NUJ backs confab, Fasehun urges trust in Jonathan

22 hours ago

Expert faults timingPRESIDENT of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Malam Mohammed Garba, has declared the unions full support for the proposed national dialogue by the Federal Government.He spoke as the National President of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr Frederick Fasehun, urged Nigerians to take a good advantage of the conference to work out modalities for a harmonious and beneficial co-existence among the over 340 ethnic nationalities in the country.Garba, who made the declaration in Calabar during an interactive session with journalists at the Ernest Etim Bassey Press Centre yesterday, pointed out that it was important for Nigerians to come together to dialogue on issues of national interest.He commended President Goodluck Jonathan for his courage in accepting the wishes of majority of Nigerians by proposing a national dialogue. According to him, this will go a long way in moving the country forward as there is need for self-sponsorship of delegates to the dialogue. He suggested that the Federal Government should only sponsor coordinators of the proposed confab. The NUJ believes that whatever is the outcome of the dialogue, it should be deliberated and endorsed by the National Assembly and passed into law. This is the only way the issues would be generally accepted by Nigerians.Garba advocated a period of one month for the conference to avoid unnecessary jamboree that characterised previous exercises.He advised journalists not to allow the political class to hijack and influence their reports and urged them to show integrity at all times.The NUJ president said that the union would be fully represented at the conference and would make its inputs on various issues affecting the union and Nigeria.But a security expert, Mr. Bonaventure Maduafokwa, has said that though there is crucial need to have a national conference to discuss Nigerias socio-political challenges as a united nation, the timing is inappropriate given the security situation and political concerns for 2015 general elections.Maduafokwa made the remarks in an interview with The Guardian, yesterday. He agreed that given the cultural, regional and religious differences in Nigeria, the country does not seem to have done much to resolve on how to live together.But then this is not the appropriate time to bring it (national conference) up with the politics that is all over the place about 2015. The time is not very conducive for the dialogue or conversation because most of the problems we have today would appear to have come from the political situation.As such we need to take these things step by step so that when people talk about their positions, it would not be too much to overflow with politics and things like that; especially now that every talk in the country today is about 2015 and that will tend to colour whatever we intend to do, he said.Fasehun sparticularly urged cynics of governments sincerity due to un-kept past promises, to give the Jonathan administration the benefit of the doubt.For those still doubting, Fasehun said if anything, the president deserved to be commended for taking what he described as the bold step no Nigerian leader had ever taken in the past.We congratulate President Jonathan for this visionary and historical step. By this unprecedented and commendable initiative, he has mustered the political will needed for this moment. This guarantees for him a place of honour in Nigerias Hall of Fame, as the first and only civilian President to put in place a structure through which Nigerians will give themselves a truly peoples constitution.Speaking at a press conference in Lagos yesterday, Fasehun warned genuine patriots who, over the years had been clamouring for the convocation of the conference, not to, as a result of doubt, lose the benefit of the summit to wealthy, oppressive and insensitive political class which, according to him, had over the years held the masses down.

Source: Guardian