The federal government has been advised to shun the use of military force in addressing issues of civil dissents by individuals or groups as it causes more harm than good in the long run.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja on the secessionist agenda by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Daniel Reyenieju (PDP, Delta) said the “massive” troops deployment by the Military High Command is not the answer to the agitation.
He said 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 demand for the independent Peoples Republic of Biafra has remained fresh.
On the current crisis, he said “this pattern is indicative of the fact that the proximate causes for the current phase of secessionist efforts are indeed very fundamental and grave”.
“We can no longer afford to cherry pick on the issues, 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 lawmaker stated.
Speaking further, Reyenieju expressed utter disgust over what he described as undue predatory role of the Federal government espoused through the use of force at the expense of dialogue.
”Contemporary experience has shown that the use of force has hardly achieved comprehensive and lasting peace in any crises situation.
“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 Kingdoms 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 lawmaker stressed.
Speaking further, he noted that the “endemic injustice in the nation’s body-politics, particularly in the allocation of resources, positions, projects, etc. remain 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 a particular peoples group’ 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 peoples 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.
“In the same vein, 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 are generating the current crises manifesting in the unceasing wave of secessionist agitation”, he noted.
Reyenieju 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 what he calls the “unthinkable and wicked” denial of some of the constituent units of the Federation, the rights to control their natural resources.
Reyenieju also noted that the Country is at the threshold of self- destruct and rabid immolation which could be an ill-wind that will blow no moss to no one; and this he said can only be avoided if a thorough restructuring or “is it a re-federalisation” is embarked upon immediately.
