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Nigerians plan summit on restructuring in New York
By Habib Aruna
Assistant
Politics Editor, Lagos
Nigerians
in far away United States might have concluded arrangement to initiate series
of consultations among themselves for the purpose of holding a national
conference to address what they described as imbalances that have been the bane
of the country over the last four decades.
In
a statement sent to Daily
Independent by the Nigeria Liberty Forum (NLF), the group hinted that it held a
consultative forum with some members of the Nigerian community in New York,
describing it as the beginning of consultations “to right the wrongs
perpetrated by successive leaders since 1960 when this country of 140 million
people gained independence from Britain on the heels of the escalation of the
Niger Delta crisis, which sent shock waves through international, markets last
week”. The statement stated that various speakers at the forum said
Nigerians needed to hold their destinies in their hands if the country was to
know peace.
Speaking
on phone, spokesperson for the group, Mr. Omoyele Sowore, a Nigerian activist
resident in the US, said: “This conference is an urgent acknowledgement
of the deep crisis plaguing the Nigerian nation.” He further stated that
the NLF is mobilizing Nigerians abroad to intervene in the struggle to bring
justice to every corner of Nigeria.
“Nigeria
as we know it is crumbling and is about to become a failed state while the rest
of the world stands by and watch.
We are making the assertion that the nation Nigeria needs urgent
political, social and economic reconstruction and this can only happen if all
sincere and genuine social forces take immediate action both at home and
abroad”, Sowore said, hinting that the venue, Gureje Afroshrine, New
York, was filled with Nigerians who kept wondering about the sorry state of
their country.
One
of the speakers, Mr. Adewale Fatade, a Ford fellow at the Columbia University
School of Journalism, was emphatic in saying that millions of Nigerians are
daily confronted with record level corruption, ethnic and religious strife
leading to deaths of thousands, unavailability of basic necessities of life,
retrenchment of fundamental freedoms and renewed clampdown on opposition
figures and the Nigerian press.
Also
speaking was a medical doctor from Kaduna, Dr. Siaka Alhassan, who explained
the reasons why some Muslim states in Northern Nigeria rejected massive polio
vaccination. He said that the general consensus amongst core Muslim northerners
is that the West was intent on controlling the population of Nigeria through
‘sterilization’ because certain hormones known to reduce sperm
cells were found in some of the vaccines.
He
expressed disgust at the western press for downplaying the concern of the
Muslims, saying that “when you ignore malaria, hunger and unemployment
and throw international awards at corrupt government officials in Nigeria or
offer them bogus grants and loans, you cannot expect the poor to trust your
good intentions with vaccines”.
Even
so, they restated that more than ever Nigerians should embark on an expedited
move to convoke a Sovereign Nation Conference (SNC) to, according to, them,
weaken the hold of the current government and redesign the future of Nigeria
based upon mutual respect, the rule of law, equality and prosperity for all
constituent members and citizens of Nigeria.
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