***’We must do background check of people in our leadership recruitment’
Participants at a National Political Dialogue on the constitutional future of Nigeria held in Abuja on Thursday have unanimously called for restructuring of the country without which the country will soon fizzle out.
The National Consultative Front (NCFront) in collaboration with the Nigeria Political Summit Group, (NPSG) have put together an Emergency Political Reforms Dialogue on the Constitutional Future of Nigeria at the Yaradua Center in Abuja.
Speakers at the event starting from the chairman of the organising committee of the event Pat Utomi, the former Governor of Akwa Ibom State Obong Victor Atta, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Supo Ayokunle all warned about the danger in not allowing for the rebranding of the nation which they say will lead to a failed State.
The CAN president in his presentation said,
“We need rebranding, if you don’t rebrand or restructure you will fizzle out
“Companies rebrand, organizations rebrand to fit into the modern society.
He used the example of the Mobile phones, saying when the GSM debuted in Nigeria the most popular phone brand was Nokia,
“Nokia thought they will dominate forever to infinity but others came like Samsung and all these Android phones and later we saw iphones and people moved away just like that.
“Today, Nokia has been sold out to other companies because they failed to rebrand. If Nigeria fails to rebrand, Nigeria will fail to exist. “It is a matter of time because in this modern society, no set of people in Nigeria want to play second fiddle.
“But if we would not allow people to go away people will go away by force because you cannot force me to belong to where I don’t have anything at stake.
“This is why we are saying that all of us, we need one another let there be inclusion for every region in Nigeria. This is the way for us to move forward.”
He advocated for a home grown democracy like it is practiced in the United Kingdom which is a bit different from the one that is practiced in the US.
“The US is homogenous, the UK is not because it has the west, the Scottish and the English. All these have to be factored into their system, that is why they do referendum from time to time whether they still want to continue to stay together or not.
He observed that in Nigeria “we have refused, we don’t want to listen to referendum, if you don’t listen democratically people will use other means to go away because you can not continue to tie people down with poverty and underdevelopment for ever and ever, we need to reposition.”
Oyekunle also advocate for electoral reform if the country want to move forward,
“Thank God the national Assembly did a reform recently but that reform was not comprehensive enough, for example the way we appoint electoral officers have to change, the people managing our elections should not be appointees of the Government of the day. “There should be an independent political body that would be mandated to chose the electoral managers.
This he said will make it possible that they serve Nigerians not serving the person that has appointed them. “Electoral offenders must also be brought to book so that people would not just be taking us for granted and be manipulating the wish of the people and be announcing the people that did not win as the people that won the elections.
“Electoral offenders must be made to face the music as expected”
The CAN leader also advocated for social and economic life to be enforced in the constitution for enforcement of human development.
“We need to make huge investments in health, in education and social security of Nigerians. The health sector in Nigeria is in shambles and other infrastructures, our leaders are travelling abroad to access better medical facilities instead of making it available. “He faulted the Government for neglecting the Academic Staff Union of Universities who have been on strike for the past three months and have now extended it for three months.
“Who are we killing? We are killing well educated and informed leaders of tomorrow, we are creating a vacuum that will make the future more disastrous for the nation of something is not done.
“I also want to say that to unlock the potentials of social and economic right we should allow the court to be able to intervene.
“When those elected are not doing it we should have the right so that when those elected are not doing it we should be able to sue them and the court should be able to act in favour of the people and compel governors and president, to put certain amenities within a limited period of time so that Nigerians might be proud of the country to which they belong.
“Let me also say that the election of political officers should not just be by simple majority especially the position of the President so that the position of the President should rotate to the 6 geopolitical zone turn by turn and that cannot make other regions to think that they must lead because of the simple advantage of population. “No, Nigeria is a complexity, the democracy cannot be hook line and sinker with western democracy just like that.
“We need to continue together, we need to look at our context and let our context be according to the way we are doing things, because you can not continue to do things wrong and expect people to keep quiet.
He used CAN example of rebranding whereby its constitution has been ammended to allow for the five blocks of CAN will now take turn to produce President on rotational bases.
“Let me use the CAN, you will discover that anytime we wanted to do election there would be noise embarrassing the body of Christ .
“When I took over, I said no we are not going to do this again , we have 5 blocks in CAN all the churches are captured in the 5 blocks.
“I said what we are going to do is that we we are going to amend the constitution that we give recognition to each block to produce President by turn but the constitution will also highlight the basic things that incoming President from that block is going to have.
“There would be an electoral college that will screen that individual whether he has met the criteria or not and if he has not met it we throw it to that block to give us a better person and by the grace of God I will soon rotate out of that office but I am assuring you, you will not hear any noise again because of change of leadership, because I already know the person that is succeeding me because that block has already come as one body with one person who will represent them
“Why can’t Nigeria do that And stop the embarrassment, N100m just like chicken everybody gunning for one position and they knew ab-initio that only one person will get there. “Why the unreasonable gamble? Did God speak to all of them to come and lead us? I wonder, if we are going to move forward we need to address that area of our constitution.
“Those in our leadership before they get there through our electoral process we must do background check on them, background check is very important, some people are not only criminals they are lunatics, they are sick in the head the way they behave, the way they embezzle you will know that these people are not normal they are lunatics, they are really sick.”