Don't re-introduce RUGA through indegeneship amendment, says ONITIRI

*Chief Adesunbo Onitiri

(Nigeria) The constitutional amendment on indegeneship now before the National Assembly should not be used to re-introduce RUGA by the All Progressives Congress, APC, administration because Nigerians have rejected it ab initio, says , Chief Adesunbo Onitiri.

In a statement, yesterday, he said: “So, the National  Assembly should be cautious that any attempt to impose settlers on the Indigenes might create crises, difficult to manage, a renowned socio-political activist and critic.”

He lampooned those behind the constitutional amendments, alleging that they had 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 were already dislodging the indegenes from their ancestoral 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 cautioned.

He pointed out that it was an abuse of legislative power and confided trust by the legislators to attempt to impose such constitutional illegality on the people who elected them to be their voice in the hallowed chambers. 

According to Onitiri, posterity would not forgive the legislators who allowed themselves to be used against their own people. 

Onitiri recalled that the speaker of the 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.

They were amendments on foreigners married to Nigerian women, indigeneship, and that of 35 percent  affirmative action  in which women were asking for more space in the country's political space. 

Onitiri declared: "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.