A divided house can never stand. That is what we are! this is a thought provoking mental equation to tackle.
i Jeffery John will try my best at it.
As Nigeria approach the 100-year anniversary of our 1914 Lugardian amalglamation and, as the 2015 elections are fast approaching with both the northern region and the south-south zone desperate to take or to hold on to power at any cost respectively, we need to begin to ask ourselves some basic and fundamental questions about our future.

For example, is our interest better served by remaining as one nation or is it time for those nationalities that wish to leave the federation in a peaceful and orderly way, as a result of a legitimate and honest referendum, be alllowed to go?
Has Nigeria served all of our interests?
Can we work together?
Well a lot of you will say NO to this questions
It is possible if we make certain changes. This unitary system that we falsely brand as Federalism is the root cause of all our present and future problems. How can we all be depending on a particular region to produce all our financial needs?
Our over dependence on oil coming from the Niger Delta region has made all of us lazy! Most states are not viable. They are merely collection points for monthly allocation period! There is little or no real economic activities going on. If we were to look at all the states in Nigeria based on GDP, you will gasp for air! There is little or nothing happening. Even the states where there seem to be reasonable economic activities, (Lagos) it is largely artificial. It is either fuelled by large oil money as could be observed in most of the coastal states producing oil or fuelled by large government spending occasioned by monthly allocation from Abuja fraudulently derived from fraudulent census figures - most of the northern states are in this category.

This house called Nigeria cannot stand with its present structure. All the fight about 2015 and beyond is utimately about who controls the large purse in Abuja.

In my own opinion and from my own view point Nigeria can work if we decentralize power and every region or state compete and creates its own local economy based on its own endowments - both human and material.
If we continue in this path, we will continue to have political and economic turbulence until we reach the break point - disintegration with grave consequences for everybody!
We are entitled to our own opinion and this is mine.
Don't crucify me, am only ashamed at what my beloved country has become or WAS THERE REALLY A COUNTRY?

We should explore the possibility of convoking a sovereign national conference where all the ethnic nationalities will sit and discuss and decide whether we must continue with this forced marriage or we separate and go our separate ways or better still we restructure our country and position ourselves for greater prosperity in the future!

If we restructure, the Atikus, Jonathans, Babangidas, objs and these desperadoes called governors will become irrelevant and then we can have our peace!

Senate Backs Convocation Of National Conference

The quest for the convocation of a national conference got a boost on Tuesday as the Senate said that steps should be taken to convene a national conference of ethnic nationalities.

The upper chamber also lamented that those it described as political jobbers, sycophants, and hustlers have seized the country’s political space, and are being allowed to set the tone of national discourse ahead of 2015 general elections.

Senate President, David Mark, stated this in an address to flag off a new session for the Senate.

Though he counseled that Nigerians should make haste slowly and operate strictly within the parameters of the Constitution in discussion of the national question, Mark agreed that time has come for the country to meet to confront alleged structural distortions in the polity.

Such a conference, he said, can find accommodation in the extant provisions of the 1999 Constitution which guarantee freedom of expression, and association.

The only no go area at the conference, the Senate President noted, should be talk about dismemberment of the country.

He, however, cautioned that it would be unconstitutional to clothe such a conference with constituent or sovereign powers.

He said, “We live in very precarious times, and in a world increasingly made fluid and toxic by strange ideologies and violent tendencies, all of which presently conspire to question the very idea of the nation state.

“But that is not to say that the nation should, like the proverbial ostrich, continue to bury its head in the sand and refuse to confront the perceived or alleged structural distortions which have bred discontentment and alienation in some quarters.

“This sense of discontentment and alienation has fueled extremism, apathy and even predictions of catastrophy for our dear nation.

”A conference of Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities, called to foster frank and open discussions of the national question, can certainly find accommodation in the extant provisions of the 1999 Constitution which guarantee freedom of expression, and of association.

“To that extent, it is welcome. Nonetheless, the idea of a National Conference is not without inherent and fundamental difficulties.

“Problems of its structure and composition will stretch the letters and spirit of the Constitution and severely task the ingenuity of our constitutionalists.”

On the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the Senate President urged the lawmakers to spare a thought “for the plight of our youths who are idling away because of the closure of universities due to the ASUU strike.

He said, “The morass in the education sector is deeply troubling not only because it is retarding the educational progress of millions of our children, but also because it arrests the intellectual development of our nation, with grave consequences for the future.

“While appreciating the tremendous merit in the case put forth by ASUU we call on its leaders to return to class, while pragmatic negotiations to address their grievances continue.

“The Senate will invest the full weight of its moral and constitutional authority to nudge both the Federal Government and ASUU towards a comprehensive settlement that addresses, in a realistic manner, the problems afflicting tertiary education in our country.”

A BIG STEP TOWARDS THE RIGHT DIRECTION FOR ONCE A MAY SAY.
http://thenationonlineng.net/new/senate-backs-convocation-of-national-conference/

can any good thing still come out from the Nigerian Senate.
They are truckers and roughs who will sell their mothers for a penny.
I will never believe them until the conference start.

Well I love your peace it's really cool

Lagos before oil was better than Lagos with oil.
The growth of Lagos has nothing to do with oil.
If anything Lagos has become a bastardise concrete jungle.
I will take simple Caribbean style architecture over the nonsense been built right now.
Oil is a natural resource,so are ports and harbours.
When you talking about being dependent of oil,remove the SW because we earn our keep.
Almost all the states are viable except maybe ekiti .ekiti can easily be carried along by her sister states.