Two weeks ago, a very powerful delegation consisting political, traditional and religious leaders from the South-East called on President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa with what, using a very sober language, can only be termed very unusual requests.
The delegation, was made up of governors Theodore Orji of Abia state, Peter Obi of Anambra state, Martin Elechi of Ebonyi state, Sullivan Chime of Enugu state and Ikedi Ohakim of Imo state, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, Second Republic Vice-President, Chief Alex Ekwueme, former Senate Presidents, Anyim Pius Anyim and Ken Nnamani, several former governors and traditional rulers as well as religious leaders.
In a letter read by Governor Obi, who is the chairman of the South East Governors’ Forum, the delagation tabled some requests before the president on behalf of their kiths and kins and their area in general. Two of the requests stand out as rather unreasonable, more so that the former holders of ranking national offices in the delegation know very well the absurdity in making such requests, not to talk of the impracticability of granting them.
The South-East leaders want the Federal Government to perpetually reserve the headship of some federal agencies and commissions for their people.Their concern is that “some of the commissions and agencies headed only recently by South-Easterners are now progressively replaced by our brothers and sisters from other zones whenever changes are made in the headships of such commissions.” They listed such agencies and commissions to include the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), National Agency for Foods and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), and the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), among others.
We find this argument very dangerous because no office is specifically created for a particular part of the country to monopolise. This is why the North, despite its numerical superiority over the South, agreed to a power rotation so that every part of the country can take turns to produce the president. Perhaps the South-East leaders have been carried away with the situation at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), which has remained under the domination of the South-East since it was established more than 15 years ago.
It is no less unreasonable to request that the Federal Government grant amnesty to repentant kidnappers and create new job oppotunities for youths in the area. This second request, in our thinking, presupposes two things: that the youths in the South-East were pushed into their criminality due to lack of jobs, and that youths elsewhere have all the jobs in the world. That their youths engage in kidnapping because of lack of job opportunities sound more like an excuse than a reason, because there is just as much joblessness elsewhere as in the South-East. The only differrence is that the craving for material possession is not as pronounced as it is in the South-East.
We agree that it is the duty of every responsible government to provide jobs for its youths. But we take serious exception to government pandering to the whims of those who make a conscious choice to willfully offend the laws of the land just to satisfy an inordinate lust for materialism. The kidnappers must not be under any illusion that they are victims of the society, because they are not. They are only victims of their own choice to cut their clothes above their sizes. They must therefore be prepared to pay the prize for that choice.
We are therefore glad that the president did not commit himself by promising to do what no responsible government will even contemplate accommodating.
Comments (3)
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Engr.
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SOUTH EAST LEADERS UNREASONABLE DEMAND
I am an Igbo man but these group of men are not serious.I feel very ashamed to be associated with them.I can not imagine Dr,Alex EKWUEME getting invoilved.How did those bunch of thieves convince him?.Dr Alex look at the shame you have brought to your personality.What the President gave them was real bloody nose. -
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Reasonless zone
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