On constitutional amendment of indigene status

This is a call on the National Assembly not to use the opportunity of the constitutional amendment on indigene status to re-introduce the RUGA arrangement of the APC administration because Nigerians have rejected it ab initio.

The National Assembly should be conscious of the fact that any attempt to impose settlers on the indigenes might create crises that will be difficult to manage and will escalate the already tensed atmosphere in many communities especially considering the terrible security situation facing the country.

It is clear that those behind the constitutional amendments have a hidden agenda to re-introduce RUGA and if this amendment sails through, the state governors who were the custodians of land under the Land Use Act, will be powerless.

All the forests and Forests Resources under the control of the state governments would easily be taken over by armed herdsmen, Boko Haram and bandits who were already dislodging the indigenes from their ancestral lands and are already above the law.

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“I think what the National Assembly should concern itself with, is to make laws that would unite the people, particularly fiscal federalism based on composite nationalities within the federation.

It is indeed an abuse of legislative powers and trust if legislators that are put in office by the people to see to their welfare through good laws attempt to impose such constitutional illegality on the people who elected them to be their voice in the hallowed chambers.

It is already in the constitution that every citizen has a right to live in any part of the country. But that right should not be abused to cause problems amongst the people, especially between the settlers and the Indigenes. Lawmakers should in the interest of peace allow sleeping dogs to lie, to enable stability that had been elusive and progress to manifest in the country. They should not be used as agents of destabilisation.

Chief Adesunbo Onitiri,

Lagos.