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It is easy to decry the nature of ethnic politics in this country. We are hostages to history and the ethnic compartmentalisation that began in the colonial era.
--
Opening address to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in Nadi, 6 September 2005

 

Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi

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One wonders whether the ethnic categorization effort at finding solutions to problems that cross ethnic boundaries. Poverty is poverty is poverty. It does not have peculiar ethnic characteristics.

 

Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi

 

"We should not allow ourselves, individually or our ethnic communities to become easy tools for politics of race that will continue to segregate us mentally and emotionally."

 

Ratu Epeli Ganilau

 

"Two distinct ethnic groups, with quite different cultures and religious beliefs, were ... put together in the same islands. Colonial policy largely kept them apart and there was, therefore, little assimilation. This racial separation and segregation became a defining feature of our country. The two communities have co-existed, without finding a sense of unified nationhood."

 

Laisenia Qarase

 

Yugoslavia is, with Iran, the only country which under difficult, not to say agonising, circumstances stood up to Joseph Stalin. It was not easy to unite ethnic groups or to modernize a country like Yugoslavia, and it must be acknowledged that Marshal Tito achieved something extraordinary. May God grant that his successors be as capable as he.

 

Muhammad Reza Pahlavi

 

Zik believed in a nation in which people are free to practice their faith without losing faith in our common patrimony, a nation of proud men and women able to hold their heads high among humanity because as Africans they possess a certain dignity.
At the tactical level, his belief in compromise meant that he survived major political battles in order to fight the next battle.
With regard to the evolution of democracy in our country, our present experience can benefit immensely from politics as it was played by Zik and his contemporaries. In this regard, one thing that marks out men like Zik … is that they believe in something. Their political activities were informed by certain core values which subsequently grew into a body of beliefs which largely inspired their politics. Those who followed them understood that they had to abide by those beliefs. In other words, the politics of ideals and ideas were the guiding principles of our founding fathers. In the case of the great Zik, it became fashionable among his adherents and supporters to be a Zikist. But interestingly, Zikism was not synonymous with an ethnic ideology nor did it a divisive cause. Instead, Zikism was more an ideology for African reniascence emphasizing the restoration of the dignity of the black man after centuries of colonial imposition and exploitation.
It sought to empower the black man in general and the Nigerian in particular to attain great heights especially in the pursuit of knowledge which, for Zik, was critical to the emancipation of the black man. Yet Zikism did not degenerate to the level of a theology for a personality cult. This in fact is one of the refreshing and intriguing facets of Zik's political legacy.

 

Nnamdi Azikiwe