South south
leaders caution president against use of force
• Sultan
clarifies stand on polity review, okays dialogue
•
Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s son confirms father’s meeting with Buhari
• Niger
Delta group insists on resource control
The
presidency yesterday declared that President Muhammadu Buhari has no powers to
restructure the country by military fiat.
It noted
that restructuring and other constitutional changes are within the purview of
the National Assembly members who are the elected representatives of the
people.
The
presidency advised opinion leaders in the country to exercise restraint in
their choice of words to avoid heating up the polity and causing acrimony
across the country.
Defending
the president’s speech on Monday on his return from a medical vacation, the
presidency said to criticise Buhari for not responding to calls for
restructuring of the country – ‘whatever that means’ – is completely off the
mark.
The Senior
Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, Garba Shehu, in a
statement yesterday said Buhari has no power to impose restructuring on the
country by military diktat.
He explained
that the president is constitutionally bound to work with the National Assembly
to deal with such complex issues, reminding critics that the president would
not exercise arbitrary powers or bypass the legislature in taking such
fundamental decisions.
According to
him, calling Buhari an enemy of Nigeria is in extreme bad taste, noting that
nothing in the president’s service record would justify such scurrilous
language.
The
presidency spoke as the Southern Leaders Forum (SLF) reiterated its position that
restructuring remains the only option to resolve the problems confronting the
country.
Rising from
a meeting held in Lagos yesterday to study the contents of Buhari’s broadcast,
the forum expressed discomfort over the president’s position that the unity of
Nigeria is settled and therefore not negotiable.
The southern
leaders warned that the use of, or attempt to apply military might, to subdue
voices demanding restructuring may further compound the challenges of the
country instead of resolving them.
In a
statement issued after the meeting by Chief Edwin Clark and Chief Albert
Horsfall representing South South, Chief Nina Nwodo and Prof. Joe Irukwu
representing South East and Chief Ayo Adebanjo and Chief Reuben Fasoranti
representing Southwest, they noted that experience worldwide has shown that any
attempt to deal with dissent by force usually drives it underground, which
makes it much more dangerous and difficult to deal with.
The leaders
said the broadcast by the president, was a veiled threat to commence the
criminalisation of dissenting opinions in national discourse.
“We should
have learnt a lesson or two from Boko Haram, which was an open organisation
before the state drove it underground and we are still under its reign of
terror despite official claim that it has been technically defeated or
degraded. We therefore appeal to Mr. President to seek solutions to problems
through engagement and social engineering. Globalisation has made it very
difficult to use repressive tactics to repress opinions.”
The forum
also tackled Buhari over the comment that he (President) and the late Chief
Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu in their private discussion in Daura in 2003 agreed that
Nigeria must remain one and united.
“While we
agree with them, the meeting between the two of them could not have been a
sovereign national conference whose decisions cannot be reviewed.
“The fact
that we agree on their conclusion that we should remain united does not
foreclose discussions of the terms and conditions of the union. The claim that
Nigeria’s ‘unity is settled and not negotiable’ is untenable. Every country is
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
now and then, how much more Nigeria that has yet to attain nationhood?”
The forum
expressed dissatisfaction with the one sentence by the president that every
Nigerian can live anywhere without let or hindrance, if it was meant to address
the quit notice by Arewa youths to Igbo, saying it was rather too short to
address the clear and present danger that the unwarranted threat represents.
“We
acknowledge the president’s admission that there are legitimate concerns in the
land. That is commendable. We however disagree with his take that Nigeria is a
federation. Nigeria ceased to be a federation since 1966 after the first coup…
A unitary constitution, which is not conducive for peace and development in a
multi-ethnic country, is what the military imposed through the 1999 Constitution,
which lied against itself with the ‘We the people,’” the southern leaders said.
The forum
faulted Buhari’s position that the National Assembly and the Council of State
are the only legitimate and appropriate bodies for national discourse. “ We
insist they are not appropriate bodies to discuss the social contract that
could bind us together as a nation-state.”
Other
observations raised by the forum include the insensitive and clearly lopsided
recruitments /appointments into all federal institutions, concentration of most
of the heads of armed forces and other national security agencies in a section
of the country, the president going on a global stage to say he could not treat
those who gave him five per cent of their votes equally with those who supported
him with 97 per cent, official indifference to the murderous activities of
herdsmen against peace-loving citizens on their farms and other settlements,
flagrant breach of the constitutionally enshrined federal character principle
and the appointment of the legal adviser of Miyeti Allah as the secretary of
the Federal Character Commission.
However, the
first son of the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Emeka Ojukwu Jr. has
confirmed that Buhari and his late father actually had discussions on the unity
and indivisibility of the Nigerian nation.
In a
statement yesterday, Ojukwu Jr. said he never granted any media interview or
posted any message on social media that Buhari was wrong about his discussions
with the late father. He maintained that his late father actually held the said
meeting with Buhari before his demise, insisting that the Buhari’s statement in
his nationwide broadcast was true.
Also
yesterday, the Sultan of Sokoto, Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar, expressed his support
for a national dialogue that will promote development. He denied opposing calls
for the restructuring of the country.
At a
colloquium organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Abuja, the sultan
said: “If restructuring means dismember Nigeria, I am not for it but if it will
make life better, much more convenient for all of us as a people, then let us
sit down and discuss it and come up with solutions. I know all the groups from
the South-West, South-South, North and South-East have position papers. I also
know that so many things were discussed at the 2014 national conference even
though people now say that conference was politically motivated, but whatever
happened, Nigerians came together under that umbrella. If we can take some of
those issues and take positions on them…
“I was
misquoted as saying that I oppose restructuring when I did not even use that
word.”
Meanwhile,
the Coalition of Niger Delta Agitators is also insisting on the restructuring
of the country, saying it would guarantee a more united and prosperous Nigeria.
The group
also restated its call for resource control as well as the relocation of the
headquarters of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other
oil companies back to the Niger Delta region.
The group
further claimed that the people of the Niger Delta region where the country’s
oil deposit is domiciled are practically sidelined in the allocation of oil
blocs.
“After so
many years of sharing, wasting and siphoning off of trillions of naira taking
from the Niger Delta region, it is now time for the Niger Delta people to
control their resources, manage them in a prudent manner and develop the Niger
Delta region.”
Source :Guardian
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