Boko Haram : It’s crime against humanity – Ugwuoju

The South- East and South-South Professionals recently organised a Town Hall meeting in Enugu where issues of national development were deliberated upon by various professionals drawn from the region. The forum was tagged “South-East, South-South Conversation in Nigeria.” Leader of the group, Chief Emeka Ugwuoju spoke on the objective of the dialogue and other topical issues. Excerpts:

What informed the decision of your groupto organize the Town Hall meeting in Enugu?
We were in Enugu as a result of the decision taken by the South-east, South-south Professionals to play their role in seeing to the progress of our dear country, Nigeria considering the situation facing us now. The country is been buffeted by terrorists, high rate of unemployment, high level of corruption in the system.

So we decided that one  thing we have left for us is our objectivity and credibility to intervene and collate some facts which people who know our pedigree could rely and work on. It’s not that we want to look good before anybody, the president, governors, members of the National Assembly or what have you, no; but  we what to look for solutions, genuine solutions.

Many of us in the group are contemporaries of the people in leadership  positions in the country, starting from the president. Some of us have comfortable means of livelihood and it’s not as if we are looking for contracts. That give us the  opportunity to look at things objectively and so far people are seeing what we have come up with in the time past.

For us, the nation is more important than individual relationship. So that’s what we are doing to get the views of people.
We want to know how the people feel and also to let the country know the urgency of the situation because things have never been this bad in the country.

This is why we have come up with the town-hall meeting format which we have tagged South East, South_South Conversation in Nigeria. We are talking with Nigerians and sharing ideas on how we can be able to get ourselves out of this ugly situation

After the parley what comes next?
With regards to the town hall format, there will be a general consensus on how people feel and we will make it available to the whole country un-doctored, we will make it available to different leadership flanks in the country starting with the president, National Assembly, Governors, Local Government Councils and so on and so forth., it might interest you that prior to the April elections last year, we had met with the Senate President, David Mark and the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, that was around November 2010.

We also went to see the Minister of Petroleum, Diezeani, with regards to the Petroleum Industry Bill because we saw that t was very  important that it is fast tracked.  That was in 2010 and now  we are in 2012 and yet nothing has been done so far, except now that we are having Senator Udo Udoma committee to fast  track it. It’s a bit unfortunate that we had to wait for the national strike to do what we ought to have done long ago. But the point I’m trying to make is that yes we do have access to some of the people.

But the  only difference this time around is that it is as a result of the strike, that people have realized the power of the people and are looking at things differently from the way they used to. Before, when we met with them, nothing was done but now they have started looking at things

How does your group feel about the way Nigerians are being slaughtered in the name of Boko Haram?
I think, every life is sacred and we abhor totally the deliberate killing of any human being whether he’s  Nigerians or non-Nigerian. So, with regards to the Boko Haram issue, it’s something that, we condemn the killings of human beings; but from my perspective, we are not just condemning.

We must find a way of stopping the killings and we are also interested in why what is happening is happening because we know that wasn’t happening before at least, we know there has been previous incidents especially with  regards to the killing of innocent southerners especially Igbo in the North but not to this level of violence but that also goes back to what we are talking about.

You don’t  have a nation and that’s why somebody could think that he could kill somebody because he is Igbo or because he is from the South. If you get the ingredients of nationhood, such killings will not take place. Because, the bases of nationhood is not there, that’s why such  dastardly acts are taking place but by the time we begin to appreciate that we are Nigerians, we are one people, things would begin to change.

We must have to live with our differences if we want to be a nation. The tragedy of Nigeria is that we see reality and we want to wish it away. The reality is that people are seeing things differently and they don’t see a Nigeria that they think they can be part of. The other time we had Niger Delta, MASSOB, OPC, now we have Boko Haram.

If not that lives are being wasted, I will say that the phenomenon of Boko Haram would be the catalyst that would lead us to building a Nigerian nation that we’ll call ours. Prior to this, it appeared as if it was a southern thing, east and west that don’t want to be Nigerians, but now we have northerners saying that they don’t feel comfortable with the Nigerian project.