Group to FG: Stop Southern Nigeria socio-economic subjugation now

A group under the aegis of Southern Solidarity Alliance has urged the Federal Government to frontally address the inequality and disparity allegedly fashioned against Southern Nigerians development.

In a press conference titled: Time To Act is Now! Addressed by the group’s National Coordinator Mr. Ndubuisi Okafor on Thursday at Heathrow Hotel, Satellite Town, Lagos, the group highlighted attempts skewed to repress the southern Nigeria across all facets and their resolve to ensure a redress.

“To date the resources of the South is being siphoned, unacceptably and questionably used and misused across the country to the chagrin of the authentic owners of these resources.

“The sickening and repulsive subjugation says it all when we use up the resources of the South for the sake of the entire nation and then the resources elsewhere are not even mentioned, not to talk of bringing them to the table for the benefit of all and sundry.

“The establishment elites of this country Nigeria should realize that they have held the South and Nigeria to the ground for too long.

“The enveloping Hobbesian world must be avoided so that there could be prosperity and comprehensive development in the South and Nigeria as a whole. We are impatient with the under-development and wish to be at par with the rest of the world. “

The group cited amongst other issues: the deplorable situations prevalent in the zones, “We members of the Southern Solidarity Alliance, a pan-Southern Nigeria group are gathered here today, hand-in-hand, in unity and togetherness to express our total misgivings against the unacceptable deplorable situations we have found ourselves as Southern Nigerians.

“Not only are we rejecting these situations, we are also solemnly calling on all those concerned to do a redress.

“We very strongly reject and repudiate inequity, unfairness, crude manipulations, injustice, suppression, oppression, subjugation, and atrocious discrimination, viral aggressions in our homelands and fatherland, and overriding subterranean piloted divisiveness among ourselves in the affairs of our nation.

“We do not deserve these treatments and the reality of second, third or even no class citizens in the affairs of our country Nigeria. The South and Southerners played and play pivotal roles in the emergence and development of Nigeria.

“The South was referred to as the Southern lady of means upon whose resources the amalgamation and administration of Nigeria by then incoming colonial authorities thrived. And so has it always been till date.

“For instance, look at the petroleum and port resources. Quota system and conscious marginalization of the South in federal institutions- civil service, military, police and paramilitary institutions.

“Quota system has become an instrument for promotion of the interest of a particular people and not for others. It is also selectively applied and is used at the whims and caprices of whoever is in power. These are unacceptable.

Bringing to reckoning the labours of the southern heroes like, Mr. Herbert Macaulay, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Pa Michael Imhoudu, Chief Anthony Enahoro, Madam Margaret Ekpo, Pa Abraham Adesanya, Chief Edwin Clark and Chief John Nnia Nwodo, Pa Ayo Adebanjo and a whole lot of others and their struggles for an independent Nigeria.

The group maintained that the disparity in the distribution of wealth and available resources gotten majorly from the south but benefited more by the North speaks volumes of a deliberate plot against the zone and urgently demands a redress.

“Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered if there were equity and fairness. But “suck the orange” method is being used on the South, where our infrastructures are at zero point yet the Federal authorities would have no reservations in using our resources and even borrowed ones to build rail and road infrastructures to another country.

“For instance, while the petroleum wealth of the South has been used to pamper the rest of the country into indolence, no one knows who benefits from the Gold of the North.

“And while the Southerner struggles on his own, working to earn his living in his occupation and endeavours, the herdsmanship of the “master tribe,” which adds near nothing to the GDP of the nation is from all indications being used to terrorize, kill, maim, conquer, occupy and terrorize while the federal authorities wear the deception of overwhelmingness and tepid timidity.”

The Southern Solidarity Alliance however, stated the following demands: that the federal government declared a state of emergency on the listed federal roads which are in deplorable state and that Lagos-Ibadan Express should be the model for the reconstruction of and upgrade of some, if not all the roads in southern Nigeria.

“From Ipele – Isua, Benin-Auchi, Nsukka-Enugu, Sagamu-Ore, Ore – Benin Road, Benin – Asaba Road,Onitsha – Owerri – Aba,Onitsha – Enugu Express, Enugu – P/Harcourt, Umuahia – Akwa Ibom, Uyo – Calabar, Enugu – Nnokpanta, 9th Mile-Opi junction-Obollo Afor-Makurdi, Amichi -Ezinifite-Amaruru-Ihitenansa-Orlu, Ibadan-Ifo-Ilesha Bye Pass, Ife-Ondo-Ore, Ughelli-Patani- Port Harcourt Etc.

It called for quick conduct of credible census in Nigeria to address the cited anomaly and comprehensively tackle the imbalance between the North and the South and practice of true federalism.

“LGs cannot access federal allocations in a true federal State and actually, there should really be nothing to share, everyone should be productive.

“These are prevalent in all zones in the South. The “no movement” on Mondays in the South East introduced another dimension to the insecurity. Marginalization of the South in the ownership and control of resources even in the South are manipulated out of the control of the South.”

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“Security should be technologically driven like in other countries of the world. Population data and fingerprinting technology and CCTVs should be deployed by all the Southern States. Multilevel policing should be introduced. Governments- federal, states and Local governments should be seen to be just.

“Economy should be improved through practical measures. Equity, fairness and justice must be seen to prevail. The insecurity in the SE should be specially looked into.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in order to guarantee peace in the zone. Is there anything the FG, the states or any individual is gaining from holding him and the continued tension and killings in that zone?

“There should be resource control as embedded in an unfettered federalism. Nigeria is gifted resource wise; every federating unit should develop and tap own resources while paying to the centre.

“Quota System and federal character should be totally scrapped as against the prevailing selective implementation. It should be replaced with Pure Merit and Competitiveness Merit system based on competitiveness is key to development and should be instituted in every facet.

“Nigeria should stop picking where to implement quota system and federal character, which have overtime undermined development in the South and Nigeria as a whole. Where appointments into offices still become quotarized, it must be sweeping. But competitive tests are elevational for stakeholders.

“Finally, the Southern Solidarity Alliance calls on the Tinubu government to implement the 2014 National Confab report, which is a product of negotiation among delegates from all the geo-political regions. “

“The report has answers to several ills bedeviling this country. In an alternative, there should be a convocation of a sovereign national conference to cure all ills and remedy all imbalances.

“We dare say that it is the delay or refusal in towing this path of honour in the wholesale implementation of this report and genuine holistic implementation of restructuring that has created bestial problems in the South and in Nigeria, from poverty to corruption, from abandonment of infrastructures to lack of development, from over-concentration of power and authority, abuse of power, to and general insecurity.”