A new peace accord has been signed by major political parties and
presidential candidates ahead of the 2019 general elections and so it’s a
good time to look back to the signing of a similar accord in 2015 ahead
of the 2015 general elections.naptu2 :
This is an opportunity to give credit to a group of people that have not really been acknowledged yet.
It was predicted that these elections would lead to violence. There were a lot of threats and mudslinging during the election campaign.
Former heads of state/presidents, who were worried about what was happening, decided to create a National Peace Accord Committee. The committee was mandated to do everything possible to ensure that the election process and its aftermath were peaceful.
Most of the heads of state are old and some have health challenges, so they appointed Abdulsalam Abubakar, who is the youngest former head of state, as chairman of the committee. Members of the committee included
former top government officials:
*General Abubakar (former head of state),
*Commodore Ukiwe (former chief of general staff, i.e. military vice president),
*Chief Anyaoku (former foreign minister and former Commonwealth secretary-general),
religious leaders
*Cardinal Onaiyekan (Catholic archbishop of Abuja),
*Sultan Abubakar (sultan of Sokoto and president-general of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs),
*Archbishop Okoh (archbishop of Abuja and primate of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion),
*Bishop Mathew Kukah (Catholic bishop of Abuja),
members of civil society groups
*Princess Priscilla Kuye (president of the Nigerian Bar Association [1991-1992]),
members of the business community
*Dangote (richest man in Nigeria), etc.
The committee got both President Jonathan and General Buhari to sign a peace accord. One of the sections of the accord states that the two parties would accept the result of the election.
Signing ceremony.
Members of the committee shuttled between the Aso Rock Villa and APC Headquarters on the night that the results were announced. They met both candidates and pressured them to keep to the terms of the agreement (some even allege that it was the committee that got the President to concede).
