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PEOPLE AND POLITICS Meeting On Iraq By Mohammed Haruna At
the end of its meeting on …………during which it discussed a number
of burning issues on the local and international scenes, the Jamatul
Nasir Islam observed and resolved as follows: The
Anglo-American war on Iraq
We
wish to join the rest of the world in protesting the on-going
Anglo-American brutal invasion of Iraq under the guises of ridding the
country of its so-called weapons of mass destruction and of bringing
democracy to the country. That the claims about Iraqi possession of
weapons of mass destruction is a mere disguise for a neo-colonial
occupation of Iraq is obvious from the fact that America has shown
preference for a diplomatic solution in the case of North Korea which
has admitted possessing of such weapons and have indeed tested them in
international waters.
Again the fact that America’s claim of exporting democracy to Iraq and the rest of the Middle-East is merely a disguise for its neo-colonial intentions can be seen from their very defiance of world opinion which has been totally and unequivocally against the war on Iraq. Democracy is rule by the majority, yet the Americans and the British have defied the voices of the majority of the world’s population to wage war on Iraq. In any case, how can a government which finances Israel’s brutal suppression of the aspirations of Palestinians for their own nation, claim to export democracy to a region in which they have always supported other local dictators? For these reasons, we wish, once again, to express our solidarity with the international community, including the Federal Government and the British and American publics, in their vehement opposition to the Anglo-American war on Iraq. We urge the nations of the world to bring pressure to bear on the American and British governments to end their unjust and bloody invasion of Iraq. The United Nations System We observe that since the coming of Gorge W. Bush as American president two years ago, the Americans have renewed their habit of trying to push the United Nations around, even when they refuse to honour their financial obligations to the organisation. In the recent cast of Iraq, they have complained that Iraq has defied United Nations resolutions urging it to disarm 16 times since1991. However, America itself has vetoed resolutions condemning Israeli behaviour in the Middle East more than 20 times and Israel, as America’s main client-state in the region, has defied U.N. resolutions over 65 times. This flagrant abuse by the United States of its veto power – and one must add, by other nation-states with the same veto – calls for an urgent reform of the United Nation’s Security Council, where the veto powers are exercised. Such reform had been on the cards for many years but the organisation has been slow in implementing it. Ideally, no country should hold veto power over the passing of UN resolutions. However, since it may not be realistic to withdraw the veto status of the five nations currently enjoying the status – U.S., U.K, China, Russia and France – we urge the inclusion of regional powers like Nigeria and South Africa (Africa), Japan (Asia), Germany (Europe) and Brazil (Latin America) into the veto group to ensure balance in the exercise of veto power in the organisation. Strike
by Academic Staff Unin of Universities (ASUU) The long drawn strike by ASSU has crippled our university system, such that the timely graduation of our university students has become a fading memory. Courses which take, say, four years to complete often take one and a half times that long, if not longer. This is obviously unacceptable. We wish to urge ASUU to end their strike for the sake of ordinary Nigerians whose children the union says it is fighting for. We appreciate their suspicions about the sincerity of those in authority in honouring deals they enter into. However, longish and frequent strikes cannot be the solution. The solution lies in continued dialogue with the authorities and in getting the public to mount pressure on governments to increase the budgets to the education sector in general and the tertiary institutions in particular. It also lies in ensuring transparency in the implementation of the budgets. We therefore, once more, call upon ASUU to call off its strike immediately. Forthcoming General Elections We feel concerned about the increasing spate of violence in the run-up to the forthcoming general elections. The killings, maimings and the destruction of property by political opponents are uncivilized and un-Godly. Politicians should realise that ultimately power comes from God and therefore it is futile to seek it by all means whether fair or foul. On their own part the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), charged with conducting elections, and the security agents charged with enforcing law and order, must not only behave in an impartial manner, they must be seen to do so. In this respect we share the general concern about the state of INEC’s preparedness for the elections. We are, for example, worried that INEC did not display the voters register as stipulated by the Constitution. Even then we think it is too late in the day to call for the postponement of the elections from April 12. We call on INEC and all those concerned to ensure that other deadlines for the elections are adhered to. If they do these, we are confident that we shall have a free and fair elections come April 12. |