By Saharareporters, New York
The National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) today reiterated the need for Nigeria to convene a Sovereign National Conference, for which it called on President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan "and his governmental team," Executive-Legislature-Judiciary, to embrace the idea as a matter of urgency.
It invited all ethnic nationalities to intensify their respective constitution-making processes in formations of their choice including conducting referendum in their respective areas and blocs in readiness for the inevitable final resolution of the long standing National Question.
"Between Aburi and Araba, NADECO believes that a Sovereign National Conference is the inevitable first step and irreducible minimum condition that can set us on the path to salvaging the country from the unfolding grave dangers," the statement said. "The crises Nigeria faces reaffirms that it is mandatory that the peoples of Nigeria must sit down and restore the very foundation of the country, and thus re-establish the constitutional architecture of Nigeria, allowing every group sufficient space for self and group actualization, so that we can build a nation-state out of the diverse ethnic nationalities."
It warned that some people who believe they benefit from the skewed structure and who adamantly refuse to allow the needed dialogue often turn round to accuse SNC proponents of pushing for Nigeria's break up. In the view of NADECO, the actions of the opponents of SNC can only lead to Nigeria's break-up and responsibility for such outcome would rest squarely upon such opponents of the idea.
It said the proposal of the SNC is not about taking governance. "NADECO warns that no group of power-hungry adventurers of whatever Class should contemplate to, talk less of, capitalise on the crises to take over governance," it said. "NADECO also commits, alongside the inevitability of the Sovereign National Conference, to ensuring that any such adventure will come to naught and to the grief of any such perpetrators. It goes without saying that any such adventure, indeed MISADVENTURE, would hasten and will cement the undesired and otherwise avoidable violent disintegration of the country, Nigeria."
It said NADECO will shortly be inviting the ethnic nationalities to a colloquium where the issues and processes relating to its proposal will be reviewed by all concerned for a peaceful advancement.
[Full text of the statement]:
Being the Text of a Press Conference by NADECO on the State of the Country.
As patriotic Nigerians who have at critical periods of crises, periods of uncertainty and virtual crossroads, made interventions, even at the risk to their lives to strive for, and defend democracy in its true form, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO ) has watched with grave concern, the unfolding events which have heightened insecurity, aggravated instability and ground an already traumatised economy to a halt, threatening the building blocks of the country, Nigeria. Infact, earlier on, NADECO had received calls from groups and individuals to intervene in the suffocating political situation which repeatedly exposed the underbelly of gross inadequacies of the country's constitutional structure.
For the information and education of budding and olding youth, NADECO is a platform of selfless, albeit distinguished and eminent Nigerians of highest positive pedigree, working with Pro-Democracy Activists, Civil Society Groups, Organised Unions, Professional Bodies, Organised Women Groups, Students Movements and other critical groups in the polity, established in April 1994 as an umbrella platform, to campaign vigorously, creditably and conclusively for the convocation of Sovereign National Conference (SNC) and for the de-annulment of the electoral victory recorded by Bashorun M.K.O Abiola in the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election; an election adjudged in Nigeria and by Nigerians, in and by the International Community as the freest and fairest countrywide election ever held in Nigeria.
At the risk to their lives but, it is repeated, in defense of Democracy and in an effort to restore the Federal imperative that was the basis upon which Nigeria came into being, NADECO confronted maximum ruler Abacha of fading memory. Some viewed the dare as suicidal, but suffice it to say that TELL MAGAZINE's 1996 paraphrase of the NADECO struggle was gratifying, thus: "The fear of NADECO is the beginning of wisdom in Abacha's Aso Rock.".
Those who did not understand the motivations believed from TELL's assessment of NADECO's prowess that NADECO lost bearings when it failed to offer itself as alternate Government when Abacha's regime bit the dust. Many have wondered whether NADECO had abandoned the avowed objective of restoring federalism and had joined in the destructive transformation of what should be a Federal Country into an untenable one through a Unitary System of Government as foisted upon the Nigerian citizenry by the military through what is called the 1999 Constitution, perhaps to preserve the military organic structure by which the country was misgoverned, talk less of entrenching self-preserving master-servant political order. .
We remain committed to our original objective and in keeping with those objectives, we had cause before the 2011 Election to advise that our Country was being consumed by issues greater than what just a General Election can address and that such issues are resolvable only by a Sovereign National Conference. After the Election, we cautioned that in the absence of the factors tending towards explosion abating, a Sovereign National Conference be convoked before irreversible self-determination actions became rampant.
