Ahead of 2023 Elections: Let’s Dissolve Nigeria Now….Okonjo-Iwealaβs Son, Uzodinma
Beasts of No Nation writer, Uzodinma Iweala, has stated that Nigeria needs another independence and should be dissolved.
Uzodinma made the declaration in his article,βNigeriaβs Second Independence: Why the Giant of Africa Needs to Start Overβ, published in Foreign Affairs.
The American magazine of international relations and United States foreign policy is published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Uzodinmaβs call comes as Africaβs most populous nation prepares for the general elections scheduled for February and March 2023.
The author insists that one of the solutions to the political troubles of the country is its dissolution.
As citizens face serious security and economic problems, he urged them to decide if they want Nigeriaβs existence as a state to continue or to expire.
βNigeriaβs political system defies neat packagingβ, stressed the son of ex-Finance Minister and WTO DG Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
βScholars have labeled it everything from the facetious βchaosocracyβ to the more benign βentrepreneurial democracyβ to the pejorative βkleptocracy.β
Uzodinma said such tags wrongly suggest that Nigeriaβs problems stem from individual moral failings within the political class.
Citing expertsβ recommendation of good leadership and good governance, the Harvard graduate believes no individual, however well intentioned, can fix the challenges.
βNothing should be off-limits for discussion β even the dissolution of the countryβ, he suggested.
βBefore doing anything else, Nigerians need to decide: Do they want the patchwork entity named Nigeria to remain Nigeria?
βIt is a reasonable question, given that the country is the arbitrary product of colonial boundaries.β
Uzodinma said in their quest to form a working system, citizens should not βlimit their thinking to outdated and flawed U.S. and European models of democracyβ.
The novelist won the Hoopes Prize and Dorothy Hicks Lee Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis while in Harvard, among other honours.