Enang seeks quinquennial dialogue to tackle insecurity

Akpan Umoh, Uyo

Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Niger Delta Affairs, Sen. Ita Enang, on Friday said that a national dialogue every five years would tackle the problems of insecurity in the country.

The senator also called for integration of youths into the mainstream of national politics, rather than stigmatising them with bad names.

Enang said this in his keynote address during a National Dialogue to mark 2021 Democracy Day organised by the Civil Liberties Organisations (CLO) in conjunction with the Office of Senior Special Assistant to the President on Niger Delta Affairs in Uyo.

He added that the dialogue would help the six geo-political zones in the country express their grievances and reach a compromise that would help to move the country forward.

The senator said that the voice of discord and discontent across the country was getting louder and should be addressed.

According to him, the national conference would not take over the functions of the government but serve as a feedback from the people.

“The voices of discord are getting louder, and it may be time to allow Nigerians to dialogue with one other by whatever arrangement.

“It was like this under Jonathan Presidency in 2013 when President Jonathan convened that 2014 confab and that political temperature was tamed and calmed,” he said.

Enang, who also called for a dialogue with the youths, added that profiling and tagging them criminals was responsible for youth restiveness witnessed in the country.

He criticised the politicians and political parties for using and abandoning them without providing jobs for them.

He said: “It is time to have meaningful dialogue with the youths of this state and country and practically give them roles and space in the governance and economy of this state and country.

“We should not profile them as criminals or cultists nor such derogatory nor demeaning appellations that gives them low self or societal esteem.”

The presidential aide supported the ranching policy being advocated by the Federal Government, and kicked against open grazing, adding it was responsible for the current high cost of food stuffs in the market.

“One of the matters causing mutual ethnic suspicion and insecurity, namely Land use and farmer herders clashes and the attendant effect on imminent food shortage and loss of livelihood.

“The solution to the farmers herders’ clashes is strict adherence to the Law and agreed policies consistent with the law.

“Therefore, the question of making laws banning open grazing or not does not arise again because this has already been outlawed by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 and the Land Use Act, 1978 which has now been again ingrafted into the 1999 Constitution as part thereof.

“The Land Use Act in addressing this issue provided in Section 6 that the Local Governments may establish, make out and gazette grazing reserves to provide fodder for goat, sheep, cattle, pigs and generally for raising animals, fisheries and integrated farming.

“Therefore, there is no contention on this matter as solution to the Security and economic problems posed by the farmers – herders clashes and destruction of farmlands,” he said.

In his remarks, Mr Onofiok Luke, Member of the House of Representatives for Etinan, Nsit-Ibom, Nsit-Ubium state constituency in the National Assembly, urged the FG not to pay deaf ears to various agitations coming out from the South/East and South/ West regions.

Luke, who is the Chairman, House of Representatives on Judiciary expressed disappointment that much has been said but nobody is listening to various voices of reasoning in Nigeria.

He said the problem of Nigeria requires taking bipartisan approach to tackle and proffer solution.

Luke, who is a former Speaker, Akwa Ibom House of Assembly, Nigerian problem does not know region, religion tribe and affiliation.

“It is by coming together to share ideas and share thoughts beyond party lines, taking a bipartisan approach, bringing together men and women who have leaders touch, or one solution or the other, one idea or the other that we could all fine-tune and push the agenda for the development of this country.

“It is against that background that I see this gathering as very apt. I have always been an advocate for bipartisan approach to the problems of this country. The problem we are facing doesn’t know party, it doesn’t know region, religion.

“Now the security crisis we are experiencing in the South East, we have had a case of that crisis in North West. We have had students kidnapped from Schools, and those students are not Christians, those students are Muslims.

“And then we’ve had this crisis happen in states that are APC, we have had it happen in states that are PDP.

“And the people affected by this crisis are the Nigerian populace. It affects our parents, siblings. Any aggregation of ideas to discuss the way forward for this country is welcome.

Luke commended the CLO for organising the dialogue in conjunction with office of the Special Assistant to the President on Niger Delta to see how we can talk to find solution for our problem.

“I am a firm believer in the unity of Nigeria, the unity of Nigeria founded on justice, equity and then founded on true federalism. And we can achieve this by every segment of this society seeing ourselves as equals.

“The problem today, from the agitation that we have had, agitation for secession, for all sorts of things is because some sections of the country feel marginalised,” he said.