News

Convoke confab of ethnic nationalities to discuss Nigeria’s survival – Group urges Buhari

August 24, 2017

by
Chijioke Jannah

The Indigenous People of Niger Delta (IPND) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to convoke a sovereign conference of ethnic nationalities that make up the country to negotiate the basis of their continued co-existence or disintegration if they do not wish to continue to co-exist.
It also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to take urgent steps to restructure the country to save it from imminent collapse.

The group in a statement by its spokesperson, Tiemo Pumokumo, yesterday, in Warri, Delta State, said: “It is our strong belief that the Nigerian government cannot achieve peaceful coexistence among the different indigenous people and nations that make up the Nigerian State by force, as there is no such thing as unity by force.”
“There is high level of injustice in the country. Except we take urgent steps to correct all these injustices, we will go nowhere. Buhari’s speech is capable of fanning ember of acrimony and discord.”
Noting that the unity of Nigeria was negotiable, IPND, said: “The ethnic nationalities that make up the Nigerian State must be allowed to agree on their coexistence on the basis of negotiated agreement, mutual trust and understanding with the aim of establishing mutually beneficial coexistence.
“The Nigeria we have today is not the dreamed Nigeria of our most visionary and highly idealistic monarchs of blessed memory, HRM. Esezi II, the Orodje of Okpe and others, who were among the delegates of kings that attended the 1957 Lyttelton Conference held in London to seek Nigeria’s independence from the indirect government of the colonial masters.”