THE NEED FOR SOVEREIGN NATIONAL CONFERENCE (SNC)
Disturbance for assembly of sovereign National Conference (SNC), to right the apparent wrongs inside the nation is increasing more ground instead of melting away. RAZAQ BAMIDELE looks at the beginning of the fomentation that has turned into what might as well be called the scientific repeating decimal that has declined to leave.
BEGINNING
A geologically differentiated land parcel called Nigeria came to being in 1914 when the Northern and Southern protectorate were combined together by the then Governor-General-Lord Luggard. What's more, with meeting up of more than 400 ethnic gatherings commandingly against their own volition, inclinations are there for negating practices and clashing methods for identifying with each other.
What's more, the Nigeria's progenitors, loyalists and patriots likewise recognized from the initiation that, the issue of "contrasts" must be tended to ensure tranquil concurrence in the land expression called Nigeria.
In his closing page section on Daily Sun of last Friday, the Deputy Managing Director/Deputy Editor-in-Chief (DMD/DE in C), Mr. Femi Adesina reminded his overflowing perusers what the patriots of the favored memory said in regards to their country.
The segment, inscribed: Constitution survey and unfinished matters, was the place Adesina reviewed a discussion between two of our establishing fathers, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello, as contained in a book, Ahmadu Bello: Sardauna of Sokoto composed by N. Paden.
As per him, Dr. Azikwe had told Ahmadu Bello: "Let us overlook our disparities… " to which the last answered: "No, let us comprehend our disparities, I am Muslim and a Northerner. You are a Christian, an Easterner. By comprehension our disparities, we can assemble solidarity in our nation."
Bello was further cited as conceding that the amalgamation of northern and southern protectorate as "mix-up of 1914."
Composing further, the feature writer further took us through affirmations of other living and late nationalities like the late savvy, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, first Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and additionally previous Military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (retd.).
Affirming the way that Nigeria is a nation, which needs a few controls to produce its actual solidarity, the section cited Gowon's lady discourse as Head of State in 1966 as saying that, "the premise of (Nigerian) solidarity is not there."
More admissions that the nation Nigeria would have emergencies in the closest future if something cement is not done to accomplish nationhood originated from Awolowo who said in 1947 that, "Nigeria is not a country. It is unimportant land expression."
To underscore the requirement for framework that will really take the nation to the way of nationhood, Sir Balewa was said to have had this accommodation to make in 1948: "Since 1914, the British Government has been attempting to make Nigeria into one nation, yet Nigerian individuals themselves are truly diverse in their experiences, in their religious convictions and traditions, and don't hint at any ability to join together… Nigeria solidarity is just the British expectation for the nation."
Tumult
Having established a framework for this talk through the very much investigated citations contained in the said Adesina segment, one can undoubtedly derive from them that the nation requires a formular that would wedge all the diverse ethnic nationalities together to shape a genuine country without them losing their unmistakable characters.
The tumult may be said to have begun through the endeavor at making a Biafran State from Nigeria which prompted a horrifying 30 month common war somewhere around 1967 and 1970. Yet, since the endeavors at keeping Nigeria one is an assignment that must be done, the unsettling still proceeds. This is a pointer that something must be direly done to soak strain in the nation.
Previous National Secretary of the popular National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), that battled the Military to a stop, Mr. Ayo Opadokun told Daily Sun in a meeting that "for Nigeria to advance, we should take a seat and choose how we need to identify with ourselves."
Opadokun, a legal advisor and extremist, who is the present Convener of Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reforms (CODER), is of the solid conviction that "without a round table meeting to resolve issues, the nation will for ever stay in emergency."
As per him, two inquiries that are relevant are, "would we like to live respectively as a nation?" If the answer is yes, Opadokun included that the second one will be "in what term?" He swore that until these two inquiries are asked and addressed fittingly, Nigeria will keep on beating around the bramble.
NADECO came to fruition when the acclaimed freest, most attractive and most believable race in the nation on June 12, 1993 won by a southerner, Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola was abrogated by previous President Ibrahim Babangida, a northerner.
That was when disturbance for rebuilding of the country achieved a hot crescendo. It prompted development of a few gatherings that went to the trenches to battle the apparent shamefulness and in the meantime required a Sovereign National Conference to revise the apparent lopsided characteristics in the nation that were dependably for a specific segment of the nation.
