Abia State governor Chief Theodore Orji has called for a regional integration and state control of the police as an essential way of making for a stronger Nigeria.
He has also advocated for State control of resources to enable them develop at their own pace and solve their problems as they arise.
Delivering a lecture titled ‘National economic integration and transformation agenda’ at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, Lagos Wednesday,4th July 2012, governor Orji called for a state police control in order to adequately protect lives and properties of the citizenry, as opposed to the present federal-control.
He submitted that for a proper national integration, efforts should be geared towards a sustained security in the country, good governance, creating enough jobs to absorb the teaming army of unemployed youths, providing good health care services, free, compulsory and qualitative education at primary and secondary school levels as well as resurrect our rich traditional and cultural values.
During the discourse section, a former federal minister for information and culture Dr Walter Ofonagoro commended the presentation by Governor Orji but disagreed on the issue of state police control, saying that if put in place, it could alienate some individuals from their states of origin for fear of the unknown.
Ofonagoro, who was also former secretary, National Constitutional Conference commission in 1995 suggested the adoption of the original zonal economic integration as recommended by the constitutional conference, to make for a stronger and vibrant Nigeria, stressing that the agitation for a proposed 45 states in Nigeria could further widen the gap of disunity in the country at present. He further blamed Nigerian past leaders for ceeding the bakassi peninsula to the Cameroons, pointing out that the appropriate authorities on the history of Nigeria were not consulted.
He said that those who represented at the international court of justice had no proper knowledge of the true history of Nigeria.
In his own contribution, senator Ike Nwachukwu, a one time foreign minister in Nigeria also lauded the lecture by governor Orji, he however, agreed with the submission by Dr Ofonagoro on the carving out of Bakassi from Nigeria, saying that it was the greatest disservice to Nigeria as a nation by self seeking men in uniform.
The lecture which was acclaimed by participants as timely and rewarding was attended by a cross section of people from Abia and different ethnic groups in Nigeria.