The Southern Leaders Forum on Wednesday in Lagos faulted
President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement that issues of national
discourse should be taken to the National Assembly and the National
Council of State.
Buhari made the statement among others in his Monday broadcast
after 104-day medical trip to the United kingdom.
The forum, represented by Chiefs Edwin Clark, Albert Horsefall
(South-South); Chief John Nwodo, Prof. Joe Irukwu (South-East); and
Chief Reuben Fasoranti, Chief Ayo Adebanjo (South-West), spoke in
Lagos at a press conference titled, ‘Only Restructuring will Ensure
the Unity, Peace and Development of Nigeria.’
Others at the event included Prof. Banji Akintoye, Tony Uranta,
National Coordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress, Chief Gani
Adams; Supo Shonibare, Guy Ikokwu, Tony Nyiam and Prof. Walter
Ofonagoro.
The forum stated that while it did not dispute the legality of
the National Assembly and NCS, the bodies were not the appropriate
bodies to superintend the discourse on the social contract that
could bind Nigeria together.
“While the composition of the National Assembly is clearly
jigged and indeed one of the bodies to be restructured, the
National Council of State is not open to Nigerians. If any
discourse is to take place on constitutional changes within the
democratic framework, Mr. President is the one who has the
responsibility to initiate the process,” the SLF said.
The forum added that the attempt to treat hate speech as
terrorism was a veiled threat to bare fangs and criminalising
dissenting opinions in the national discourse.
The group accused the President of deploying the imagery of the
late Chief Emeka Ojukwu in his broadcast to play down the demand
for the renegotiation of the structure of Nigeria by saying they
both agreed in Daura in 2003 that the country must remain one and
united.
The SLF said, “The meeting between the two of them could not
have been a Sovereign National Conference whose decisions cannot be
reviewed. We agree with their conclusion that we should remain
united, but that does not foreclose discussions of the terms and
conditions of the union.
“The claim that Nigeria’s unity is settled and not negotiable is
not tenable. Every country is in a daily dialogue and there is
nothing finally settled in its life. Stable nations are still
fine-tuning details of the architecture of their existence. How
much more Nigeria that has yet to attain nationhood? If we are
settled as a nation, we will not be dealing with the many crises of
nation-building that are afflicting us today, which have made it
extremely difficult to squarely face issues of growth and
development.
“The British negotiated to put the various ethnic groups
together. All the constitutional conferences held in the years
before independence were negotiations. When the North walked out of
the parliament in 1953 after Chief Anthony Enahoro moved the motion
for independence, it took negotiations to bring them back into the
union after an eight-point agenda, which was mainly about
confederations.”
It pointed out that the one sentence in the President’s speech
that every Nigerian could live anywhere without let or hindrance,
if meant to address the quit notice by Arewa youths to the Igbo
living in the North, was too short to check the unwarranted
threat.
The group further said it was miffed by Buhari’s description of
the attacks by deadly Fulani herdsmen on defenceless farmers as
conflict between two quarrelling groups.
“To present the various onslaughts on farmers by the herdsmen as
‘two fighting,’ would portray the President as taking sides with
the aggressive Meyitti Allah. While we do not hold the
administration responsible for all agitations in Nigeria due to the
crises of unitary constitution, there are clearly many errors of
commission and omission that have accentuated the strong
self-determination feelings across the country which only
restructuring can tame,” the group said.
According to the leaders, some of the errors made by the current
administration are lopsided recruitment and appointment into
federal institutions, breach of the Federal Character principle,
early retirement of mostly Southern senior officers from the Armed
Forces and other security services and concentration of most heads
of Armed Forces and other national security agencies in a section
of the country.
The group identified others to include the appointment of the
legal adviser of Meyitti Allah as the secretary of the Federal
Character Commission, indifference to the deadly activities of
herdsmen and the President’s declaration that he could not treat
those who gave him five per cent votes equally with those who gave
him 97 per cent votes in the 2015 presidential election.
The Southern elders noted that having spent most part of their
lives fighting for the country’s unity based on justice, fairness
and equity, it was necessary to urge the President to realise the
mess the country was in and exhibit statesmanship and not ethnic,
religious, regional and political partisanship in renegotiating
Nigeria along federal lines to tackle separatist feelings and
agitations.
