IN order for Nigeria to emerge a stronger, better nation in the near future, Abia State Governor Theodre A. Orji has called for regional integration between states in the country as well as the establishment of state police outfits by individual states.
This, the governor advocated, alongside the states’ control of their respective resources to enable the states to develop at a pace commensurate with their viability.
Governor Orji made the case at a lecture he gave on Wednesday, July 4th 2012, at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos, Nigeria. The lecture was titled, ‘National Economic Integration and Transformation Agenda.’
Making the case for the establishment of independent police for the states in Nigeria, Mr. Orji said it was the best way to adequately protect lives and properties in each state, where the police have better knowledge of their surroundings. The governor also said that the sustenance of a secure polity goes hand-in-hand with good governance and job creation, which will absorb the army of unemployed youth roaming the streets.
Other justifications cited by Governor Orji for regional integration include cooperation on healthcare delivery and free, compulsory and qualitative education up to the secondary educational level. Also to benefit from such integration are traditional and cultural values of the various regions.
During the discourse section, a former federal minister for information and culture
Dr Walter Ofonagoro commended the presentation by Governor Orji but
disagreed on the issue of state police control, saying that if put in place, it could
alienate some individuals from their states of origin for fear of the unknown.
Ofonagoro, who was also former secretary, National Constitutional Conference
commission in 1995 suggested the adoption of the original zonal economic
integration as recommended by the constitutional conference, to make for a stronger
and vibrant Nigeria, stressing that the agitation for a proposed 45 states in Nigeria
could further widen the gap of disunity in the country at present. He further
blamed Nigerian past leaders for ceeding the bakassi peninsula to the Cameroons,
pointing out that the appropriate authorities on the history of Nigeria were not
consulted.
He said that those who represented at the international court of justice
had no proper knowledge of the true history of Nigeria.
In his own contribution, senator Ike Nwachukwu, a one time foreign minister in Nigeria also lauded the lecture by governor Orji, he however, agreed with the submission by Dr Ofonagoro on the carving out of Bakassi from Nigeria, saying that it was the greatest disservice to Nigeria as a nation by self seeking men in uniform.
The lecture which was acclaimed by participants as timely and rewarding was attended by a cross section of people from Abia and different ethnic groups in Nigeria.