Calls for national sovereign conference unconstitutional – NLC

The Vice-President, Nigerian Labour Congress, Mr. Issa Aremu, has said that the NLC is opposed to the agitation for the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference because the call is diversionary and unconstitutional. Speaking to journalists in Ilorin on Tuesday, he said SNG was no longer a global trend. He argued that since Nigeria had elected representatives, it would be unlawful to convoke the SNC.

He said the position of  labour was that Nigerians were not a debating society. Aremu noted that Nigeria should be   functional while the citizens should stop agonising. “We spend all the time agonising and questioning the viability of the country when we should rather organise our thoughts to make the country work. Labour is opposed to Sovereign National Conference. It is moving against the trend of the world and I think it is even wrong to say Nigeria is too big. “The proposed conference is unconstitutional because with all the imperfections of the existing dispensation, whether we like it or not, we have elected a President who has specific mandate and he got elected based on certain promises to the nation. “We have constituted the National Assembly. We have 36 governors, they are elected and they must deliver on their mandate. Nobody should short change the system mid-way,” Aremu said.

He argued that if the proponents of SNG were serious about their call, they should  embark on a massive campaign so that the people could vote them into power. Aremu, who called on politicians to move with the global trend, alleged that Nigerian leaders were parochial. He said all ethnic sentiments should be divorced from Nigeria’s national life. The labour leader said it was retrogressive that at a time the world was getting global, Nigerian leaders were not flowing with the tide. He  said globally the use of ethnic nationalities was no longer fashionable, adding that Nigeria was lagging behind in global socio-political and economic trend. “The day an African-American became the president of the most powerful nation in the world, the United States, colour had ceased to be an issue. How can language and ethnic identity remain an issue?

The day Mandela walked out of the prison and became the first democratically elected President of South Africa on a non-racial basis, apartheid was gone. “It is sad that in 2013 Nigerian leaders are talking of conference of ethnic nationalities. The expectation of the founding-fathers was that by now we should be having a United States of Africa.

That is what led to the formation of the Organisation of African Unity. We started before the Europeans even started the European Union. “The world is towards bigger size not dismemberment of the nation-state. If a bigger Nigeria couldn’t compete with one big China, is it a smaller and divided Nigeria that will compete? What am saying in essence is that our leaders should think global,” Aremu said.

Source:Punch