CONSTITUTIONAL lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze (SAN) said Wednesday that the fear of losing its political dominance as well as sections of the country that make up the present northern region was responsible for the opposition of the north to the proposed national conference and restructuring.
He, however, stated that for the country to continue to survive, there was need for all Nigerians to support the national conference so as to find ways of renegotiating and restructuring Nigeria for the common good of her people.
Nwabueze said: “There are forces working against the conference but I want to say that this is not strange. The north does not want the conference because they want to protect their interest which is political domination and they also don’t want to lose any part of their own. They are very angry that they will be overthrown by the conference; they feel that the conference will end their dominance in politics. But let me say that it is in the interest of the country that the conference holds. We have to renegotiate and restructure the country to enable it survive”.
Addressing reporters in Enugu, Nwabueze also insisted that it was unacceptable for President Goodluck Jonathan to nominate delegates to the proposed national conference, stressing that the right to do so rest squarely with the ethnic nationalities participating in the exercise.
“That is not our own idea of national conference. It should be a conference of ethnic nationalities and the ethnic nationalities should elect their delegates to the conference. They will go there and sit and discuss. It involves intellectual work and does not involve moving from one place to another.
“It will also require younger person just as I stated earlier to chair the conference. It is not a job of someone at 83 and in bad health condition. In one of my articles published in the newspapers, I said nobody should ever ask me to chair the conference, because it is a job that requires somebody who is acceptable both in the north and south.
I am not acceptable in the north and it will be careless of anybody to appoint me to head the committee. If it happens, I will reject it right away. The person should be someone with emotional stability, because it is going to be stormy conference and requires a capable chairman with physical energy and emotional ability who may be able to steer the meeting to a successful end”, he added.
Nwabueze, who heads the “Igbo leaders of Thought”, a group working out Igbo position for the conference, said he would serve in the exercise should he be elected by Ndigbo, adding that he declined to serve in the Presidential advisory committee, following his age and ill-health.
“If eventually our people –Ndigbo said I should be part of it, I will oblige, so long as it does not involve me touring the country.
Stressing that Igbo position would soon be known, he said that the memorandum submitted by Ohanaeze Ndigbo to the Presidential Advisory Committee created the gap on how the Igbo interest could be protected in Nigeria and said that such gap would be filled by the committee.
Source: Guardian
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