Why North opposes Sovereign National Conference – Aliyu



– Slams Jonathan’s aides

Chairman of the Northern states Governors’ Forum (NSGF), Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, has said that the northern part of the country is not opposed to the convocation of a national conference to discuss problems bedevilling the country.

What the region is against however, he said, is the holding of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) that could lead the country into having dual sovereign entities.

Speaking against the backdrop of renewed calls for the convocation of SNC by some Nigerians, Aliyu said such a demand will entail all elected politicians vacating their positions and surrendering them to a committee that would emerge to take charge of the conference.

Making the position of the north known at the opening of a one-day workshop organised by the Niger state Ministry of Tertiary Education on the theme: ‘A New Focus for NANIS’, the governor declared that “those calling for Sovereign National Conference must understand the implication of that,” adding, “You cannot have two-sovereignty in one place.”

Continuing, he said: “If anybody says he is going to organise a Sovereign National Conference, all of us in government must resign our jobs and then transfer the sovereignty of the country to a committee that is going to discuss the sovereignty of the country’.

According to Aliyu, the North would always support the convocation of a “national conference that will look at our constitution and really give us justice, equity and fairness in our body politics and in our national life.”

Aliyu insisted that the North, contrary to a popular opinion, is not afraid of the convocation of a national conference because the region believes that doing so would move the country forward.”

He said: “Many people are trying to make it look like Northern states are afraid of the conference, we are not. Let us come and talk, let us come and look at our problems, if it means restructuring the country, let us come and do it, but we must not be hoodwinked.

“If people want to secede, let them secede and then we see under which constitution they are seceding. Let us not be intimidated, we cannot be intimidated because intimidation will not give us good policies, intimidation will not give us good nation, intimidation will not give us any progress.”

Aliyu berated some aides of President Goodluck Jonathan for breaking the agreement reached with the G7 governors and some major stakeholders, last Sunday, that all the actors in the ongoing PDP crisis should stop commenting on the crisis in the media, soon after the meeting ended.

He said: “We sat down in the name of PDP to resolve issues and we agreed that no more outside talks. But what happened before we even left the meeting place? People have started sending out information to newspapers and other information outlets. If you agree on something and you cannot keep the agreement, let people know. It is unethical when you agree on something and you go and do something different”

Aliyu decried the present situation where 14 states in the northern part of the country have about 80% of their children out of school, saying such children cannot contribute to the development of the society.

He called on the leaders in the North to accord education a prime position in the scheme of things, saying, “we must organise ourselves very well to put education in the front burner.

In his remarks, the Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Dr Bashir Nuhu, disclosed that between 2007 and this year, the state government spent the sum of N1.6 billion on the payment of scholarship allowances for students of the state origin in tertiary institutions, within and outside the country.

Nuhu said the ministry has commenced payment of scholarship, through electronic means, while also issuing scratch cards to students for the payment system.