BY TONY EDIKE & DAPO AKINREFON

ETHNIC Nationalities Movement, ENM, in collaboration with The Patriots, a group of eminent citizens, have resolved to hold a conference which is aimed at promoting fraternity and peaceful co-existence among ethnic nationalities in the country.

The two-day conference, scheduled to hold in February, is said to be conceived as a dress rehearsal for the national conference proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan.

This came at a time when the Professor Ben Nwabueze-led Concerned Igbo Leaders of Thought, CILT, called on the President to reject the recommendations of the Presidential Advisory Committee, PAC, on the conference, insisting that the type of conference the committee recommended was different from what Nigerians demanded.

Briefing newsmen yesterday, National Coordinator and Chairman organising Committee, Mr Solomon Asemota, SAN, said the conference was imperative “to promote fraternity and peaceful co-existence.”

Aside Asemota, other members of the group, who lent their voice to the initiative include Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Col Tony Nyiam (rtd), Mr Yinka Odumakin, Mr Michael Orobator and Chief Segun Ojo.

Asemota argued that the long years of colonial and military rule in Nigeria has prevented the country from making headway in all areas.

He said: “It has become very clear that in the years after independence to date, the system in place largely entrenched the colonial legacies of indirect rule, divide and rule and tripod of assimilation and did not and could not meet the yearning for change by the Nigerian people.

“This is evident from the way those in positions of power in executive and elective posts, religious and traditional office holders crave for colonial titles and regalia, some original, others counterfeit.”

He, however, said that failure to hold a conference that will address the anomalies in the country might lead to a revolution, saying “the danger is that the gap between the monarchs and ordinary Nigerians has widened to such an extent that a violent revolution is in the horizon.”