Banji Alabi, chairman Ondo State Eminent Persons Group told ABIODUN FANORO that if government tackles security challenges and fixes the fuel subsidy issue, the New Year would bring great fortunes.
On Removal Of Fuel Subsidy
I hope Nigerians are ready for one of the toughest, most important fights we’ll face together against the removal of fuel subsidy, should Labour’s threat be anything to go by; but I think that although the timing is very wrong and totally insensitive to the mood of the nation, it is a good thing for Nigeria to deregulate. It will bring popular participation and competition in the building of refinery, providing employment, development of infrastructure, check corruption in the oil sector and eventually lower prices of refined products.
Politics
The Boko Haram issue may assume a frightening dimension in 2012 and with the attendant wobbling government’s reaction to the menace, the situation may force Nigerians to renew the call for the convening of Sovereign National Conference (SNC). What we tend to forget is that Nigeria had already convened an SNC between January 1967, in Aburi Ghana and what is left is the minor adjustment to the document and the full implementation. It is probably the best recorded constitutional debate in the history of Nigeria and by the finest in Nigeria, absolutely honest and incorruptible Nigerians. Virtually everything discussed at that Aburi conference is relevant today. A reader would be tempted to believe that the discussion was on Nigeria’s problems as at 2011, rather than 44 years earlier, in 1967.
Nigerians must demand for the implementation of the details of Aburi conference in 2012. It will settle the Boko Haram issue, address the restiveness in Niger Delta and promote the development of the Nigeria Nation.
Given that we have already wasted billions of Naira on constitutional debates, and constitutions that are no longer in use, the Ondo State Eminent Group does not really see how an SNC could discuss anything that has not already been covered in the previous constitutional debates. Rather than wasting more money on another rancorous conference, which will yet again be hijacked by the same people who produced the constitutions, which we are all now unhappy with.
Opportunities
The year 2012 promises to provide ample opportunities, but only if people know how to seize them. To succeed we need to change with the way the world is working now. When Nigeria was founded, the majority of people had their own businesses, farms, market or trade. People used their skills to make a living as entrepreneurs. Then the western civilization and the industrial age changed the ratio and most people became employed in companies but today we are witnessing the death of that era, the corporate structure and the industrial age have begun to crumble. We are returning to the way we started, as entrepreneurs. If you are unemployed, underemployed, or wants to take control of your financial future in 2012, you must adapt to the new reality, create opportunities and commercialize them. You must identify those that can help your dreams to self-reliant.
View the original here:
‘New Year Would Be Good If We Do Things Right’