Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has declared that the country could not afford to witness and manage another civil war should that happen.
He thus rallied Nigerians to put the brakes on the increasing violence that has pushed the country to the edge of the precipice.
The vice president also urged the elite to speak out against forces of division in order to preserve the unity of the country.
Osinbajo, at a meeting, on Tuesday night, in Abuja, with All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders from the South-East, said whether or not the country would experience another civil war, after that of 1967-1970 that claimed over two million lives, would depend on the actions and inactions of the political elite.
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Vice President Osinbajo, in a statement by his media aide, Mr. Laolu Akande said, “We cannot afford a war in this country…it is the political elite that will determine what will take place. If we keep quiet, if we say nothing and hope that things will just normalise, we may be wrong.
“And we may find ourselves heading for something much worse than we are seeing today.
“If the political elite do not speak up, if we don’t see anything wrong with what is going on, if we allow it to continue to slide, we will endanger ourselves and endanger the future of our country.
“I know that every conflict is a result of elite failure, the elite failure to speak up and tell the truth to their communities, that’s the cause of every one of these civil conflicts.
“So, I would urge that we speak up. I would urge that we stand for something. Sometimes it’s dangerous to stand for something. But the greater danger, of course, is to keep quiet.”
The vice president, however, cautioned that “the thing about the kinds of conflicts in these parts of the world is that it is usually a war without end. Everyone who thinks that they have some money stored up somewhere is wrong, you will eventually run out.”
Narrating his experience when he worked with the United Nations in Somalia, Osinbajo said he saw a Supreme Court judge queuing for food.