SENATE SPOKESMAN, SEN ENYINNAYA ABARIBE
SAN FRANCISCO, October 02, (THEWILL) – The Senate on Wednesday said it welcomes the announcement of a convocation of a National Conference as made by President Goodluck Jonathan in his national broadcast marking Nigeria’s 53rd Independence Anniversary.
Spokesman of the Senate, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, in a statement, also said Senate notes that the national confab as announced is limited to the scope where the sovereignty of Nigeria is not called to question.
“It is therefore given that the proposed conference is in tandem with the time tested stand of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and as enunciated by the President of the Senate, Senator David A. B Mark, in his address at the last Nigerian Bar Association Conference in Calabar and to senators penultimate week,” he said.
Abaribe further declared that Senate has always canvassed the position that it will always welcome a conference where all ethnic nationalities would converge to discuss all critical issues and proffer the very best way that will enhance national unity.
“The Senate red-line and for which was aptly factored in the President’s broadcast is the conferment of a sovereign status to the conference.
“The Senate is happy that it is a conference that will hold with due respect to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.
“It has always been Senate’s considered stand that there cannot be two sovereigns at a time.
“The senate is therefore gratified with the development and see it as an opportunity to address all of Nigeria’s structural problems that keeps agitating the mind of her ethnic nationalities,” he said.
However, Abaribe averred that the Senate is confident that the conference’s final outcome would go a long way to cement Nigeria’s unity.
