Confab: Only genuine restructuring will save Nigeria — Uko We must avoid the Somalia experience Deputy Secretary of the Igbo Leaders of Thought and Founder of the Igbo Youths Movement (IYM), Evangelist Elliot Uko, has stressed the need for the proposed national conference to be sincerely and properly convened. He, in this interview, warns that otherwise the country’s debilitating socio-economic, political and developmental problems will worsen. BY CLIFFORD NDUJIHE The Senator Femi Okurounmu-led Presidential Advisory Committee on National Conference reportedly met to re-write a section of its report following complaints from The Patriots, Afenifere, Igbo Leaders of Thought, etc. Will Igbo Leaders of Thought accept the new report? We do not know really to what extent PAC is adjusting its earlier recommendations. We respect the distinguished members of PAC, Nigerians are only saying that the initial PAC report did not seem to tally with the wishes and desires of Nigerians who thronged and submitted memoranda at all its 13 sittings nationwide. We do not have the details of their second private regrouping. We read like everybody else that PAC is adjusting their report. We do not know to what extent this new report will differ from their earlier report. We can only hope and pray that those great and highly respected citizens place the survival of Nigeria above all else. Nobody wants to see a continuous agitation for National Conference after these exercises. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the right thing is done in order to move this potentially great country to the next level in unity and prosperity. We all know that if a genuine national conference is not convened, the agitation will only grow louder and even violent. People will troop to the streets to demonstrate and demand that this great country be restructured peacefully. What areas of the initial PAC report do you disagree with? Nigerians have thought deeply over two decades on the best way to resolve this motley of cobwebs making it extremely difficult for Nigeria to realize its potentials and everyone seems to agree that the structure bequeathed by the military cannot take us far. Many people who fought for this are no longer alive today, people like Pa Enahoro, the great Baba Omojola etc. The truth is, if Nigeria is not urgently restructured along the lines of true federalism, nobody knows how long this wobbly foundation can carry the crackling edifice. It is crystal clear that Nigerians desire that no ethnic nationality be left out of the conference, the stakeholders of Nigeria are the ethnic nationalities, interest groups could send delegates to the conference, but the owners of Nigeria are the Yoruba, the Hausa, the Fulani, the Ijaw, the Benin, the Tiv, the Urhobo, the Igbo, etc. Nigerians must sit down and talk about Nigeria, about our future, how to make our country better. How do we reduce or eliminate tension and clashes? How do we run our country with an article of association? Nigerians desire a brand new constitution to come out from there, a constitution the Nigerian people will call their own, separate from the 1999 document edited by General Abacha and Prof. Auwalu Yadudu. Nigerians resent the idea that they are inconsequential nonentities whose views do not matter; they resent the idea that a few hundred fellows at the National Assembly will override the decisions reached by the people of Nigeria at the National Conference. They want to affirm their total decisions at the National Conference in a general referendum. They want to save Nigeria from this blind march to Somalia. If the people of Somalia had heeded the advice to invite the tribal and clan chiefs for a conference in Mogadishu, all the katakata (problems) that followed could have been avoided. Do you think President Goodluck Jonathan is sincere? Yes, those who claim that he wants to divert public attention are not being fair to him. President Jonathan will go down in history as the greatest president this country ever had, if he supervises a genuine confab that will restructure this country and remove the do-or-die mad struggle for central power by reducing the powers at the centre and restructuring to six manageable regions. Mr. President has displayed candour, goodwill, honesty and great love for Nigeria. History placed on his shoulders the onerous duty to rebuild Nigeria at a time innocent citizens are slaughtered like rams along Bama-Maiduguri highway, at a time herdsmen spring into homes and massacre innocent sleeping women and children.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 15:28:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015