Second Republic Politics
During Nigeria's second republic - 1979 to 1984, Jaja Wachuku was, on the platform of the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), twice (1978 and 1983) elected Senator representing Aba Senatorial Zone of Africa's most populous country. At the Senate of Nigeria, he became NPP Leader and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During this period, he made various dangerous secret trips to South Africa for meetings with President Pieter Willem Botha to put pressure on him for the dismantling of the obnoxious apartheid system; including the unconditional pardon and release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners.
It was during this period that, on the floor of the Nigerian Senate, Wachuku made his famous, prophetic statement that the defeat of apartheid in South Africa "shall flow from the barrels of dialogue and contact, not from the barrels of isolation and guns...." He was later removed from the Foreign Relations Committee because of officially calling for dialogue with South Africa: Interestingly, during the 1990 years, when Nigeria started diplomatic relations with South Africa, most prominent politicians and historians in the country called for an apology to Jaja Wachuku. In 1983, he was re-elected to the Nigerian Senate until the Muhammadu Buhari military coup of December, 1983.
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