Members
of the Council of State rose from an emergency meeting on Thursday with
a resolution to support President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure that the
current spate of terrorism in parts of the country ends before December.
They also resolved to put an end to all
discriminatory practices in states including the registration and
“deportation” of non-indigenes as well as different school fees for
indigenes and non-indigenes in state-owned institutions among others.
The council presided over by Jonathan
has the Vice President, the Senate President, Speaker of the House of
Representatives, all living former Heads of State, all former Chief
Justices of Nigeria and all state governors as members.
All living former Heads of State, except
former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari
(retd.) attended the emergency meeting. President of the Senate, David
Mark, was also absent.
Governors Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom);
Babangida Aliyu (Niger); Sullivan Chime (Enugu); and the National
Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), briefed State House
correspondents at the end of the meeting.
Aliyu said it was the resolution of
council members that all hands must be on the deck to end insurgency in
parts of the country.
He said they would work hard to ensure
that the predictions by some foreigners that Nigeria would cease to
exist as a united nation beyond 2015 remained a wishful thinking.
The governor added that the council
observed that leaders, particularly politicians remained the only
threats to the country and democracy.
He said a collective decision was taken to stop the inflammatory statements always attributed to politicians.
He said, “More fundamental of the issues
is the bucks stopping with the leadership. In fact, it came to the fore
that if there is any threat to either the state or democracy probably
the threat is coming from politicians and from leaders of the country.
“We must understand the boundaries of
leadership and also the responsibilities that are involved. Leadership
is not about beauty contest.
“In leadership, you must take difficult decisions and really go about implementing them.
“So, all the things came to the fore at
the meeting and subsequently, each of us made it a deliberate resolution
not to be bi-partisan or non-partisan to support the President to make
sure that we get rid of this insurgency and indeed suggesting that
before December.”
The governor said there was nothing religious or Islamic about the Boko Haram sect.
He said the important thing was for the
adherent of religions to respect the rights of adherents of other
religions aside from theirs.
Akpabio said the council frowned on the
registration of Nigerians in parts of the country and directed that the
exercise be stopped forthwith.
He disclosed further that the council
set up a six-member committee saddled with the responsibility of further
identifying other discriminatory practices across the country.
The committee, which had two months to
submit its report, according to him, had governors of Niger, Sokoto,
Enugu, Gombe, Akwa Ibom and Ondo states as members.
He said with the submission of the
report, the council would then decide if the National Assembly would be
approached to ensure that changes were made.
He said the ex-leaders proffered
solutions to the security challenges in the country while council
members commended the security agencies.
The governor said, “The council viewed
the report seriously that some citizens were being deported, deportation
should be from one country to the other but where you have a Nigerian
who is being returned to his state of origin from other states, then you
know there is a problem.
“We felt that that was capable of disrupting the unity of the country, making Nigerians to become apprehensive and unsafe.
“Also, the council frowned on the idea
of even registering Nigerians in various parts of the country and felt
this must be brought to an end immediately.
“And so we looked at all these issues
and the role every leader should play from the local government level to
the federal level. The role each one of us should play to ensure that
we solidify the unity of this country.
“We also looked at these discriminatory
practices across board from all parts of the country: North, South, West
and the East and we felt all those issues must be brought to the front
burner, solutions proffer to ensure that Nigerians are united, live
freely and do their businesses without hinderance.”
Chime on his part said he saw commitment to save the country by both past and present leaders who attended the meeting.
He said the willingness to remain one Nigeria would lead to the abolition of disclosure of states of origin.
Rather, he said people would only be asked to disclose where they reside.
The NSA said the Federal Government was troubled by the idea of registering Nigerians, hence the need for the meeting.
He said those of them who were around knew that that was how the civil war started.
He said, “Those of us who were around
will remember very well that that was how the civil war started, we saw
the danger, we said there is really the need for everybody to be
sensitised on this. It looks very innocent now to say well, I have
security concerns, I can register any body who is not from here.”
No comments:
Post a Comment