PRONACO BACKS OGONI POLITICAL AUTONOMY IN NIGERIA

The leadership of Pro National Conference Organization, PRONACO has backed by the declaration of the Ogoni people at the weekend for political autonomy and self determination of their people and territory within Nigeria 

PRONACO in a statement issued on Sunday in Lagos by its Spokesperson, Olawale Okunniyi said the time has come for the indigenous peoples and federating units in Nigeria to deliver their peoples and territories from the pilfering and violent centralized structure operating in the country 

Okunniyi said the Ogoni peoples’ declaration for self determination and political autonomy is a long awaited and the only way to go for the Nigerian federating peoples since the predatory political cartel in the country is not willing to allow the Nigerian people negotiate and agree the terms of their well being at a national conference

While calling on other indigenous peoples in the country to urgently support and follow the wise step of the Ogoni people, PRONACO commended the Ogonis and their umbrella body, Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP on their vision to invoke the United Nations Charter on the self determination rights of indigenous peoples.

The coalition of ethnic nationalities and social movements in Nigeria said the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which forms the basis on which the Ogoni people made their declaration, was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly during its 62nd session at UN Headquarters in New York City on 13 September 2007 with Nigeria present and endorsing it

PRONACO however declared that self determination and political autonomy for the Nigerian federating units is also one of the key resolutions of its people’s national conference attended by delegates of 200 ethnic nationalities and social movement of the country between 2005 and 2006, stressing that what the ogoni people have done is legitimate and not new as advanced countries like Britain, Canada, China, USSR among others have all adopted self determination principles in governing and advancing the prosperity in their diversity

“The indigenous peoples and social forces in Nigeria have been very patient with the Nigerian government to convene a national conference where the diverse peoples forced by colonial Britain into the artificial Nigerian union can peacefully negotiate the terms of their association but the political cabal in its usual arrogance has consistently bungled that grace but prefers to foist wasteful cosmetic venture of amending the flawed 1999 imposed constitution on the people

The only option left for the various federating peoples of Nigeria is to urgently invoke the United Nations charter on the rights of the indigenous people’s world over, an international law to which Nigeria is a signatory and which the Ogoni people have wisely embraced” Okunniyi charged

PRONACO however advised the federal government to urgently embraced the Ogonis for adopting a more peaceful method than what obtains in the Northern Nigeria, where Nigerians have been daily murdered on the same account of the same struggle for self determination and political autonomy tagged 'wider application of Islamic laws in the northern Nigeria'

“The federal government must therefore enter into bilateral talks with the new political leadership of the ogoni people to work out in concrete terms mutual cooperation between Nigeria and the independent people of Ogoniland as those who makes peaceful change impossible in the history of the human race have always made a violent one inevitable” PRONACO warned