Views & Positions
Civil Society Organizations

• Some of Our Governors Are Not Informed
  Sami Charles of UNM
  Post Express (Lagos)
  INTERVIEW November 8, 2000
  [excerpt] First and foremost, I will take it from the 40 years anniversary as a nation, I would say that we still lack the required leadership to properly harmonise the resources that God has given to us. The process that gave birth to this current exercise was hurriedly packaged.....full story

• Duping Nigerians With Nascent Democracy
  Moshood Erubami of CD
  Post Express (Lagos)
  OPINION October 15, 2000
  [excerpt] National President, Campaign for Democracy (CD), comrade Moshood Erubami in this article, highlights the need for the Obasanjo government to buckle up and improve on its economic scorecard which he said is already at zero. He also looks at the paucity of the performance of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), insisting that it is absolutely odd and exploitative of government to continue blaming Abacha when after 15 months, nothing positive has been done to change the lives of Nigerians....full story

• Religious Group [BSN] Calls for Sovereign National Conference
  This Day (Lagos)
  October 9, 2000
  [excerpt] The acting secretary of the Society, Dr. Fred B. Odutola, who made this call while addressing newsmen in Lagos over the weekend, said Nigerians need to sit at a round table and fashion out how they are to be governed, adding that until our differences are sought out, the political and economic upheavals would continue to rear their ugly heads.....full story

• OPC Renews Call for SNC Says Nigeria Is a Failure
  This Day (Lagos)
  October 2, 2000
  [excerpt] "There can be little doubt that by understanding the interests, perspectives and the total situations of the various groups making demand on the polity and its leadership, decisions could be reached for a durable social order", he stated.....full story

• NADECO Considers Four Options On Its Future
  Vanguard Daily (Lagos)
  June 25, 2000
  [excerpt] The National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) has asked President Olusegun Obasanjo to be wary of those who played ignoble roles in the government of late General Sani Abacha but hold strategic positions in the current democratic dispensation.....full story

• Eastern Mandate Union's charge to Obasanjo
  Vanguard Daily (Lagos)
  June 23, 2000
  [excerpt] AT a well attended World press conference at the Indianapolis International Airport to commemorate June 12, The Eastern Mandate Union (EMU) - Abroad called on President Obasanjo to "dismiss all members of his executive listed in the recent Guardian Newspaper publication as signatories to scuttling the June 12 elections".....full story

• Pro-Democracy Groups Mark June 12, Call For True Federalism
  Post Express (Lagos)
  June 15, 2000
  [excerpt] Activities marking the seventh anniversary of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election annulled by the then military government of General Ibrahim Babangida flagged off on Monday morning at the Ikeja residence of the presumed winner of the said election, the late Chief Moshood Abiola.....full story

• Sovereign National Conference 'll break up Nigeria"
  CRC confab report
  Vanguard
  Transmitted WEDNESDAY, 10th May, 2000
  [excerpt] ANY attempt to convene a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) at this time will lead to the disintegration of the country. This was the view of a two-day conference on "Constitutionalism and Democracy in Nigeria" organised by the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria.....full story

• IYC Warns Obasanjo Over NDDC
  This Day (Lagos)
  May 9, 2000
  [excerpt] Angered by the delay by President Olusegun Obasanjo to assent to the Niger Delta Development Commission Bill, the militant Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) has vowed to effect what it described as the "Operation Climate Change" in Bayelsa State in line with the Kaiama declaration of December 1998.....full story

• Nigerian Professionals Abroad Demand SNC Write Obasanjo, Atiku Others
  P.M. News (Lagos)
  April 5, 2000
  [excerpt] In a letter addressed to President Olusegun Obasanjo, his vice, Abubakar Atiku, Senate President, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo; Speaker of House of Representatives, Alhaji Umar Na'Abba; the 36 state governors, as well as the 36 Houses of Assembly, a copy of which was made available to P.M.News, the professionals urged the country's leaders to set up the necessary legal instruments towards convening what they call "Popular National Conference of the peoples, nationalities and civil society of Nigeria."....full story

• Seadogs Advocate National Confab
  PostExpress News
  March 3, 2000
  [excerpt] "I hasten to add that there were before, and there have been since, various tenors of warnings from several other stakeholders of our dear country. But our leaders will not take heed. All well meaning people must continue to add a voice to the Nigerian situation before it gets too late; the time is ticking away very fast and the bomb might just explode any time "he said, adding" peace we have now is peace of the graveyard; the hour has come we must sit down to talk now and not postpone the evil day".....full story

• CDHR Seeks Referendum On Draft Constitution
  P.M. News (Lagos)
  February 28, 2000
  [excerpt] President Olusegun Obasanjo has been called upon to ensure that the draft of the 1999 Constitution presently under scrutiny of the Constitution Review Technical Committee is subjected to a national referendum on completion....full story

• EMU Calls For Sovereign Conference
  P.M. News (Lagos)
  December 9, 1999
  [excerpt] The Eastern Mandate Union, a pan-Igbo pressure group, has said that only a Sovereign National Conference bringing together the representatives of all the ethnic nationalities in the federation, to discuss the terms of continued existence in Nigeria that will take the country to a true federation.....full story

• NADECO, EMU Renew Call for Sovereign National Conference
  PostExpress News 10/18/99
  [excerpt] As the demand for the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference, (SNC), once again begins to gather momentum, the National Democratic Coalition, (NADECO) and the Eastern Mandate Union, (EMU) Abroad, have urged the present administration to heed the call or risk a calculated move to block American financial assistance.....full story

• Nationalities Conference Calls For New National Army
  P.M. News (Lagos)
  December 22, 1998
  [excerpt] A communique at the end of the conference signed by Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, chairman organising committee, Mallam Shehu Sani, Dr. M. T. Akono and Chief Arthur Nwankwo said the commands of the new national army should ensure that the membership of the troops under their control consist mainly of indigenes.....full story

• Nothing Has Changed With Abubakar
  Nigerian Advocacy Group For Democracy And Human Rights
  September 18, 1998
  [excerpt] What Nigerians have asked for is participatory democracy, not a mere change from military dictatorship to civilian dictatorship. Democracy, by definition springs from the people. What we have asked for and continue to ask for is that the people be allowed their collective will. There is no infrastructure on the ground in Nigeria today that will facilitate that expression.....full story

• Nigeria After Abacha: Civil Liberties Organisation Speaks
  The Africa Fund
  June 12, 1998
  [excerpt] It was inevitable that many Nigerians, particularly human rights and pro-democracy groups would reject both the appointment of General Abubakar, and his expressed intention of continuing with General Sani Abacha's discredited and rejected transition programme. Both have been done in utter contempt of the Nigerian people as though they exist only as pawns in a game played out in military "smoke-filled rooms", with no suggestion or idea that they might be entitled to a say in what should happen in the country following the death of General Abacha.....full story