A former Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, on Saturday in Abuja called on the National Assembly to avoid delay in granting approval to the report of the recently-concluded National Conference.
The elder statesman spoke with journalists during the inauguration of a multi-billion naira mega church edifice called, “The Refuge” belonging to House on the Rock Church.
According to him, the National Assembly should go ahead and approve the report, instead of “taking it sentence by sentence.”
He said, “The decision on whether the report of the 2014 confab should be ratified by the National Assembly or through a referendum should have been taken before the conference itself started.
“During our time (1995), it was a military government and there was no National Assembly and the document setting us up specified that whatever decision we arrived at would be accepted without amendment by the military government.
“In this case, the issue of whether it should go to the National Assembly or through a referendum should have been agreed before it started. If it goes to the National Assembly, it would be done the same way they handle bills. They will take each section one by one, clause by clause, phrase by phrase and they will start patching and patching. But bearing in mind that the final report was approved unanimously, I think if people are logical and if the National Assembly itself means well, they should go ahead and approve it and not taking it sentence by sentence.”
Speaking on the recommendation of the confab for the creation of more states, Ekwueme said what was inherited from the British colonial government and the nation’s founding fathers was not a multiplicity of states.
He said, “Well, you know my attitude. In the 1995 Conference Report, I was of the view that each of the six geo-political zones should become a federating unit because in fairness to our founding fathers, what we inherited from them and from the British government was not a multiplicity of states.”
At the event, Adefarasin warned political office holders to desist from abusing public office. He called on the masses to rise up against leaders who engaged in such acts of impunity.
Adefarasin said, “We must rise up against those who use public offices for private or self-aggrandisement.
“I charge you all, in the words of an illustrious former President of the United States of America, Franklyn Delano Roosevelt, who declared that, ‘In the days of difficulty, we Americans (Nigerians) everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice, the path of faith, the path of hope, and the path of love towards our fellow man.’ Even so, let us build a great Nigeria whose architect and designer is the Almighty God.”
