Clark reveals NASS spends N1bn yearly on futile constitution review

Elder statesmen, Chief Edwin Clark, yesterday, alleged that the National Assembly spends about N1 billion annually on effort to review the nation’s constitution without making any result.

He challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to convoke a meeting of representatives of Nigeria to deliberate on the report submitted by the Governor Nasir el-Rufai committee set up by the All Progressive Congress (APC) on restructuring.

Addressing a press conference in Abuja, the former federal commissioner of information asserted that if the APC cannot implement its own committee’s recommendations, it means it lacked necessary powers under President Buhari’s administration. Clark said if the Buhari’s administration continued in its perceived injustice, the issue of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Yoruba nation agitators would be a child’s play.

He stressed that he, like others, were on the departure lounge of their lives but were still ready to be tried for treason and thrown into prison for speaking against injustice.

“Let me warn you that this country does not belong to a few individuals. What IPOB is doing, what the Yorubas are doing is still a child’s  play. No other Nigerian is prepared to subjugate himself. We may  all join and there will be chaos in this country. Nigeria  must be ready. The prison is not only for thieves, its meant for those who are fighting for the interest of their country. Some of us are ready for treasonable trial. We’re ready to go. Nobody loves this country more than myself.  Enough is enough.”

Clark, who is also leader of the Southern, Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) maintained that the situation of the country has worsened.

“Things are really going very bad in the country.  God may mean it for good but as humans and as fallible as we are, it is fast becoming an issue of great concern to well-meaning Nigerians, and we cannot keep quiet…I will continue to talk out loud and clear on burning issues in Nigeria until it pleases God to call me home.

“There is so much hunger in the land, people can no longer go to the farm because, farmers are killed, raped, maimed.

“Look at the apprehension that people had over the Anambra elections before the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) suspended its sit-at-home order.

“It is important to highlight that the call for restructuring is not anti-Buhari or anti-north, it is a call for equity, fairness and justice; a call for the advancement of Nigeria and Nigerians. President Muhammadu Buhari recognised the importance of restructuring when he contested election as far back as 2011. It was a very prominent agenda item in his manifesto.

“The South is calling for restructuring; the North is calling for restructuring. The whole country believes in restructuring. Restructuring was also one of the key priority issues in his party’s, the APC’s manifesto, when it was formed, and during the 2015 presidential campaigns, which he has now abandoned, on assumption of office..

“So, the party’s national executive including President Buhari, decided to set up a committee under the chairmanship of Nasir El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State, with other prominent party members as members of the Committee.

“My fellow Nigerians, I do not think majority of Nigerians, in their demand for restructuring, need more than what is contained in the recommendations of the El-Rufai Committee to move Nigeria forward from an archaic unprogressive unitary form of government to a progressive federal system of government.

“As a member of the 2014 National Conference, I discovered that about 98 per cent of the El-Rufai’s Report are what was already contained in the 2014 National Conference Report which made 600 recommendations, which are all in public domain.