The Nigeria Political Summit Group (NPSG), which
facilitates annual National Political Summits and periodic political
consultations in the country, has announced its readiness to engage
the rising tension over the current Biafran agitation and other similar
conflicts, towards preventing a full-blown civil war.
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In a statement released on Wednesday during NPSG’s periodic state of
the nation review, Olawale Okunniyi, the Group head of secretariat and
spokesperson, stated that the various self-determination agitations and
internal conflicts in the country require negotiated settlement rather
than the current military engagements being advanced.
He said his group was prepared to bring its experience, reach and
clout to bear in ensuring political understanding and negotiated
settlement between state actors and civil agitators in the country.
“Nigeria is currently in a civil democracy and should not be seen
resolving its internal conflicts militarily at this time,” he noted.
“What we think can bring about an enduring resolution of these crises
is nothing short of a conflict management mechanism that is purely civil
and political.”
According to the group, “Although self-determination is now a
conventional right of every indigenous people, who sufficiently
demonstrate a popular desire to be autonomous as declared by the United
Nations in 2007, however, Government authority can never be
discountenanced in achieving this objective.”
He called on the leadership of such agitations to be willing to
interface with the government of Nigeria in proving and negotiating the
unanimity of its people’s desire for self-determination and the
forms it would take, whether autonomy within Nigeria or outright
secession.
“The procedure must be right with government authority,” he advised.
He appealed to various groups agitating for more national political
inclusion in the country to give President Muhammadu Buhari some time to
study and address the present state of Nigeria’s national
question, pointing out that he is also responsible to other units in the
Nigerian union.
Okunniyi hinted that the consultative intervention of the NPSG will
be mainstreamed into a major national political Summit of Leaders of
thought as well as traditional rulers and eminent political stakeholders
in the country and Diaspora that was previously rescheduled for
the first quarter of 2016.
The statement recalled that NPSG first initiated a series of annual
political summits in the country in August 2011 in Port Harcourt under
the chairmanship of Chief Audu Ogbeh and Barr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN. It
said subsequent summits were held in Lagos in 2012 and Uyo in
2013; while the 2014 and 2015 summits were shifted for the 2014 national
confab and the 2015 general elections respectively.
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