NIGER State Governor Babangida Aliyu has said that the northern region of the country is not opposed to the national conference being canvassed by some sections of the country but that the North is against the setting up of a Sovereign National Conference.
Aliyu, while speaking against the backdrop of renewed calls for the convocation of an SNC by some Nigerians, said such a demand would entail all elected politicians vacating their positions and surrendering them to a committee that would be in charge of the SNC.
“Those calling for Sovereign National Conference must understand the implication of that. You cannot have two sovereignties in one place. If anybody says he is going to organise a sovereign national conference, all of us in government must resign our jobs and then transfer the sovereignty of the country to the committee that is going to discuss the sovereignty of the country,” he said at the opening of a one-day workshop organised by the Niger State Ministry of Tertiary Education for Niger State students in Minna.
The Niger governor added, “National conference? Yes, we can organise it and then send it to the appropriate organ to deliberate upon.
“I will love a national conference that will look at our constitution and really gives us justice, equity and fairness in our body politic and in our national life”.
Aliyu insisted that the North was not afraid of the convocation of a national conference because it believed it would move the country forward.
He said “Many people are trying to make it look like Northern states are afraid of conference, we are not; let us come and talk, let us come and look at our problems if it means restructuring the country let us come and do it but we must not be hoodwinked.
“If people want to secede, let them secede and then we see under which constitution they are going to secede; let us not be intimidated, we cannot be intimated because intimidation will not give us good policies, intimidation will not give us good nation, intimidation will not give us any progress.”
