The recent declaration of political autonomy by one individual in Ogoni land must be seen as a warning that should prompt the Nigerian political class into dialogue with ethnic nationalities.
Founder of Oodua People’s Congress, (OPC) Dr. Frederick Fasehun stated this during the week at a meeting between the OPC and The Jukun Development Association in Lagos (JDA). Both organisations agreed to mutually defend each other’s interests while calling on the Federal Government to begin dialogue with the ethnic nationalities in the country.
According the Fasehun, “the faster this happens, the earlier the country can begin to pull away to safety from the crises threatening its survival. It is an embarrassment that a people so enlightened as Nigerians have failed to forge national unity for almost a century of coexistence.
“We are praying, working, and struggling very hard to make sure that a nation grows out of these disparate ethnic nationalities. We love Nigeria, but we love Nigerians more. So, if Nigeria must remain, the only way is to get all the ethnic nations together in a conference to forge a new pact to live together in unity,” he said.
He formally welcomed the Jukun ethnic nation on board the growing Coalition of Ethnic Nationality, an initiative he pioneered.
He said the coalition is already fostering an understanding among ethnic nations and this will provoke a Sovereign National Conference, which he said, is the panacea to Nigeria’s many challenges.
“A superpower told us about seven years ago that by 2015, which is only two years away, Nigeria will fracture, but we want to demonstrate to that superpower that Nigeria and Nigerians shall remain,” he said.
“The politicians have been there for years, yet the nation has been dancing around a brink. Now is the time to pull the nation away and that is why the ethnic nations are forging friendship, love, and cooperation.”
“The MOSSOP people have been agitating for social justice for a long time and if that justice has taken this long, I think the warning should be given. We all have a reason to complain that social justice is not in place.”
The President of the JDA, Bako Benjamin Danborno, also supported dialogue between the federal government and perpetrators of violence in the northern part of the country.
“I don’t know what they want but whoever takes up arm against a nation must be agitating for something. Just like it happened in the South-South, I do not think it would be out of order to call them for dialogue,” he said.
“Virtually every ethnic nation in Nigeria is complaining of being marginalised. The Jukuns are not the only one complaining.
Source: The Nation
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