Aregbesola reiterates warning against miltary take over


OSUN State Governor Rauf Aregbesola has reiterated his earlier warning against military take-over of governance. He advocated the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) to curb the crises facing Nigeria.

Aregbesola sternly warned ambitious power-seekers, who might attempt to hide under the fuel subsidy protest to subvert democratic rule to have a rethink and note that the political class will not allow any military rule a foothold in Nigeria anymore.

In a speech he delivered at the close of a three-day seminar on Budget and Budgetary Control organised by members of the Osun State House of Assembly in Ejigbo, Osun State at the weekend, Aregbesola also decried the lack of transparency in the handling and management of Nigeria’s petroleum resources.

His words: “We must sound a note of warning to whoever wants to use this opportunity of normal protest of Nigeria people against the policy on fuel subsidy that we will never allow military rule in our territory again for whatever reason. We will never tolerate military rule; we shall fight it, we will never allow military to rule us again”.

The governor spoke of the need for an all-stakeholders’ forum to chart a way a forward for the proper and peaceful administration of the country.

He said: “For Nigeria to be really properly structured, appropriately governed and peacefully run, there is the need to have all the concern stakeholders in their various compartment to come together and agree on a formula of co-existence, which is only possible in a SNC.

When convoked, Aregbesola argued that the SNC should derive its power from the National Assembly so as to guarantee the peace, harmony and stability of the polity.

He lashed out at antagonists of SNC, saying; “those who claimed that such conference is incompatible with democratic setting are mischievous. Democratic structures can run parallel to the SNC. After all, the conference will have its own power derived from the National Assembly.”

In the light of the various challenges of nation building facing Nigeria, the governor submitted further that the SNC remained the “surest way to guarantee peaceful, productive, harmonious and stable co-existence and when we have that, there will be no basis for all the rancours and crisis that we have periodically been experiencing in Nigeria, including that of fuel subsidy crisis”



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