Nigeria’s proposed national conference billed to start in March has been described as a solution to the lingering security challenges.
On Channels Television’s programme, Sunrise Daily, a former Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, Mr Wale Oshun, said that the conference was necessary as it could help resolve the crisis that had be-deviled Nigeria particularly in the military interregnum and in particular the violation that took place during the time that General Ibrahim Babangida was in office.
“The issue to have a conference to resolve all the lingering crisis of confidence in nation building started as far back as 1993,” he said.
Mr Oshun said Nigeria’s structure was difficult to operate because of its multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic makeup and that the conference was aimed at addressing and resolving the disenchantment that these multiplicities had caused.
Suffering Grave Consequences
According to him, “people resort to violence because there are no other options of being listened to,” saying “anyone can start a mob action, but it becomes difficult to stop”.
When asked if the decline in governance was as a result of disenchantment of the citizens, he said “the position is that any country that is multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic, must have a fairly and a truly practical federal system if you must run it and not have the clog on the wheel of progress like Nigeria has which has been since the military intervened in 1966″.
“We have all these factors of differences in religious, culture, ethnicity and yet we have an over centralisation that have made us a completely a unitary state,” he further said.
Mr Oshun said the nation was suffering grave consequences because of shift from the federal system of government that was once in practice.
“We have moved completely away from the federal state we had when we got independence, when every federating unit could pursue its idea of development. The consequence is the Boko Haram, oil theft, militancy, kidnapping and the unrest all over the place. Because we don’t have a system of government that takes into consideration the objectives, beliefs and differences of the units of the federation, people go into voilence. There is a need to respect the differences, as the bonds that bind us together should be a voluntary one and not out of compulsion,” he insisted.
Explaining the amalgamation treaty of 1914, the former lawmaker said the amalgamation was not an act of parliament, as the provision was that the ruling sovereignty at that time could be revoked, altered or amended.
“It was not an act of parliament but an order in council which was submitted for the information of parliament. It was not sacrosanct. It will be sacrosanct if all the federating units agree to come together. It therefore meant that if any portion is dissatisfied, it could discuss or revoke the amalgamation treaty. If a people chooses within the ambit of their own belief to be ruled in a particular way, they should be allowed to,” he stressed.