Ibrahim Gambari, chief of staff to President Muhammadu
Buhari, says commitment to democracy is an essential recipe for achieving the
“Nigeria of our dreams”.
Speaking at the 44th annual conference of the Nigerian
society of international law held on Wednesday in Abuja, Gambari said Nigeria
must imbibe a participatory democracy to sustain progressiveness.
“In truth, Nigeria is no more complex than most large
developing countries, the adaptive challenge is to fashion a progressive,
forward-looking ‘grand narrative’ as an approximate for ‘our dream’,” he said.
“Presently, there are multiple fractious sub-national plots
that have not been woven into a consensual story of who we are, what we are,
and where we want to be in this fast-spinning interdependent future.
“In this regard,
promoting a Nigeria of our dreams must begin with a commitment to democratic
governance. We have to somehow create consensus on a rational way of governing
ourselves. This requires three main elements: establishing the rule of law,
evolving from representative democracy to participatory democracy, and building
a just society.”
He stressed the need for global cooperative efforts to fight
corruption, adding that the creation of the international Anti-Corruption Court
(IACC) would help to prosecute kleptocrats from nation-states.
“A group of states could set up an International
Anti-Corruption Court (IACC) as a dedicated facility for the international
prosecution of corruption cases where national jurisdictions are unable or
unwilling to prosecute,” he said.
“A new IACC should be
an international institution of last resort, like the International Criminal
Court, operating on the principle of complementarity. Accordingly, its
jurisdiction would extend to the prosecution of kleptocrats due to the
inability or unwillingness of national governments to prosecute; it should also
wield power to recover and repatriate assets stolen from victims.”
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