A former Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Chief Nduese Essien, has called on the leadership and members of the National Assembly to exhibit enough courage and political will by creating an enabling atmosphere for the people of Nigeria to ‘proclaim’ their own constitution.
The former National Assembly member who was a delegate at the recently concluded National Conference held in Abuja, stated this recently in Lagos while addressing participants of an Economic summit, organised by the Akpabioism Leadership Center at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs.
While reflecting on some national issues currently facing the country, and the successful ending of the Confab, the former lawmaker who led the South-South Caucus while in the National Assembly, asserted that Nigerians have the capacity to resolve every tricky national issue facing it without resorting to violence and bloodshed.
“ I make bold to say that Nigerians have the capacity to resolve every tricky national issue without resorting to violence and bloodshed”. “At the inception of the conference, sceptics had gone to town with banners emblazoned with cynicisms and bleak predictions, the conference ended peacefully and made far reaching decisions, which if and when implemented, can set good governance structures that will lead to sustainable development”.
Chief Essien said that Nigeria’s present predicament is the availability of enormous material and human resources that has been frittered away by bad governance, insisting that the oil boom came at a time Nigeria had no sustainable governance structure.
“Changes in government were unpredictable. Successions were never planned and accountability dipped to a point where Nigeria became the 2nd most corrupt nation in 1999. The advent of democracy raised hopes of Nigerians and indeed the world to a new Nigeria that would join the developed world,” he said.
He maintained that “Nigerians love their country and are committed to preserving its corporate integrity”, and as such there was need to “build bridges across the divergent issues and circumstances that have threatened our ideals, our unity, our progress and our liberty.”
He asserted that, “as a delegate to the just concluded National Conference, I make bold to say that Nigerians have the capacity to resolve every tricky national issue without resorting to violence and bloodshed.”
He maintained that the success of the Conference has surprised sceptics who had earlier “gone to town with banners emblazoned with cynicism while many critics insisted the process was doomed to fail,” advising that the decisions arrived at the conference should be implemented to set good governance structures that will lead to sustainable economic development.
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