Follow Us on Google
Daniel Kanu
Southeast intellectual and Socially-relevant group, Eastern Consultative Assembly (ECA) has kicked against moves by the National Assembly to embark on piecemeal constitutional amendment, saying it’s another rigmarole exercise that would end in futility.
The group said it agreed with the position of the Northern Elders Forum that a gathering of committed Patriots not the National Assembly is needed at this time, to begin the needful process of drawing up and designing a new people’s constitution that will replace the unitary military constitution of 1999.
ECA noted further that any constitutional amendment project embarked upon by the National Assembly, aside serving as a conduit pipe to siphon scarce national resources, will not, in all sincerity, serve any useful purpose whatsoever.
The group in a statement signed by Evangelist Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko (Secretary), made available to Daily Sun on Wednesday noted that “Only an opportunity for Nigerians to air their grievances at a conference, can assuage their fears and anger at the painful feeling of domination and dichotomy terrifying their souls and their beings. Refusal to allow them to express their fears and pains at a constituent assembly, gives them the impression of a hidden agenda to deny them justice”.
Part of the statement reads “Truth they say is unpopular. But truth remains the only road to peace and salvation. The constitutional amendment project embarked upon by the National Assembly, aside serving as a conduit pipe to siphon scarce national resources, will not, in all sincerity, serve any useful purpose whatsoever.
“The Ekweremadu and Ihedioha constitutional amendment rigmarole is still fresh in our memory and the report is still there. The plan to repeat same exercise at this time does not make sense one bit, except if someone or a cabal is bent on altering a particular or particular sections of the constitution to suit his or their hidden agenda. In that case, such conspirators will only find themselves stoking trouble.
“The unitary 1999 constitution ought to be discarded and replaced with a people’s constitution. The confidence of the people needs to be restored in our constitution, only when the people feel part of the making of the constitution. The military crafted, supritended and supervised the 1999 unitary document, that has proven deficient and faulty through practice. Lovers of Nigeria believe that only a people’s constitution affirmed at a referendum can and will move Nigeria forward.
“Accordingly, we agree with the Northern elders’ forum, that a gathering of committed Patriots is needed at this time, to begin the needful process of drawing up and designing a new people’s constitution that will replace the unitary military constitution of 1999. Such a people’s constituent assembly is actually long overdue.
“Events in the country confirm our constitution needs a revamp and an overhaul, not piecemeal amendments. A decades-old insurgency in the North east, that not only won’t go away, but is gradually spreading to other regions as well, seccesion agitation in the east, that is so deep rooted, yet grossly misunderstood and mishandled, violence and banditry, the kind never experienced before and certainly not experienced by any nation in history.
“Economic problems that have defied solution, unemployment and hunger reigning all over the land. Mistrust and suspicion that has sadly raised regional, ethnic and religious faultlines to frightening levels. Loss of faith, anger, poverty and fear for tomorrow, that turned millions of marooned compatriots into gambling and pool betting as the only means of solace and keeping hope alive. Sad.
“In spite of all these dangerous signals, even as oil prices slide down, we regrettably choose to pretend that piecemeal amendment of the contentious 1999 constitution remains better option to a wholesome reengineering of our union, genuinely addressing our fears and granting every region a sense of belonging that would engender faith and trust in the fatherland, through a new people’s constitution.
“When you remember that this same Government has tried and attempted severally, to cage, gag and paralyse the free press. Declared war on the same social media they effectively used to hound Jonathan out of office, tried to merge religious studies in schools, same government tried to seize and annex ancestral lands in all the 36 states in the name of RUGA, a Government that is comfortable with skipping the South east in all the projects covered by external loans the same excluded South east will repay.
“ Same government totally schemed out the South east in the headship of any of the military, paramilitary and security agencies and organisations, same government excluded the South east from the ongoing railways mordernisation project,same government woefully failed to rein in the rampaging herdsmen slaughtering citizens all over the land.
“When such a sectional government embarks on constitutional amendment through a perceived rubber stamp national assembly, it arouses great premonition, trepidation and tension in land. Nobody knows their true agenda”.
