CLARK CALLS FOR CLAMPDOWN ON PERPETRATORS OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE
BY BEN AGANDE
ABUJA - Former Minister of Information and prominent Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark, yesterday called on the Federal Government to prosecute all known perpetrators and sponsors of political violence in order to send a strong message that it was committed to eliminating the scourge in the political landscape.
He spoke yesterday at the launching of an autobiography of the former Military Administrator of Niger State, Brigadier General Cletus Emein, at the Yar'Adua centre in Abuja.
According to Clark, it is important to use some people as a scapegoat in order to discourage the rising threat of political violence in the country.
He said nobody, no matter how highly placed, was above the law, stressing that the laws of the land should be brought to bear against those who violated them.
Clark commended the Federal Executive Council over its stand against political violence, saying this should be matched with action.
Reviewer of the book, entitled ' A Nation in Circles', Prof Sam Oyovbaire, said the book represented a 'contestation between pessimism and optimism; despair and hope and between under utilization of God-given resources, including the size of the human population of the country, talent of its people and position it occupies in the world.'
He decried the 'grand deception of its leaders' who have failed to take advantage of the endowment of the country to advance the cause of its citizens.
Representative of the governor of Niger State, Alhaji Aliyu Babanbarau, expressed disappointment at the inability of the country to go beyond the mundane in its quest to be one of the leading nations of the world.
Former Minister of Science and Technology, Mrs Grace Ekpivwhre, decried the attitude of the followers who she accused of misleading leaders to their fall, pointing out that most times, even when leaders were making mistakes, the followership continued to goad them on, instead of correcting them.
The Author, Gen. Emein, in his remarks, said the book was his modest contribution to the deepening of nation's political lexicon.