Member representing Warri Federal Constituency in the Federal House of Representatives Hon. Daniel Reyenieju, has called for dialogue in the country as the secessionist agenda continues to gain momentum in the South-Eastern part of the country.
Reyenieju, in a chat with Vanguard
yesterday expressed utter disgust over what he described as undue predatory role the Federal government displayed by the use of force at the expense of dialogue, stressing that contemporary experience has shown that the use of force has hardly achieved lasting peace in any crises situation.
According to the lawmaker, the fact that after over forty-seven years of the end of Nigeria’s civil war by the then secessionist effort led by late Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the Ikemba of Nnewi, the demand for the independent Peoples Republic of Biafra remains fresh; This is an indicative of the fact that the proximate causes for the current phase of secessionist efforts are indeed very fundamental and grave.
Hon. Daniel Reyenieju
“ we can no longer afford to cherry pick on the issues as the present grave foreboding typified in the carnage recently witnessed in the South East, should attract honest interrogation and in-depth analysis, with all efforts directed towards the same goal in proffering a holistic remediation.
“The general trend of development in most countries has been from diversity to unity, from separation to union. So it has been in America, Australia, China, India, Italy, Germany France, United Kingdom and elsewhere in all of which small independent communities became confederated by war or diplomacy, until the exigencies of economics, education and security united the people in a closer, fraternal body- politics.
“The endemic injustice in our body-politics, particularly in the allocation of resources, positions, projects, etc. remains most provocative, unacceptable and inciting to some sections of the country, such that the Nigerian state, as presently constituted is viewed as ridiculously skewed to favour people from a particular region from which victims must strive to liberate themselves.
“For example, the Itsekiri ethnic nation in the Warri Federal Constituency which is the second indigenous ethnic group in terms of oil production/bearing, which resources accounts for the case of a Federated Nation has continued to be alienated and oppressed by the current government, such that there is hardly any person, for instance of Itsekiri extraction that has been appointed into any Federal position.
“The whole of the Warri Federal Constituency which I represent in the National Assembly can only boast of about two kilometers Federal road within the whole land mass of the constituency. It is such injustice among others that is generating the current crises manifesting in the unceasing wave of secessionist agitation’’, the lawmaker said.
According to him, the country is at the threshold of self- destruction and rabid immolation, which could be an illwind that will blow no moss to no one; and this, can only be avoided if a thorough restructuring is embarked upon immediately.
He blamed the endemic crises foisted on the structural instability of Nigeria on the lopsided nature of a Federal arrangement where the center has become so docile and sleazy yet so powerful, over-bloated and over-bearing; including the unthinkable and wicked denial of some of the constituent units of the Federation the rights to control their natural resources.
“The Federal government and its agencies should show good faith in the spirit of reconciliation and equity and use the current approval of over seven thousand job recruitment in Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to douse all separatists, secessionists and marginalization fears by equitably sharing the job placement to the 774 local government area in the country and by my mathematics each local government should have a minimum of seven persons each”, he added.

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