NADECO warned that if Nigeria failed to quickly restore the true federal foundations upon which it was established, it may just skid into a disorderly and probably violent exit of entrapped ethnic nationalities from the Nigerian union. It now seems evident that the actions of Boko Haram and other regional ethnic/self-determination groups may have now set us almost irreversibly on the highway to disintegration, most likely violently.
Thereafter we warned that action was needed to avoid a violent disintegration of Nigeria and as recently as 15th December, 2011 being the first anniversary of the demise of our departed Leader Chief Anthony Enahoro, we warned that only a little time was left to stem the evil confronting the country and decried the attempts, subtle and frontal alike, to evade a proper Sovereign National Conference.
Again for the information and education of the youth, some of whom are now in governance yet unaware of how Nigeria came into being and the only basis upon which it can remain one country, it is pertinent to recall that towards the end of the colonial era and as independence approached, three Regions (Northern, Eastern and Western) which could have gone off as countries of their own agreed to remain one country at independence solely on account of certain level of individual autonomy. Each Region had its own Constitution, developed at its own pace using its own resources and contributed to the upkeep of a central government (Federal Government) which was in the first place a creation of the Regions, exercising only such powers as are delegated to it by the federating Regions. The Regions later became four with the emergence of the Mid-Western Region.
This Federal arrangement which lasted up to 1966 became the golden era of Nigeria as the Regions developed rapidly in healthy rivalry. These got truncated by the intrusion of the Military into governance following the coup of January,1966.
The Constitutions (One Federal, Four Regional) were abrogated and in their place a Unitary system and government was by Decree imposed. States were created by the Federal Government without Constitutions of their own and without most of the powers vested in the defunct Regions. The resources owned and controlled by the erstwhile Regions were by decree confiscated and hijacked by the Federal Government to date. Over time (1976-1996) more dysfunctional States were created bringing the number to 36, each being allocated revenue by the Centre.
To compound matters, Council areas (774) were also created and are allocated revenue by the Centre.
The distortions created by the mutilation of the then Federal Nigeria into an unworkable unitarism is responsible for the current quagmire Nigeria has found itself and has progressively manifested in different agitations across the country all tending towards self-assertion and self-determination by seemingly entrapped ethnic nationalities.
In view of the fast degenerating situation, it is pertinent to recall the tendency to irreversible ebb tide we foresaw and several times raised alarm about, to which the authorities turned deaf ears .
FROM THE NIGER-DELTA REGION
Amidst the hectic oil war it waged at the time, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), issued a bulletin in April 2008 in which it sought to restate its reasons for the resource control war; the statement read in part:
"A Constitution simply refers to the body of Agreement reached and adopted by the constituents on how to govern their Union. When such Agreement is replaced by a powerful but tiny minority as has been the case in Nigeria since 1966, the result is the agitation for liberation which in our case has assumed an armed dimension. Arms aside, the struggle of MEND is not different from that of the MASSOB or the MOVEMENT FOR YORUBA AUTONOMY/OPC or the MOSOP. They are all seeking to retrieve their lost sovereignties either within a re-negotiated Nigeria as prescribed by PRONACO Draft or outside it as envisaged by MASSOB" – (The Nation Newspaper, 8th April, 2008)
Recently, a Pan Niger-Delta Group called NIGER DELTA NATIONS LEADERS, in the wake of the bloody protests that greeted the hike in the pump price of petrol, posited in part:
"… Nigerians currently have time and space for two peaceful opportunities:
i. Renegotiating a new basis of our continued corporate coexistence as a Nation
ii. Negotiate a peaceful dissolution of the Nigerian State as was the case with the USSR, Ethiopia and Czechoslovakia." (Vanguard Newspaper, January 9, 2012)
Another Group called:
NIGER-DELTA OCCUPY NIGER-DELTA RESOURCES in an advertorial in the Vanguard Newspaper of January 15, 2012 insisted on:
"… taking our resources back by all and any legal means available to us nationally and internationally; … it is our absolute right to reclaim our land, water, mangroves, swamps and creeks from the strange hands that have long held them hostage."
"We the long suffering, neglected, abused and marginalised peoples of the Niger Delta find it very necessary at this point after much consultation and analysis, to call our people to come back home… it has become crystal clear to our people that we are neither wanted or needed as equal partners in this Country that is made by Lord Lugard" and continuing: "… Therefore, we have as of this date, 15th January, 2012, started the occupation of our States and Resources and call on all Niger Delta People to converge to occupy our land, water, swamps, mangroves and creeks to protect our God-given Resources."
