Icheoku commends the recommendation that a presidential election be held to fill the slot within a prescribed time and that only candidates from the particular zone of the indisposed president be allowed to participate in the run-off election. While icheoku prays for its full implementation, Icheoku queries whether a sitting vice president's only function now is strictly limited to only temporarily holding fort until run-off election to elect a replacement president and no more? Also what happens to such a "widowed" vice president after the election; is he forced to retire or to continue acting as vice president to the new president? Lastly, what happens if the party that produced the president loses in the run-off election OR is the runoff election going to be limited to the party that won it in the first place?
The second germane resolution is the bringing of Southeastern region to par with other zones in the number of states in the region. It is equitable and justice hugs equity. Icheoku would have wished the conference went a step further by asking Nigeria to apologize to the people of former Biafra for the inhumane way the civil war was conducted especially the use of starvation as instrument of warfare as well as the twenty pounds criminal payout. Anyway the people of Biafra has since moved on and the matter might as well be mute also. Further the conference would have recognized MKO Abiola's election as president and mandate the president to formally recognize him as a president Nigeria never had and then apologize to Nigerians for June 12.
Icheoku says the freeing of Local Governments from obtrusive State Governor's control was also on point and commendable. However Icheoku begs to disagree on the intent to later create additional eighteen states in Nigeria as not viable and unrealistic. Fifty five states for a country of less than two hundred million people, without any sound economic base for the states to self-sustain would be undue duplicity of bureaucracies and multiplication of government employees and avoidable administrative functions which will only serve to further drain state resources, period. Icheoku believes that a well structured and functioning Local Government areas would solve the problem of agitation by ethnic minorities and other disenfranchised members of such states. Icheoku emphasizes that what Nigeria needs is mega cities and not all these mushroom states that can barely pay their overheads if Abuja does not show cause.
Icheoku also would have wished the Conference pegged the number of senators from each state to just two since the House of Representatives already serves the purpose of representing the population based on density and spread. This way associated cost involved in running the senate could be curtailed and saved once the extra thirty six senators are weeded out. The senate main function is merely to take a second look at whatever the House resolves on, hence there is really no useful need having too many of them around. Further on the issue of the political status of the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, Icheoku says it should be treated like Washington DC with only locals appointed as Ministers of the territory. This will give them a say on what happens on their neighborhood and enable a fair and equitable development of their land. But the current idea of appointing someone from Bauchi or any other "foreign" place as lord and master over the people that OWN the territory is another form of colonization and slave mastery and this ought to stop.
To ACF's Anthony Sani, Icheoku says in rebuttal that if 'no one has wronged anyone' then why did Northern army officers coup plotters create more states in the Northwest than in the Southeast? Further, If many of existing states are not economically viable and their governors contributed to their underdevelopment, especially in the North, let Boko Haram tackle those governors. Icheoku says it is not only population or landmass or viability or homogeneity that is used to create states. States are political institutions and therefore are created for political expediency ONLY, period. Icheoku maintains that in any political estate such as Nigeria, each congruent member is deemed as equal irrespective of their size or number, hence the Arewa Consultative Forum was off the mark when their Anthony Sani argued against this point while challenging the creation of additional state in the Southeast. Take for example the United States of America where a state like California boasts of about thirty nine to forty million residents while a state like Wyoming has fewer resident than the City of San Francisco (eight hundred thousand) at a mere five hundred thousand residents? Or a state of Delaware with about two thousand square miles of land area while Texas has over two hundred and sixty thousand square miles of space and Alaska has nearly six hundred thousand square miles? So Icheoku asks Anthony Sani whether all those arid useless desert wastelands in the North should now be used to unfairly disenfranchise other regions that have a more concentrated and saturated population living within their congruent territories?
Finally Icheoku says there is no injustice in harmonizing the number of states in the respective regions to be at par with one another since each region is deemed in politics and law to be all equal. Nobody or region is unequal in Nigeria and this fact should be drummed into Anthony Sani's head as well as other Northern Nigerian elements he represents and speaks for. Icheoku admonishes Anthony Sani that family planning is a virtue and not a vice and that one man should not be punished or another man unduly rewarded because they have various ideas as to the number of children that is ideal to have. No man should because he has thirteen children ask to be paid more than his colleague who has only one child since choice was what each of them made. Nor should vast useless dusty arid desert lands be used to determine who gets what in Nigeria.
