The organisation said Buhari would have made sense if he had used the opportunity to outline the process of reconstituting Nigeria to return it to the path of productivity, autonomy for the federating units and sustainable peace and development.
The Southern
and Middle Belt Leaders Forum on Thursday faulted the nationwide broadcast by
the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), in commemoration of the
60 years of independence of Nigeria, but compared it with “the tale full of
sound and fury signifying nothing.
The SMBF made
its position known in a statement by Yinka Odumakin (South West), Chief Guy
Ikokwu (South East), Senator Bassey Henshaw (South South) and Dr. Isuwa Dogo
(Middle Belt).
The statement
read, “The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum has examined the broadcast of
President Buhari to mark the occasion of the 60 years of independence of
Nigeria and disappointingly concludes that it was like the tale full of sound
and fury signifying nothing.
“In the midst
of all the country is going through that requires the leadership to summon the
constituent units to the table of brotherhood to seek fundamental ways out all
we were treated to were the usual bland sermons and empty rhetorics.
“The
President said he was engaging in self-reflection but he never remembered how
our founding fathers negotiated a federal constitution which put us on the path
of development in the early years of independence until military intervention
set us on the ruinous unitary lane which has fostered underdevelopment to the
point that we are now the global secretariat of poverty at 60.
“It is
shameful that on this type of occasion, our president had to be lecturing us on
why we had to pay more for fuel because countries like Ghana, Egypt and Niger
are paying more.
“The
President would have been more inspiring if he had used the opportunity to lay
out the process of reconstituting Nigeria to return it to the path of
productivity, autonomy for the federating units and sustainable peace and
development. To leave Nigeria under its failing structure and be talking of
launching ethical whatever is a meaningless distraction.”
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