2023 general elections divided Nigerians - Babachir Lawal

A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal, has lamented the division the 2023 general elections left in its trail among Nigerians.

Lawal, who spoke during an interview with the BBC Hausa Service monitored on Thursday, November 17, 2023, said the elections have fractured relations among Nigerians of different ethnic and religious identities.

He stressed that the Northern region is the most devastated by this trend as things have completely deteriorated since the conclusion of the polls.

“Now in the North, things have deteriorated completely. Those who dragged us into this situation, could not achieve their goal," Lawal observed.

He said the nation has retrogressed to the time where every major ethnic group now feels alienated from the rest of the country, and religion has now become a key divider even within the same tribe.

“We’ve returned to the previous days, the Yoruba are on their own. The Igbo are on their own and we Northerners are divided between Christians and Muslims. Even among us Christians, there are tribes, maybe the Tiv are here, and Idoma and Kilba are there. There is Michika here. This is what we’ve been trying to avoid. We’ve been divided, how are we now going to achieve unity? It’s not possible now.

“How can we come together when we have slaughtered our own and now we want to stitch it together? No way.

Who is there now in the North that can call for a meeting of elders from the region, to deliberate and unite? There is none. I can see some groups were trying to meet and unite, but you will find that they are mainly a group of Muslims or a group of Christians," Lawal added.

Lawal had recently alleged that the 2023 presidential election was rigged in favour of President Bola Tinubu, as he claimed that evidence at his disposal showed that Peter Obi of the Labour Party was the rightful winner.

The former SGF also claimed that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, finished second in the contest while Tinubu finished a distant third.

“Available factual data as aggregated from several independent sources indicate that Obi got the majority votes while Atiku came second. Bola came a distant third in the number of votes scored,” he said in a statement.