But be that as it may, with some of these far reaching resolutions of the National Conference, Icheoku is now more hopeful today than yesterday in the survival of Nigeria. It appears that finally Nigerians as represented in the National Conference are now prepared to do the heavy lifting needed to move the country forward. Icheoku prays that these recommendations be wholly adopted through a voice vote by the National Assembly without any amendment whatsoever. At last the path forward has been parted and Nigerians can now begin to nation-build instead of all these break us apart war cries renting the air. Well done and thank you, National Conference. Nigeria, we hail thee!
Icheoku says the freeing of Local Governments from obtrusive State Governor's control was also on point and commendable. However Icheoku begs to disagree on the intent to later create additional eighteen states in Nigeria as not viable and unrealistic. Fifty five states for a country of less than two hundred million people, without any sound economic base for the states to self-sustain would be undue duplicity of bureaucracies and multiplication of government employees and avoidable administrative functions which will only serve to further drain state resources, period. Icheoku believes that a well structured and functioning Local Government areas would solve the problem of agitation by ethnic minorities and other disenfranchised members of such states. Icheoku emphasizes that what Nigeria needs is mega cities and not all these mushroom states that can barely pay their overheads if Abuja does not show cause.
Icheoku also would have wished the Conference pegged the number of senators from each state to just two since the House of Representatives already serves the purpose of representing the population based on density and spread. This way associated cost involved in running the senate could be curtailed and saved once the extra thirty six senators are weeded out. The senate main function is merely to take a second look at whatever the House resolves on, hence there is really no useful need having too many of them around. Further on the issue of the political status of the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, Icheoku says it should be treated like Washington DC with only locals appointed as Ministers of the territory. This will give them a say on what happens on their neighborhood and enable a fair and equitable development of their land. But the current idea of appointing someone from Bauchi or any other "foreign" place as lord and master over the people that OWN the territory is another form of colonization and slave mastery and this ought to stop.
To ACF's Anthony Sani, Icheoku says in rebuttal that if 'no one has wronged anyone' then why did Northern army officers coup plotters create more states in the Northwest than in the Southeast? Further, If many of existing states are not economically viable and their governors contributed to their underdevelopment, especially in the North, let Boko Haram tackle those governors. Icheoku says it is not only population or landmass or viability or homogeneity that is used to create states. States are political institutions and therefore are created for political expediency ONLY, period. Icheoku maintains that in any political estate such as Nigeria, each congruent member is deemed as equal irrespective of their size or number, hence the Arewa Consultative Forum was off the mark when their Anthony Sani argued against this point while challenging the creation of additional state in the Southeast. Take for example the United States of America where a state like California boasts of about thirty nine to forty million residents while a state like Wyoming has fewer resident than the City of San Francisco (eight hundred thousand) at a mere five hundred thousand residents? Or a state of Delaware with about two thousand square miles of land area while Texas has over two hundred and sixty thousand square miles of space and Alaska has nearly six hundred thousand square miles? So Icheoku asks Anthony Sani whether all those arid useless desert wastelands in the North should now be used to unfairly disenfranchise other regions that have a more concentrated and saturated population living within their congruent territories?
Finally Icheoku says there is no injustice in harmonizing the number of states in the respective regions to be at par with one another since each region is deemed in politics and law to be all equal. Nobody or region is unequal in Nigeria and this fact should be drummed into Anthony Sani's head as well as other Northern Nigerian elements he represents and speaks for. Icheoku admonishes Anthony Sani that family planning is a virtue and not a vice and that one man should not be punished or another man unduly rewarded because they have various ideas as to the number of children that is ideal to have. No man should because he has thirteen children ask to be paid more than his colleague who has only one child since choice was what each of them made. Nor should vast useless dusty arid desert lands be used to determine who gets what in Nigeria.
But be that as it may, with some of these far reaching resolutions of the National Conference, Icheoku is now more hopeful today than yesterday in the survival of Nigeria. It appears that finally Nigerians as represented in the National Conference are now prepared to do the heavy lifting needed to move the country forward. Icheoku prays that these recommendations be wholly adopted through a voice vote by the National Assembly without any amendment whatsoever. At last the path forward has been parted and Nigerians can now begin to nation-build instead of all these break us apart war cries renting the air. Well done and thank you, National Conference. Nigeria, we hail thee!
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