Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has charged African leaders to refrains from politics that divide the Continent.
Speaking at the swearing in of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, Osinbajo said that politics of division would cause more problems for Africa than it can solve.
This is contained in a statement issued by Laolu Akande, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity in the office of the Vice President.
According to the statement, Osinbajo while speaking to newsmen said “The first issue, which I think is very important, is that of reconciliation and coming together, and somehow being able to avoid this politics of identity which is just divisive and it’s used to create more problems than we would ever solve.
“I think that President Kenyatta was quite on the point when he said that we cannot continue to perpetrate this politics of identity and division.
“It is time to come together as partners to make progress in the interest of the nation. I think that is particularly important,” he said.
Speaking on the lessons from the Kenyan elections, Osinbajo said: “I think the most important thing is what he said about tolerance for the views of others and a desire to accept defeat, or the desire to accept if you do not win, or for that matter, a desire to go through due process or the legal process.
“I think what has happened here is that, by and large, the constitutional procedure was followed to the latter. It involved the Judiciary; the judiciary at some point nullified the elections, they went back and conducted another round of elections and this is the result.
“Kenya has shown that it has a robust enough constitutional structure, legal system and political process that work.
“This, I think, is a good thing. In some sense, Africa has learnt a great deal, we’ve been through many constitutional challenges like this.
“I think there are one or two points to learn, like the whole idea of ensuring that we allow the constitutional and legal processes, and ensure that we see it to the end and abide by what the courts say. I think it is very important,” she said.
Osinbajo stressed that African leaders and politicians must allow Constitutional processes to prevail adding that there was no need to spend time in courts and still abide with the process at the end of it.
