The elephant in the room of Nigeria politics has always been ethnicity.

Because of this, we have failed many times to choose our leaders based strictly on their merits. And we usually ignore the elephant and pretend that it is not in the room.

With every election cycle, however, we see even starker evidence that it is indeed the main issue at stake.

Our polity gets heated up whenever the personal ambitions of the powerful clashes with the deeply-felt need for ethnic accommodate, pushing us to the brink each time.

Nigeria have remained trapped in a paradigm of toxic ethnic-rivalries for over 6 decades and we still lack the courage and initiative to do something about it.

Are we just going to continue to do nothing and pass on this poisonous legacy to our children the same way that our grandparents and parents passed it down to us?

Isn't it time we change our mindset for good, adopt formal constitutional measures to engage this elephant, accommodate it and mitigate it before it fatally tramples upon all of us?

Other countries have done it, we can do it too.