The Paramount Ruler of Seimbiri Kingdom in Delta State, Pere (Dr.) Charles Ayemi Botu, has called on the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to implement the reports of the 2014 National Constitutional Conference convened by former president Goodluck Jonathan.
Botu said that implementing the reports of the 2014 Confab would address the agitations of the various nationalities making up the Nigerian nation for a restructuring of the country.
The royal father stated this in an exclusive interview with our correspondent in Warri, Delta State.
He noted that restructuring the country in a manner that it would reflect a true Federation would also end the current mutual suspicion among the various ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.
Botu stressed that the issue of the continued corporate existence of the Nigerian nation could not be dismissed with a wave of the hand by anyone or government.
The royal father said, “We have to really discuss about our continued existence as a nation.
The popular opinion is that we must restructure and a short cut to Restructuring is to apply the 2014 Constitutional Conference Report now and put to rest the mutual suspicion each part of the country have for one another.
“On the contrary, it will provide healthy environment among the regions therefore catapult human capital and infrastructural development as the giant of Africa in a highly keen and competitive nature among the regions like the old three Regions in the 50s.”
Recalling how he sold the idea that led to the convocation of the National Confab to the then president Goodluck Jonathan and how he first dismissed it, the Seimbiri Kingdom paramount ruler said, “In 2010 when Dr. Goodluck Jonathan became the president after the death of Umaru Yar’ Adua, I advised him via a press statement to convoke a sovereign national conference.
I said this knowing full well that Lord Lugard did the amalgamation of the North and South arbitrarily to become Nigeria in 1914 and that by 2014 the treaty would lapse, when the amalgamation would be 100 years old; it would be appropriate to discuss our continued existence as a nation.
He (Jonathan) replied me immediately with an emphatic no. he dismissed the idea.”
Botu, however, decried the current seeming confusion about the state of the Nigerian economy. He stated that a situation whereby the government overvalued the dollar at the expense of the Nigerian Naira should not be allowed to continue, urging the Central Bank of Nigeria to take steps to peg the value of the dollar against the Naira.
“When they say in one vein that the country is getting out of recession and in another vein is in recession, one is confused. It is wrong to politicise the state of the country’s economy. When Buhari came in 2015 a lot of foreign currencies were deposited in the banks.
However, all of a sudden some people started withdrawing these monies from the banks.
The US dollar is a very strong currency. It is coming from an industrialised economy. Nigeria imports most of the things we consume. When our corrupt politicians amass wealth they convert the naira in their possession to US dollar since it is easier to stack away.
“At a stage, the dollar was as high in value as N530 to a dollar. It was when Osinbajo held the mantle of leadership in acting capacity that it dropped considerably as a result of some economic policies he tinkered with.Before then, the government allowed a free fall of our currency. We have much dollars from the sale of our oil in the international market. It will not be asking for too much if the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) can put a peg on the value of the US dollar. The dollar value can be pegged at N100 to a dollar. The economy will benefit tremendously from such a policy,” he said.
