Professor George Obiozor, the President-general of Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo, a pan-Igbo socio-cultural and political organisation says powerful groups in Nigeria scuttled the implementation of a 2014 National Conference report that sought to proffer solutions to bitter conflicts in the country.
Obiozor, a former Nigerian Ambassador to the United States said the resolutions of the 2014 conference were seen by the group as a threat to their interest and were resisted by the political elites.
Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan had in 2014 set up a national conference where about 500 delegates for five months held a national restructuring debate about the political system and future of a country that has witnessed bitter conflicts between its numerous ethnic, religious and linguistic groups.
Several stakeholders in the country are making a strong case for the implementation of the report with some saying it is the cure-all document. There are no signs that the document will be visited by the President Muhammadu Buhari led federal government.
“Nigeria’s problem has been diagnosed over and over and the solutions are also known, but there is no political will to solve them,” Professor Obiozor said on Monday when he featured on an ARISE News programme, The Morning Show.
“In recent years, for example, 2014 there was national conference and the national conference report believe me would have been a national landmark, a milestone to solve Nigeria’s criminal system problem, nationality question.
“The trouble is most of the issues that came out of the conference were brought through consensus. In the end, some people saw it as a threat to their own interest and when a powerful group finds something as a threat to their power base they will scuttle it.
“… What makes a nation stable is concession and complementarity, but then our political elites resisted and prefer to be incoherent elites and govern with hostility of position and reciprocal suspicion. So they refused to face the reality of national solution to problems.”
By Abel Ejikeme
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