Onyendu Ndigbo in Ibadan urges Buhari to implement 2014 confab report

From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan

ONYENDU Ndigbo of Ibadan in Oyo State, Chief Alloy Obi, has urged Presi­dent Muhammadu Buhari to implement the recom­mendations of the 2014 national conference.

This, he said, will calm the nerves of aggrieved people and groups from different geo-political zones and make the much-desired restructuring of the federation become a reality.

He also called on the Ni­ger Delta Avengers (NDA), Independent People of Bi­afra (IPOB), Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Bi­afra (MASSOB) and Boko Haram to drop their weap­ons and embrace dialogue with the Federal Govern­ment.

Chief Obi made the call in Ibadan last Wednesday when he played host to the management team of The Sun Publishing Lim­ited. The team comprised the Executive Director, Mr. Bolaji Tunji; Editor, Daily Sun, Mr. Onuoha Ukeh; and Deputy Chair­man, Editorial Board, Mr. Robert Obioha. Obi, who was elected as Onyendu Ndigbo of Ibadanland by the Igbo General Assem­bly (IGA) in 2010, said: “Government should, on the other hand, come to the roundtable with all sincerity and be ready to implement all agreements as will be stipulated.”

He said it was obvi­ous Nigeria was passing through a period of hard­ship and urged Nigerians, irrespective of political, ethnic and religious in­clinations to pray for the country and its leaders for God’s mercy and divine di­rection.

His words: “I also wish to commend the Federal Government for seeing dialogue as the best option to bring together every ag­grieved person or zone to move Nigeria forward.

“Besides, government needs to do more by listen­ing to the yearnings of the populace for the imple­mentation of the 2014 na­tional conference report without delay. This will go a long way in calming the nerves of so many and that will bring about that much-desired restructur­ing of Nigeria federation. It is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war. Nigeria needs dialogue instead of force.

“The effort of the pres­ent administration in the fight against corruption is a welcome development. However, the Federal Gov­ernment must do every­thing possible not to be perceived as being selec­tive in its fight against cor­ruption. This fight should be holistic no matter who is involved.

“What we need is all the public money to be re­turned, not the names of those concerned and that those found guilty of emp­tying public money into private pockets should face life imprisonment.”