The Southern Leaders Forum on Wednesday in Lagos faulted
President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement that issues of national
discourse should be taken to the National Assembly and the National
Council of State.
Buhari made the statement among others in his Monday broadcast
after 104-day medical trip to the United kingdom.
The forum, represented by Chiefs Edwin Clark, Albert Horsefall
(South-South); Chief John Nwodo, Prof. Joe Irukwu (South-East); and
Chief Reuben Fasoranti, Chief Ayo Adebanjo (South-West), spoke in
Lagos at a press conference titled, ‘Only Restructuring will Ensure
the Unity, Peace and Development of Nigeria.’
Others at the event included Prof. Banji Akintoye, Tony Uranta,
National Coordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress, Chief Gani
Adams; Supo Shonibare, Guy Ikokwu, Tony Nyiam and Prof. Walter
Ofonagoro.
The forum stated that while it did not dispute the legality of
the National Assembly and NCS, the bodies were not the appropriate
bodies to superintend the discourse on the social contract that
could bind Nigeria together.
“While the composition of the National Assembly is clearly
jigged and indeed one of the bodies to be restructured, the
National Council of State is not open to Nigerians. If any
discourse is to take place on constitutional changes within the
democratic framework, Mr. President is the one who has the
responsibility to initiate the process,” the SLF said.
The forum added that the attempt to treat hate speech as
terrorism was a veiled threat to bare fangs and criminalising
dissenting opinions in the national discourse.
The group accused the President of deploying the imagery of the
late Chief Emeka Ojukwu in his broadcast to play down the demand
for the renegotiation of the structure of Nigeria by saying they
both agreed in Daura in 2003 that the country must remain one and
united.
The SLF said, “The meeting between the two of them could not
have been a Sovereign National Conference whose decisions cannot be
reviewed. We agree with their conclusion that we should remain
united, but that does not foreclose discussions of the terms and
conditions of the union.
“The claim that Nigeria’s unity is settled and not negotiable is
not tenable. Every country is in a daily dialogue and there is
nothing finally settled in its life. Stable nations are still
fine-tuning details of the architecture of their existence. How
much more Nigeria that has yet to attain nationhood? If we are
settled as a nation, we will not be dealing with the many crises of
nation-building that are afflicting us today, which have made it
extremely difficult to squarely face issues of growth and
development.
“The British negotiated to put the various ethnic groups
together. All the constitutional conferences held in the years
before independence were negotiations. When the North walked out of
the parliament in 1953 after Chief Anthony Enahoro moved the motion
for independence, it took negotiations to bring them back into the
union after an eight-point agenda, which was mainly about
confederations.”
It pointed out that the one sentence in the President’s speech
that every Nigerian could live anywhere without let or hindrance,
if meant to address the quit notice by Arewa youths to the Igbo
living in the North, was too short to check the unwarranted
threat.
The group further said it was miffed by Buhari’s description of
the attacks by deadly Fulani herdsmen on defenceless farmers as
conflict between two quarrelling groups.
“To present the various onslaughts on farmers by the herdsmen as
‘two fighting,’ would portray the President as taking sides with
the aggressive Meyitti Allah. While we do not hold the
administration responsible for all agitations in Nigeria due to the
crises of unitary constitution, there are clearly many errors of
commission and omission that have accentuated the strong
self-determination feelings across the country which only
restructuring can tame,” the group said.
According to the leaders, some of the errors made by the current
administration are lopsided recruitment and appointment into
federal institutions, breach of the Federal Character principle,
early retirement of mostly Southern senior officers from the Armed
Forces and other security services and concentration of most heads
of Armed Forces and other national security agencies in a section
of the country.
The group identified others to include the appointment of the
legal adviser of Meyitti Allah as the secretary of the Federal
Character Commission, indifference to the deadly activities of
herdsmen and the President’s declaration that he could not treat
those who gave him five per cent votes equally with those who gave
him 97 per cent votes in the 2015 presidential election.
The Southern elders noted that having spent most part of their
lives fighting for the country’s unity based on justice, fairness
and equity, it was necessary to urge the President to realise the
mess the country was in and exhibit statesmanship and not ethnic,
religious, regional and political partisanship in renegotiating
Nigeria along federal lines to tackle separatist feelings and
agitations.