Prominent among the gatherings are the Campaign for Democracy (CD) of Beko Ransome-Kuti, United Action for Democracy (UAD) of Olisa Agakoba (SAN), Joint Action Committee of Nigeria (JACON), of Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), of Chief Anthony Enahoro and Senator Abraham Adesanya among others.
Boss Frank Ovie Kokori, a NADECO chieftain and previous General Secretary of PENGASAN, in his few meeting has advised whoever considerations to listen that it lounging around a table to examine the national inquiry was long over due prompting that the prior the better.
Acknowledgment
After the common war, it showed up as the nation has been effectively united and joined together. However, progressive ethnic emergencies that prompted arrangement of activists demonstrated the impression off-base. Indeed, even after the legal homicide of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni 8, the unsettling for self determination turn out to be more brutal. Niger Delta Militants surfaced, Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), came installed, MASSOB, Egbesu, and others likewise set up appearance and of late, the feared Boko Haram. All with requests that trouble on self determination along their curious characters, accordingly deciding for the Sovereign National Conference a basic national task.
The unsettling for the SNC, which was made to resemble a Southern plan has now accepted a national measurement as pioneers of ethnic nationalities have seen the requirement for the activity.
Mallam Shettima Usman Yerima, the President of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), is so energetic about the confab that he guaranteed his family in the North that it is the main way out for the nation.
In a late meeting with Daily Sun in Lagos he has this to say: "Rough emergency can not stop until there is perfect environment that permit its stoppage. The issue of disunity must be tended to or else we would wake up one day to find to our dismay that Nigeria is no more there.
That is the reason I am a solid promoter of Sovereign National Conference (SNC), on the grounds that there is the need to take a seat together to resolve some of these issues that had been bringing about grindings among us. "Give us a chance to talk about to set up common comprehension and dispose of every one of the propensities of shared suspicion. At this moment, northerners consider southerners to be foes and vis versa. In like manner Christians and Muslims. With SNC, we can make it clear that we can make it together without splitting ceaselessly."
Talking in the same vein, an attorney and the President-General of the United Middle Belt Youth Congress (UMBYC), Abuka Onalo Omababa likewise buttressed Yerima's position on the SNC. His words:
"To me, the wrong establishment and flawed structure of the nation offer ascent to every one of these emergencies. Furthermore, we have been stating it over and again that to get the broken structure amended, we ought to go for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC). We ought to rectify the structure. You can perceive how the defective structure brought MASSOB, you can perceive how it brought OPC. The same structure has now brought the UMBYC. Boko Haram is faceless. The structure brought the faceless gathering moreover."
National Coordinator of the OPC, Otunba Gani Adams (OGA), who relieved the fears that the SNC can break the nation cautioned that "refusal to hold it can possibly deteriorate the nation." According to him, the emergencies confronting Nigeria today will endure until the SNC through which the right structure would be set up is sorted out.
The concerned extremist expressed insistently that "Boko haram and others like them will soon come locally available," prompting that "the prior the meeting is sorted out to design out the way things ought to be, the better for Nigeria."
The gathering as indicated by Adams would have honest to goodness agents of the ethic nationalities in participation, saying, "anything opposite will add up to squandering our valuable time and putting off a malicious day."
To top it all, the Coalition of Ethnic Nationality in Nigeria (CENN), involving all the remarkable ethnic gatherings in the nation met in Lagos as of late to investigate the condition of the country with a perspective to proffering answers for them.
Toward the end of their one-day retreat under the initiative of the Founder and President of the OPC, Dr. Fredrick Fasehun the entire house, without an exemption or forbearance collectively voted in favor of the SNC as the main panacea to the national inquiry.
On a last note, the Coalition stated that Nigeria would stay in emergency unless
The Federal Government indicated duty to the assembling of the Sovereign National Conference (SNC) as a definitive panacea for Nigeria's diverse issues.
The participation list at the retreat will suffice here to support the wide adequacy of the SNC. Dr. Frederick Fasehun, Chairman, CENN, Comrade Bright Ezeocha, General Secretary, CENN, Alhaji Yerima Shettima, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Dr. Tony Nwaezegwe, President, Igbo People's Congress, Alhaji Dokubo Asari, Chieftain , Niger Delta Volunteers Force,
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