The constitutional amendment on indegeneship now before the National Assembly should not be used to re-introduce RUGA because Nigerians have rejected, the programme ab initio, a renowned socio-political activist and critic, Chief Adesunbo Onitiri has advised.
In a press statement in Lagos, Onitiri lampooned those behind the constitutional amendments, alleging that they have a hidden agenda to re-introduce RUGA.
He pointed out that if the amendment sailed through, the state governors who were the custodians of land under the Land Use Act, would be powerless.
“All the forests and Forests Resources under the control of the state governments would easily be taken over by armed herdsmen, Boko Haram, and bandits who are already dislodging the indigenes from their ancestral lands.
“I think what the National Assembly should concern itself with, is to make laws that would unite the people, particularly fiscal federalism based on composite nationalities within the federation,” Onitiri advised.
He said it was an abuse of legislative power by the legislators to attempt to impose such constitutional illegality on the people who elected them to be their voice in the hallowed chambers.
Onitiri recalled that the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila announced on March 8, 2022, that the National Assembly would reconsider at least three proposed amendments to the 1999 Constitution that had been rejected by the House earlier on.
Onitiri noted that: “It is already in the constitution that every citizen has a right to live in any part of the country. But that right should not be abused to cause problems amongst the people, l mean between the settlers and the Indigenes.”
He advised the legislators to allow the sleeping dogs to lie, for peace and progress to manifest in the country. They should not be used as agents of destabilization.