Anyaoku, Balarabe, Yakassai Support Call For Restructuring
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| Atiku |
The former vice-president had, on Tuesday, advocated the restructuring of the country to ensure the development and growth of the federating units.
Atiku had said the country should be restructured in order to address the feelings of marginalisation by component units that make up the country.
“Agitations by many right-thinking Nigerians call for a restructuring and a renewal of our federation to make it less centralised, less suffocating and less dictatorial in the affairs of our country’s constituent units and localities,” the former vice-president had said at a book presentation, “We are all Biafrans”, in Abuja.
Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, and the pan-Igbo umbrella body, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, also supported Atiku’s call on Tuesday, asking the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to implement the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference on the restructuring of the country.
A former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, and an ex-Chairman of the Nigerian chapter of Transparency International, Maj. Gen. Ishola Williams (retd.), on Wednesday, believed the restructuring of Nigeria would facilitate stability and development.
Anyaoku made this known in an email to one of our correspondents while Williams spoke with The PUNCH on the telephone.
Anyaoku said, ‘‘I have called for the restructuring of the country since 2005 at the political reform conference. My most recent public statements on the matter were made in Ibadan School of Public Policy and Government last January and at Akure 40th Anniversary Colloquium of Ondo State on January 30.’’
The ex-secretary of the Commonwealth had, in February, canvassed the abolition of the 36 states in the country.
He spoke at a public symposium organised by the Nigerian Bible Society in Enugu State.
Anyaoku canvassed a return to the regional structure practised in the First Republic, with the country’s six regions forming federating units.
He argued that the current 36-state structure was unwieldy and very expensive.
Anyaoku said, “The present governance arrangement we have, with the country comprising 36 non-viable states, most of which cannot pay the salaries of their teachers and civil servants, is not the best.
“Rather, we should return to an arrangement, where the six regions will form six federating units.”
On his part, Williams said many Nigerians, who were concerned about the future of Nigeria, had expressed similar views in the past.
He added, “What former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar said had been clamoured for by many Nigerians in the past. Even President Muhammadu Buhari knows that Nigeria needs to be restructured so that there would be resource control.’’
According to him, it is in the light of the need to restructure the country that there are calls for constitution amendment.
Also, Senate Leader Ali Ndume and the Senator representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, on Wednesday, described as normal the call for the restructuring of Nigeria as demanded by Atiku.
But Ndume said any form of restructuring should not be through violence or force because Nigeria did not come together as a country through violent agitation or protest.
He said, “I don’t think he (Atiku) is wrong. It is his opinion and constitutionally, everyone is free to think the way he likes. What I don’t agree is what is happening in the Niger Delta and the agitation in the South-East.
“I don’t agree that you address the issue of either independence or break-up through protest, sabotage or through treasonable means. Nigeria did not come together by violence or force, it was by dialogue and negotiation and even if we are going to disintegrate, God forbids, it should be through the peaceful means through which we came together.
“We are inseparable as a country. Biafra is history in Nigeria, those advocating it did not witness the war.”
Sani, on his own, noted that the restructuring of Nigeria was necessary at this crucial period of the country’s social and economic crisis.
The senator added, “Restructuring Nigeria is a necessity and a reality that we must live up to. It is a fact that Nigeria as a federation today is not functioning as it is supposed to be and the 36 states structure, bicameral parliament is too expensive for a federation.
“There is a need for us to dissolve the 36 states structure and create six straight structures, while each of the federating units works towards generating revenue to execute their programmes and policies, and the units contribute to the centre.
“Nigeria’s federalism, as it exists today, encourages parasitism, dependency and laziness. This is what I call cap-in-hand federalism, where people do nothing in the state; simply come cap in hand to the centre and collect money and go back.
“We must go back to a Nigeria where we would be all contributors to the national cause, we must move away from the sharing of the national cake to the baking of it.”
Also, a former Governor of Kaduna State and leader of the Conference of Nigerian Political parties, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, supported the call for the country’s restructuring.
Musa, speaking with one of our correspondents in Kaduna on Wednesday, stated that restructuring the country was of necessity, noting that it would certainly reduce the glaring injustice in the country.
Musa called for the return to regional government “where the regional government would be allowed to create states to develop at its own pace.”
This, he added, would encourage the growth of healthy economy in each regional government.
“Different people have different ideas on restructuring. But the question is which kind of restructuring? Is it a regional arrangement as was in the past, return to parliamentary system or the return of the role of the states in the economy?
“But I prefer a return to regional arrangement, where each region can create states they can cater for. This will reduce injustice and inequality among the people.”
Punch
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