Non-Governmental Organisation, Citizens Intervention and Accountability Network (CIAN), has urged Nigerians to become partners in reordering the leadership process.
At the launch of its book, Nigeria’s Next President, the group presented a paradigm shift in the direction the voting public should emulate. This, it said, is to foster eternal vigilance and stir civic activism to challenge conventions.
The book posited that the best way to achieve participatory change is for ‘Nigerians to first see themselves as partners in re-ordering the faulty leadership recruitment process, not just as spectators, or passive partners’.
CIAN’s Director of Information and Strategy Dr. Cadyfidel Onwuraokoye, in his address, said: “Europe and other nations that we make reference to did not emerge on mere hope and passivity, but on visionary and struggles, with people standing up to fight for their rights.
“The electorate must assume responsibilities in their quest for good governance by transforming to be the change they want to see. For too long, we yearned for a better tomorrow, better country and mourned a better yesterday, hoping one day things will change and get better.
“Nigerians should not compromise the voting power for ephemeral gains, popularly called stomach infrastructure; Nigerians must believe in themselves and they must believe in their sovereign voting power, and trust the electoral process.”
Former Governor of Anambra State Chukwuemeka Ezeife, father of the day, noted the book is coming at the time Nigerians need to decide their future.
“We must pray to God to intervene in the affairs of Nigeria. We don’t want Nigeria to break up. We pray for one Nigeria, but people must show conscience. Politicians have lost conscience. I am one of the politicians; they have no place for fairness, no place for justice, no place for equity and you know with that kind of thing you cannot have a good country,” he said.