"… We call on all our Niger Delta peoples, for the sake of our future, to look to our nearest neighbours, the Igbos, for immediate and strong alliance to enable the Niger Delta Nations and the Igbo Nation to face the obvious change that will come to Nigeria, in strength, justice, brotherhood and truth."
FROM THE YORUBA WEST:
Afenifere by an advertorial in the Punch Newspaper of the 29th January 2009 asserted that:,
"We cannot build a stable and prosperous Nation on a faulty and unworkable constitutional foundation. For a stable Nigeria there are two imperatives; namely: reversion to True Federalism and Regional Government and a return to a Parliamentary System of Government.
These are the minimum conditions that can keep the Yoruba and most ethnic nationalities as permanent members of the Nigerian State. … Ultimately the Draft PRONACO Constitution will have to be adopted as the basis of our New Constitution."
FROM EASTERN NIGERIA
The position of the East has not radically changed from what it was in Aburi in January of 1967 where, upon the failure of Federalism, it opted for a Confederal arrangement with maximum autonomy for the Federating Regions. If anything, the pursuits and sentiments of MASSOB and now the Lower Niger Congress, (a joint platform of the Igbo and the rest of the Niger Delta for self-determination), are indicative of a desire to extricate their territories from a failed Nigeria.
FROM THE MIDDLE BELT:
Many years of oppression and routine genocide against the peoples of the Middle-Belt by the Far North now aggravated by Boko Haram has compelled the Middle-Belt to go beyond merely seeking its own identity away from one monolithic North to now advocating a complete dismantling of the Nigerian Union. Relatedly, at a Press Conference on the 13th December, 2011, the Christian Association of Nigeria in the 19 Northern States advocated that Nigeria should split. (Reported in Daily Sun Newspaper of December 14, 2011 at Page 7.)
THE SHARIA NORTH
BOKO HARAM, which operates as the enforcement arm of the Sharia Project, after their bloody encounter with the Police in Kano in December 2011 issued a bulletin in which it restated its mission as follows:
"We want to re-emphasize that our main objective is the restoration of the Sharia Legal System in line with the teachings of the Holy Qur'an. We want the Nigerian Constitution to be abrogated and Democracy suspended and a full-fledged Islamic State established. We want to emphasize that trouble started in this part of the world when the white men came, colonised our land, chased away the Emirs and righteous leaders and then replaced the system with Western Legislative, Judicial and Executive procedures. They also changed our pattern of learning and upbringing to the detriment of moral teachings; that was exactly what prompted the establishment of our organization." (Reported in Daily Sun, December 19th 2011)
And now come January 20, 2012 mayhem and massacre is again visited upon Kano for same reasons.
NADECO unequivocally condemns the persisting unconscionable killings of Nigerians in certain areas in the northern parts of the country and the alleged pockets of retaliatory killings in the southern parts. NADECO condemns the bombing of churches and, for that matter, any other institution/place as well as the ultimatum and threat of further attacks which have precipitated the displacement and dislocation of particularly peoples from the southern parts of Nigeria from places they have lived. That having been said, let it be known from all observable signals and assessments, what is being witnessed now will be child's play if we do not quickly confer.
We wish not, we pray not, but it will obviously be so, if we confer not.
It will be recalled that Movement for New Nigeria. (a joint platform of various self-determination blocs comprised of the Lower Niger Congress, the Federation of Oodua Peoples and the Middle Belt Alliance) had by a Declaration on the 30th June, 2011, titled: "THE FAILED STATE CALLED NIGERIA, OUR STAND" reviewed the various agitations, positing that the 1999 Constitution was dead; that the Nigerian Union was at an end and in the light of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007, concluded that each of the blocs were entitled to their Rights to Self Determination within their respective natural spaces and in formations agreeable to them. By another statement of September 5, 2011, MNN stated as follows following further development in the polity:
"We fear that the Aburi option has now been kicked off the table by the sustained post election violence unleashed by the Sharia North leaving us with ARABA only. Since Sharia is mutually exclusive with constitutionalism and democracy as amply reiterated by BOKO HARAM, it stands to reason that the geospace labeled Nigeria cannot remain one political union except either the Sharia block is persuaded/compelled to abandon Sharia for Democracy/Constitutionalism or the non Sharia Block is persuaded/compelled to abandon Democracy/Constitutionalism for Sharia; the prospect for either is nil and therefore creates a new reality. Accordingly, the only choice to be made by all stakeholders is between a consensual peaceful dissolution of the failed Nigerian Project or to wait for the unilateral, uncoordinated exit of the erstwhile federating blocks which may become disorderly and even violent."
