Former Governor of Cross River, member of the defunct Constituent Assembly, Economist and All Progressives’ Congress (APC) Chieftain, Chief Clement Ebri spoke with newsmen recently...
Ebri

Ebri

Former Governor of Cross River, member of the defunct Constituent Assembly, Economist and All Progressives’ Congress (APC) Chieftain, Chief Clement Ebri spoke with newsmen recently on national issues. Chief Ebri dwelt on burning national issues in Nigeria including cultism, restructuring and monkey pox. Dianabasi Effiong, who was there brings you the following excerpts:

Cultism Malaise

Apart from using security agencies to curb cult activities I think that a lot of counseling needs to be done at both federal and state levels.

The National Orientation Agency and other ethics-based agencies should, as a matter of urgency initiate programmes aimed at weaning our youths out of this mentality.

I also believe that the intolerably high level of youth unemployment in the country is largely responsible for this unfortunate scourge.

We need to direct the energies of our teeming unemployed youth to more productive ends. What really are the benefits of belonging to cult groups?

It is inconceivable that a sizable number of our youth believe that cult membership can guarantee employment for them.

Good character, learning and a sound mind remain the only guarantees for employment.

Government should utilize its vast resources to get to the root of the matter in order to rid our society of this unacceptable deviant behaviour.

NNPC/Petroleum Minister’s Squabble

The Minister’s letter that was leaked conveyed very damaging information about the activities in that place particularly as it casts aspersion on the integrity of the Managing Director.

At this point in time, I am reluctant to rush to judgement on the basis of the outpourings in the public domain. I’d rather wait until all the facts are out.

For now my prayer is that both parties will realize that as key managers of the flagship of the Nigerian economy they are duty bound to pursue a quick and amicable resolution of the matter.

Thankfully, the National Assembly has commenced investigations into the stand-off.

Hopefully, at the end of the day, new laws will be enacted to plug all the loopholes in the existing laws that may have hindered the smooth operation of the NNPC.

Monkey Pox

Every step must be taken by the federal government to keep the disease at bay. I am equally delighted to learn that a number of states have taken pre-emptive measures to stem the tide.

Nigerian Scientists should go to work immediately to identify the real causes of the disease in order to provide an effective and lasting remedy.

Restructuring

There is no doubt that some change is needed at this time, to keep the ship of state afloat.

Those clamouring for restructuring must however not lose sight of the fact that our political actors also need to change their mind set and act responsibly when entrusted with power, for restructuring to be meaningful.

While a fairly large segment of our society see restructuring essentially as the devolution of power to the states in order to make them stronger and weaken the centre, we must equally consider the level of responsibility of those entrusted with power to run the states.

A situation where our electoral system is skewed in favour of the rich without considering the pedigree of those who occupy public office deserves to be re-examined.

I hold the view that if the road to public office is paved with corruption, nothing good can come from the beneficiaries of such a tainted process.

Besides, true restructuring must necessarily address pitfalls of the Presidential system which majority of those clamouring for restructuring seem to gloss over.

I believe that in our plans for restructuring, a thorough re-consideration of the Presidential System of Government must be tabled for serious debate.

While I thoroughly agree that resource control is a desirable element of restructuring, we cannot, afford to be negligent about its implications for the stability of our fragile democracy.

We must thoroughly analyse its security implications, particularly in the short term, of stupendously rich states living side by side with the hopelessly poor on the other.

Can the very rich and the very poor coexist in peace? Those are critical questions that must be answered as we discuss the fate of our cherished democracy.

In the final analysis, I must reiterate the fact that restructuring cannot be accomplished overnight. As far as I am concerned, our immediate need is quality leadership at various levels of governance.

Once we have the right kind of leadership in place, we can still achieve a lot without going the way of restructuring.

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