Issues
of Nigeria’s unity and restructuring emerged at the National Conference
on Monday as the talk shop commenced debate on President Goodluck
Jonathan’s inaugural address to it.
The delegates to the conference also hailed the president’s address, describing it as patriotic.
The delegates spoke in alphabetical
order for three minutes during the afternoon session, which was
moderated by the Deputy Chairman of the Conference, Bolaji Akinyemi.
Mr. Jonathan inaugurated the 492-member
conference in Abuja on March 17. In the address, Mr. Jonathan said the
conference was open to discuss and make recommendations on issues that
would advance the country’s togetherness.
He asked the delegates to sustain the
unity of the country, adding “We must not allow the antagonists of unity
and togetherness to prevail.
However, when the conference opened
debate on the
president’s speech, the issues of the unity of the country
and its restructuring echoed with some of the 31 out of the 39
delegates called upon to debate on the speech, saying that they could be
looked into.
According to Bisi Adegbuyi, a delegate
from Ogun State, there was no need for the country to continue with the
template of unity, which had not helped it.
“Why are we continuing with template of unity that has not helped?” he asked.
However, another delegate in the elder
statesman category from Ogun State, Ayo Adebanjo, said the conference
must divorce itself from the past by frankly deliberating on issues and
disallow old prejudices.
He specifically frowned at the remarks
by the Lamido of Adamawa, Muhammnadu Mustapha, also a delegate, who said
last week that his people would join Cameroon if they were pushed too
far.
He said, “The language of the Lamido of
Adamawa was very discouraging. We must be accommodating. We have a
united country that everybody should be proud of.”
Gbadegesin Adedeji, who commended the
president’s speech, canvassed the restructuring of the nation’s
politics, values, thoughts, social life and the economy.
Samson Agabaru, a delegate from Rivers
State, called for true federalism, stating that it was not possible to
have it, the country should drop the word “federal” from its life.
Another delegate, Azu Agboti, said the
imbalance in the structure of the country must be addressed, saying the
type of federation practices by Nigeria since the First Republic was
improper.
He noted that a situation where some of the six geo-political zones have more states than others was not acceptable.
“We must correct this imbalance,” Mr.
Agboti, a former senator said. “If we try to deny it, we will be doing
our country a great harm.”
Another delegate representing the
Nigerian Christians, John Achimugu, asked the conference to discuss
issues of religion, which he noted had become emotive in the country.
Mr. Achimugu identified religion as one of the issues that had led to some perennial problems the nation was facing.
He added that Nigeria had reached a
point where “our society is now zoned to according to faith” and that
the refusal of the past conferences to discuss the issue had only
heightened the differences instead of solving the problems;
“I urge us under God to discuss this matter for the sake of ourselves and for the sake of our children,” he said.
Bala Adamu, a delegate of the Former
Senators Forum, described the President’s speech at the inauguration of
the Conference as the “President’s best speech ever.”
According to him, the address had set the tone for the Conference.
The former senator asked the Conference
to examine and address the issue of corruption; and come up with
imaginative and effective approach towards fighting corruption.
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