Justice Ayah Paul Comments On Special Status Working Group, Says Something Is Being Hidden From The Public

In a November 16 writeup circulating on social media, Ayah Paul Abine has analyzed the recommendations for the implementation of the Special Status for the Anglophone Regions made by the special status working group. Titled ‘Weekend diagnosis of Special Status by Ayah Paul Abine’, he notes that the document produced is not the first of its kind.Inasmuch as the authors of the recommendations are free to express their views, so too is he. Abine notes.“Section 62 of the constitution is as old as the constitutional revision of 1996. It is as old as the Sections on decentralization that have remained in near-lethal dormancy for that long. Why this sudden DRAMATIC awakening? Is all the new-found interest altruistic – not propped up by selfish and/or mercenary ulterior motives?” writes Ayah.Justice Ayah goes on to question the proactive nature of the members of the special status working group, asking if their consultations were “as exclusive as the ill-fated Major National Dialogue? Or was the set-up akin to the notorious national crime syndicate?”Eric Chinjie, one of the members, he challenged is not competent to have taken part in drawing up documents in favour of one party after claiming to have been commissioned by the government to mediate between it and Anglophones.“And speaking about conflict of interests, is it not saliently clear that the document in question, erroneously arrogantly called BLUE-PRINT, does lean conspicuously in favour of continuing government’s overbearing dominance over local governance (communal decision-making)?” it adds.“Let us take just two points to illustrate our point! What is the position of the Senior Divisional Officer and Divisional Officer if it came to pass that the Governors were elected? Would they operate side by side with the mayors? Would they too be on the executives at their various levels?” Ayah questioned.As a result of this and the proposed setting of representatives, “We have the strong feeling that something has been kept from the public. And all such scheming, exclusion and unbridled avidity for prominence do remind us of what befell SCNC,” Ayah hinted.“It is now an open secret that the President of the Republic did appoint a Minister to start preliminary talks with SCNC, aimed at resolving the then ‘Anglophone Problem’. But four high-ranking Anglophones dissuaded the President from the move on their claim that SCNC was a tiny group of old, disgruntled, retired civil servants at the brink of their graves” he went on.To him, “the sprouting of numerous groups of self-ordained Anglophone sages today is simply replaying the games of old! … How does any reasonable person preach and hail the virtues of a thing before such thing comes into existence: counting the chicks before they are hatched? Who but God ALONE knows what tomorrow shall look like? But who but God ALONE would eulogize the beauty of the unknown tomorrow?”“NO-ONE has the right to gloss over the reality of the situation, thereby sowing the seeds for the RECURRENCE tomorrow of today’s horrors!” He warned.Ayah’s reaction comes after the special status working group made a series of recommendations for the implementation of special status, noting that it had been dome after a series of consultations.