TheNiche Lecture 2023: Nigeria is at a crossroads, no doubt, teetering on the brink
Ikechukwu Amaechi presenting a plaque to Rotimi Amaechi after his induction into TheNiche Hall of Fame, an honour reserved for Chairpersons and Guest Speakers at TheNiche Annual Lecture
I consider my task today, which is to welcome all of you to the fourth edition of this lecture series, the easiest.
In this very hall, on April 20, 2018, we held the first edition of what has become known as TheNiche Annual Lecture and also unveiled our foundation – TheNiche Foundation for Development Journalism – to mark the fourth anniversary of the newspaper.
When the newspaper came on board in April 2014, the editorial policy captured its mission: “TheNiche will always anchor its position on the need for social justice, fairness and respect for human and communal rights … will be uncompromising against any form of discrimination and subjugation either by tribe, gender or religion.”
It is in pursuit of these ideals that the Foundation was set up as a vehicle to drive this our idea of an ideal Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
Fortuitously, this year’s lecture is holding on the same day seven Justices of the Supreme Court are sitting in Abuja to determine for Nigerians who won in an election where well over 23 million people voted. Ironically, none of the Justices making the determination voted.
Nigeria is at a crossroads, no doubt, teetering on the brink. All the indices of human development, without any exception, are pointing south.
READ ALSO: In Nigeria, everything that can go wrong, has gone wrong
Yet, everyone had hoped on the eve of the 2023 general elections that Nigeria was on the cusp of a new beginning – a rebirth. So, why is Nigeria always striding and sliding?
That is the theme of today’s lecture to be delivered by Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, erstwhile Minister of Transportation.
The decision to saddle him with that onerous task was deliberate. Though relatively young at 58, Amaechi, to borrow a cliché, knows where all the bodies are buried in this Fourth Republic by virtue of the positions of trust he has held since 1999.
A two-term Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, he also became a two-term governor, and was twice the Director-General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation. In 2015, having successfully helped Buhari to Aso Rock after three failed attempts, he was appointed Minister of Transportation. He also aspired for the country’s presidency and lost the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket to President Bola Tinubu.
Understandably, there are some murmurings out there by people who question the propriety of Amaechi’s choice as guest speaker. Luckily, those who are eagerly waiting to hear what he has to say outnumber the naysayers.
But because we also acknowledge the fact that Nigeria didn’t start striding and sliding in 1999, we settled for Dr. Uma Eleazu, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Anya-Ndi-Igbo, a non-partisan, socio-political and economic development-oriented organization, committed to equity, peace, unity, justice and progress of Nigeria, as the chairman.
At 93, Elder Eleazu, no doubt among the last of a vanishing breed, has seen it all. He has been a teacher, consultant, writer and commentator on public affairs. Prodigious in his writings, his magnum opus, “Nigeria, As I See It: Reflections on the Challenge of Leadership,” a 418-page book is a most authoritative commentary on Nigeria.
He was doing his Ph.D. in Public Administration at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) when the civil war started. In an exclusive interview I had with him on June 17, 2021, a day after he marked his 91st birthday, he told me of his regrets not being around to defend Biafra as most of his age mates did.
On his return, Dr. Eleazu set up the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, served in the 1978 Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) set up by General Olusegun Obasanjo to midwife the 1979 Constitution and was also a member of the Constituent Assembly.
He was also invited by General Abdulsalami Abubakar to be part of the Constitutional Debate Coordinating Committee that supposedly midwifed the 1999 Constitution but regrets that Abdulsalami used Justice Nikki Tobi and Prof. Auwalu Yadudu to defraud Nigerians in the process.
When General Ibrahim Babangida started his ill-fated transition programme, Dr. Eleazu threw his hat in the presidential ring having also been in the team that wrote the original Social Democratic Party (SDP) manifesto from which he developed his own personal manifesto.
But he got his fingers badly burnt and lost to moneybags.
Just as we did last year when former Lagos State governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, was the guest speaker and 96-year-old Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, former Liaison Officer to President Shehu Shagari and founding member of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), was the chairman, and members of the audience ended up with double ration of the intellectual banquet, Dr. Eleazu will fill in the gaps, if any, in Amaechi’s offering today.
But besides the guest speaker and chairman, there will also be panel discussions with Senator Shehu Sani, human rights activist and leading figure in the struggle for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria as a panelist. The last time we met in person was over 11 years ago at the 2012 Chinua Achebe Colloquium on Africa at the Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
We also have the redoubtable Dr. Chidi Amuta, scholar, author and journalist. When it comes to intellectual and literary criticism, he takes no prisoners.
He is excited to be on the panel and so is Mr. Yakubu Mohammed, a pillar of Nigeria’s print media who left indelible marks at the New Nigerian and National Concord newspapers, and the Newswatch magazine which he co-founded in 1984. At 73, he has also seen it all and knows what the issues are. And lest I forget, Mohammed is also a politician.
Then we have Mr. Valentine Ozigbo, politician and business executive, immediate past President and Chief Executive Officer of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc. and PDP candidate in the November 6, 2021 Anambra State governorship election and Anike-ade Funke Treasure, a broadcast journalist, certified media trainer, speech and leadership coach, who was the first female journalist to manage an all-news radio station in the Radio Nigeria Network and indeed the Nigerian broadcast industry.
We expect to have a great national dialogue as we have had in the last three editions with a panoply of opinions that will shed light on why Nigeria continues to stride and slide.
As I said at the beginning, my task is to welcome all of you, not to deliver the lecture.
So, may I formally welcome all of you to the 2023 TheNiche Annual lecture.
Thank you and God bless!!!!
- Welcome address delivered by Ikechukwu Amaechi, Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief at the 2023 TheNiche Annual Lecture
