate in terms of national crisis during the year under review.
He listed Senate’s support for the war against terrorism by providing the legislative support for the declaration of a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states.
Mark explained that the Nigerian Armed Forces were not at war with the communities in which the terrorists had entrenched themselves, nor were they at war with Islam.
The war he said was with Boko Haram and its affiliates, especially the terrorists’ network preaching the ideology that violence against Nigerians and foreigners was justified.