Afe Babalola seeks convocation of sovereign confab

U.S. varsity, IPCR plan national security summit
A foremost legal luminary and founder of Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola (SAN), has called for a convocation of a sovereign national conference with a mandate to discuss how to make the states viable and review the fiscal federalism.

He also canvassed for a loose federalism where each state will be allowed to develop and control its resources but pay an agreeable percentage of their earnings to the central government.

Babalola, spoke with The Guardian in Ado-Ekiti at the weekend after a programme tagged ‘Diplomatic talk’ organised by the Department of International Relations where Malaysia High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Lim Juay Jin, was the guest speaker, said: “President Muhammadu Buhari should take time to study the reports of various constitutional conferences and the earlier we have another constitutional conference in line with what I am talking about, the better. There is urgent need to revisit the constitution that binds us together.

“The way forward for this government to solve our problems as a people is to call a conference, which must be sovereign, where people must discuss how the states can be economically and politically viable. As I said, one of the major mandates of that conference must be to discuss how to create new regions and fashion out a way to make each state viable.”

Delivering his lecture, Ambassador Jin, said Malaysia would strengthen its business relations with Nigeria because of the integrity of the President Buhari’s government and its hostile disposition to corruption.

In another development, Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) in collaboration with the Council on African Security and Development (CASD), University of Wisconsin Research Park, U.S., is organising a national security summit.

The two-day conference holds in Abuja between May 25 and 26 and will serve as a forum for substantive and impactful exchange of information as well discussion on security strategies.

The convener of the summit and Managing Director, CASD, Prof. John Ifediora, said at the weekend that the meeting would also deliberate on acquired knowledge on domestic security strategies, among others.