The Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly Wordwide has asked President Muhammadu Buhari not to convoke another national conference as demanded by various ethnic groups in the country.

Ohaneze, in a statement signed by its Director-General of Strategic Planning and Implementations, Obizoba Chiemelu Tony, described the convocation of a new national conference as a “waste of time and hard-earned national resources.”

“We have listened and has studied agitations by various ethnic groups in Nigeria for the convocation of a new national conference by President Muhammadu Buhari for them to sit down and discuss their collective destiny and hereby come up with a statement.

“It will be recalled that Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, recently gave what has been described and criticised as President Buhari’s unwillingness to make a new conference.

“In view of the above, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo states clearly that there is no need for another National Conference. While we are not, in any way, against sitting down of people towards common goals, we want to make our position clear that there will be no need for the convocation of any new national conference because it will rather be a waste of time and hard-earned national resources to do so in wake of the fact that many national conferences had been convoked and held in the past but to no avail.”

The group stated further that President Buhari should implement key decisions by various regions in the last conference convoked by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

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“What we can only implore Mr President to do is for him to look into the previous National Conference done by his predecessor, which report has already been put in place. He should look at the way to get that report and implement some of the key decisions by various regions in that conference.

“Because, it is a waste of time, energy and resources to begin to talk about convoking another national conference, when the series of same done in the past up till the latest conference done by former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, and their reports have not been implemented.

“Instead of convoking another national conference, we urged Mr President to, as a matter of urgency, call for a National Youth Summit, not this kangaroo conference they are agitating for. This is imperative because the youths, who are the future of the society, need to be put together with a view to listening and gathering areas affecting their development.

“The youths are the ones being used for all sorts of insecurity and the reason they get involved is because of the fear of the unknown as to how they feel their future is not secured. The summit, if convened, will reassure the youths of what the nation holds for them, what their roles towards making it happen should be and how to recondition their mindset and attitude for the Nigeria Project,” the statement read.