Rivers State Television Channel 22

By Omololu Ogunmade

National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) Thursday called on President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) this year to avoid the escalation of crises in the country.

The group also warned the military not to imagine exploiting the spate of violence currently ravaging the nation to take over power, noting that “any such adventure will come to naught and to the grief of any such perpetrators.”

Addressing a world press conference in Lagos Thursday, the group appealed to Jonathan to listen to the voice of reason and stop postponing “a day of reckoning” which it said must inevitably come. It tasked Jonathan to invite all ethnic nationalities that make up the Nigerian state to sit down and talk, insisting that the first step to salvage this country was through SNC.

The group noted that the violent acts of Boko Haram was the highway to Nigeria’s disintegration which, it said, might be violent and so should be avoided.

“NADECO believes that a Sovereign National Conference is the inevitable first step and reductive minimum condition that can set us on the path to salvaging the country from the unfolding grave dangers,” it said.

The crises Nigeria faces reaffirms that it is mandatory that the peoples of Nigeria must sit down and restore the very foundation of the country and thus establish the constitutional architecture of Nigeria,” the group said.

The group which was represented by its Chairman, Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu (rtd.); Mr. Ayo Opadokun, Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye, Hon. Wale Oshun, and Chief Fred Agbeyegbe, also had in attendance, rights and political activists including Mr. Femi Falana.

Kanu, while reading the text of address said what was unknown to opponents of SNC was that they were gradually pushing Nigeria into extinction, explaining that “the actions of the opponents can only lead to Nigeria’s break-up and responsibility for such outcome would rest squarely upon such opponents of SNC.”

Kanu said: “If Nigeria failed to quickly restore the true federal foundations upon which it was established, it may just skid into a disorderly and probably violent exit of entrapped ethnic nationalities from the Nigerian union. It now seems evident that the actions of Boko Haram and other regional ethnic/self determination groups may now have set us almost irreversibly on the highway to disintegration, most likely or violently.”

Tags: Politics, Nigeria, Featured, SNC, Not Negotiable, NADECO