It is noteworthy that in what is clearly a studied advice on the subject of Sovereign National Conference, a group known as South-East/South-South Professionals in a Statement dated 20/01/12 warned that if by the end of 2012 the SNC is not yet convoked, the dialogue option of resolving the fundamental issues would in their words, be off the table, encouraging disenchanted ethnic nationalities to attempt to take their destinies in their hands.
NADECO repeats its call for a Sovereign National Conference. Between Aburi and Araba, NADECO believes that a Sovereign National Conference is the inevitable first step and irreducible minimum condition that can set us on the path to salvaging the country from the unfolding grave dangers. The crises Nigeria faces reaffirms that it is mandatory that the peoples of Nigeria must sit down and restore the very foundation of the country, and thus re-establish the constitutional architecture of Nigeria, allowing every group sufficient space for self and group actualization, so that we can build a nation-state out of the diverse ethnic nationalities. Some who believe they benefit from the skewed structure and who adamantly refuse to allow the needed dialogue often turn round to accuse SNC proponents of pushing for Nigeria's break up. The truth however is that the actions of the opponents of SNC can only lead to Nigeria's break-up and responsibility for such outcome would rest squarely upon such opponents of an SNC.
NADECO calls on President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and his governmental team, Executive-Legislative-Judiciary, to urgently embrace the much-advocated and indeed inevitable Sovereign National Conference (SNC). NADECO invites all stakeholders namely, the Ethnic Nationalities to intensify their respective constitution-making processes in formations of their choice including conducting referendum in their respective areas and blocs in readiness for the inevitable final resolution (by the only way that will be peaceful) of the long standing National Question. They should now finalise their respective Federating Units Constitutions, their positions at the Enahoro-led PRONACO that produced the Draft PEOPLES' CONSTITUTION. Pursuant to this and accordingly, Ethnic Nationalities across the country should now liaise positively towards meeting in a Conference within the first-half of 2012; the earlier the better. The process is on. Be it known to all that the issues at stake transcend amendments or empanelment of Presidential Committee to collate past reports. All these beg the question since no constitution had been agreed upon.
NADECO warns that no group of power-hungry adventurers of whatever Class should contemplate to, talkless of, capitalise on the crises to take over governance. NADECO also commits, alongside the inevitability of the Sovereign National Conference, to ensuring that any such adventure will come to naught and to the grief of any such perpetrators. It goes without saying that any such adventure, indeed MISADVENTURE, would hasten and will cement the undesired and otherwise avoidable violent disintegration of the country, Nigeria.
The Ethnic Nationalities, the peoples of this country know that and will hold all those who (consciously/subconsciously, voluntarily/involuntarily, individually/corporately, in or out of governance), delay/deny the critical conferencing vital for averting the day of reckoning, responsible and accountable for misdeeds; a Day of Reckoning that must surely come if we do not sit down and confer. Let it be stated for emphasis that some or a lot of the ethnic nationalities, completely sovereign in their own rights may not be allowing for the luxury of any further time-waste. We must confer now.
In the coming days, NADECO will be inviting the Ethnic Nationalities to a Colloquium where the issues and processes relating to the outlined will be reviewed by all concerned for a peaceful advancement.
NADECO, January, 2012.
Signed
For and On Behalf of NADECO:
R/Admiral G N Kanu
Chief Ayo Adebanjo
Fred Agbeyegbe
Gen. A. Akinrinade
Dr Uma Eleazu
Sen Olabiyi Durojaiye
Chief Guy Ikokwu
Alfred Ilenre
Emeka Ugwu-Oju
Dr Amos Akingba
Asue Ighodalo
Col. Tony Nyiam
Sen. Okurounmu
P. Obada
Baba Omojola
Bishop B Gbonigi
Joe Ikunna
Tokunbo Ajasin
Linus Okoroji
Pedro Okojie
Tony Nnadi
St. George Ekeh
Louis Egwuatu
Ayo Opadokun
www.newnadeco.com
Email: newnadeco2012@yahoo.com
What helps kids to cease sucking their fingers or thumbs? I'm hoping that these principles will prove useful for grownups who want to overcome mistaken-things-we-put-in-our-mouths like excessive food, alcohol or 
Four and five year old children do not have to suck to regain a positive emotional state By then they have multiple means of calming themselves when they are upset, and of entertaining themselves when they feel bored. They are no longer dependent on their thumb or pacifier as t he only option. They can walk into a different room and find a new toy if they are bored, run to mom for a hug if they feel upset, and open the refrigerator door to pull out an apple if they are hungry. Yet the sucking is likely to continue. That's because it feels good. 
