In the heat of recent national controversy on immunity clause enshrined in 1999 Constitution, President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua had expressed support for its removal. He , like most public commentators who are against the clause had argued that those who are protected by immunity clause should not be shielded from persecution if found criminally liable of any offence while in office.

PROF Itse Sagay is a legal luminary on constitutional matters. In this interview with Vanguard, Sagay faults the move by members of the House of Representative over plans to give them immunity. Excerpts:

“Northern Nigeria is a large and heavily populated country, full of vitality and promise. In such a large country there is inevitably a great deal of diversity, but in this diversity, as in your great country, lies our strength.

Officially, the programme is called State Grant to Low Income Entrepreneurs. It is not charity, it is not patronage, it is not a case of anybody pitying anybody. It is neither the Villagisation in Julius Nyerere’s ujamaa nor Stalin’s Collectivization in Soviet Communism.

The Ibibio nationality recently invited Nigerians to celebrate the mandate they freely gave to Chief Godswill Akpabio in May 2007 to govern Akwa Ibom State.