The pan-Northern socio-political group, the Arewa Consultative Forum, has said that it does not support the calls for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) to discuss issues about the continued existence of Nigeria, saying holding such a conference would rubbish our democratic institutions.
This position was made by the Publicity Secretary of the Forum, Mr Anthony Sani, while receiving the Irish Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Patrick Fay to the secretariat of the ACF, saying that though some people have been calling for an SNC, the ACF did not see its necessity as there was already a democracy in place in the country.
He said, “They are calling the different nationalities in the country to come out and discuss our problems, that would be passing a vote of no confidence on the democratic institutions in the country and we don’t want to do that. We have said time without number that the problem of Nigeria is not with structure but the attitude of the people; we should not deceive ourselves that by convening an SNC with all the ethnic nationalities will solve our problems.”
“I believe that our visit to other socio cultural organisations like the Ohaneze, the Yoruba Unity Forum and other groups from other regions of the country, is also another form of national dialogue because the move is all aimed at understanding ourselves for peace and unity of the country. We stand for peace and unity of the country.”
Sani also said that Northern leaders have been clamouring for amnesty for Boko Haram because it believed that dialogue was the way out of the insurgency as force had not solved it.
He therefore called on the envoy to speak to the people in government with the purpose of bringing peace to the country, based on their experience with Northern Ireland, adding that they were also looking at amnesty as a bait to help bring out the members of the sect and urged the Federal Government to continue with the amnesty and dialogue.