S/West restates call for SNC, constitution amendment

THE South-West delegation to the tripartite meeting of the South-South, South-East and South-West, held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, has restated the call for a Sovereign National Con-ference (SNC), as a way of fostering greater ethnic co-existence in the country.

It also called for the resolution of grey areas in the 1999 Constitution, as a way of achieving a more equitable federalism in the country.

In a position paper deli-vered at the conference, last week Thursday, the South-West delegation noted that the country was currently on the brink of failure, being progressively ravaged by the forces of terrorism, corruption and an defective constitution, all of which, it said, made life unbearable for the masses, while a few wallowed in opulence.

It said the way to re-solve the anomalies was for all ethnic nationalities in the country to sit down at a conference, present an agenda and dialogue with others to reach a national compromise.

The delegation observed that since one of the causes of friction within the Nigerian polity was the attempt to operate a quasiunitary constitution, with high concentration of power and resources at the federal, it had become imperative to amend the 1999 Consti-tution, to allow for reduced Federal Government powers.

It called for a six-regional structure based on the present six geopolitical zones, a return to the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy and fiscal federalism and control.