THE Ohanaeze Ndigbo has expressed sadness over the inability of President Muhammadu Buhari to declare the state of his health despite his deteriorating condition which had prevented him from attending to important public issues and asked him to declare his health status. Nnia Nwodo President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo made this known at a news conference in Enugu yesterday.
Nwodo also described the bail condition for Nnamdi Kanu’s release as “a celebrated example of judicial rascality” and vowed to challenge the action in court. Nwodo further said that Ohanaeze Ndigbo would file an action against the discriminatory appointments so far made by President Buhari against Ndigbo, as they were unconstitutional. He said that although Ohanaeze was in support of a similar suit filed by Chief Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, in 2010 , he pointed out that it was only made public now because Agbakoba was recommended by the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, to be appointed a judge of the Supreme Court in a bid to disqualify and ridicule him. On the recent declaration by some northern elders led by Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu that the north would not support restructuring of the country, Nwodo said, those opposed to restructuring were unpatriotic. His words, “Not too long ago, a group of northern elders met in Abuja and through their spokesperson, Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu , made very strong views on the national discourse. They first of all distanced themselves from the conclusions of the 2014 constitutional conference describing their treatment at the conference as intimidating and claiming to have been under represented and therefore advised the present Federal Government and the National Assembly not to take the conclusions of that conference seriously.
They also condemned any suggestion to restructure the federation insisting that our present structure must remain. “Ohanaeze finds these conditions patently unpatriotic, inciting and capable of whipping divisive tendencies in our polity. We do not know how any patriotic person of the immense character and reputation of our leaders at the Abuja meeting will wait for nearly three years to disassociate themselves from resolutions they contributed to, moved motions on, voted for, had taken seriously we also plead to be excused from the 1979 and 1999 constitutions which were prepared by military governments dominated by northern military officers in which officers from Ohanaeze states had only token representation. “Our federation is totally out of sync with all known definitions of a federation. We have no independence of federating units. Nigeria is a unitary state with too much powers in the federal government and no fiscal independence or responsibility for domestic security in the states.
The need for restructuring is so obvious when Kano with 9.5 million people has 44 local governments and Lagos with 9.1 million has 20 local governments… “Some northern leaders in their utterances give the impression that our nation is their conquered territory. God forbid! We should all be joint and equal partners in a common bid to build a united, virile and strong country…” Nwodo further condemned the inability of the Federal Government to end the Fulani herdsmen killing of innocent Nigerians in Kaduna, Benue, Enugu among other states in the South West, South East and Middle Belt states across the country saying that Buhari must order their arrests and prosecution for peace to reign. On railway development, Nwodo said it was “a vote against the South East, North Central and North East” in the country.
“The major railway projects by the Federal Government are the Lagos- Kano modernisation, standard gauge rail lines and the Lagos – Ibadan segment is already undoing at the cost $1.231 billion; the Lagos –Kano modernisation standard gauge rail line project which Kano- Kaduna segment alone will cost $1.146 and the Lagos- Calabar Coastal Line will gulp $3.474 billion… “There is absolutely no plan for the Port Harcourt – Maiduguri or the Eastern Rail line which traverses Port Harcourt – Aba- Enugu – Oturkpo- Igumale- Makurdi- Kafanchan – Kuru- Gombe and all the way to Maiduguri…” he said.
