OHANAEZE TO BUHARI: National Youth Summit not Conference way to go

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

The Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly Wordwide has kicked against the idea about convoking a fresh national conference as being clamoured for in a section of Nigeria.

It said it would rather make sense that President Muhammadu Buhari’s government rather call for a National Youth Summit as agai st ant national conference.

The Igbo socio-cultural organization,in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday by its Director General, Amb. Obizoba Chiemelu Tony, copies of which was made available to the press, said it would be a waste of time, energy and national resources to do a new conference whereas, reports of many such conferences in the past up till the last one of 2014 is yet to be implemented.

“The Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly Wordwide, has listened and has studied agitations by various ethnic groups in Nigeria for convocation of a new national conference by President Muhammadu Buhari for them to sit down and discuss their collective destiny and hereby come up with a statement.

“It will be recalled that Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, recently gave what has been described and criticised as President Buhari’s unwillingness to make a new conference.

“In the view of the above, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo states clearly that there is no need for another National Conference. While we are not, in anyway, against sitting down of people towards common goals, we want to make our position clear that there will be no need for convocation of any new national conference because, it will rather be a waste of time and hard earned national resources to do so in wake of the fact that many national conferences had been convoked and held in the past but to no avail.

“What we can only implore Mr. President to do is for him to look into the previous National Conference done by his predecessor, which report has already been put in place. He should look at the way to get that report and implement some of the key decisions by various regions in that conference.

“Because, it is a waste of time, energy and resources to begin to talk about convoking another national conference, when the series of same done in the past up till the latest conference done by former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, and their reports have not been implemented.

“Instead of convoking another national conference, we urged Mr President to, as a matter of urgency, call for a National Youth Summit not this kangaroo conference they are agitatiing for. This is imperative because the youths, who are the future of the society, need to be put together with a view to listening and gathering areas affecting their development.

“The youths are the ones being used for all sorts of insecurity and the reason they get involved is because of the fear of the unknown as to how they feel their future is not secured. The summit, if convened, will reassure the youths of what the nation holds for them, what their roles towards making it happen should be and how to recondition their mindset and attitude for the Nigeria Project,” Ohanaeze said.