Akinrinade explodes, says Nigeria can’t work

Citing the ‘forced’ 1914 amalgamation that formed Nigeria, a former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), retired Lieutenant General Alani Akinrinade (CFR) said it is a wishful thinking to assume the Nigerian project can ever work.

Accordingly, he has urged the component units, especially the Yoruba nation, to take its destiny in its own hands.

“There is a valid clamour for betterment across our lands. Nigeria is not working. This is obvious to all. With our Naira exchanging at over N500 to $1, and the 2017 world Economic Outlook Report suggesting that Nigeria’s economy contracts by 1.7 5, and expands by an estimate of 0.6%, while ‘pure water’ has increased in price from N5 to N10, Nigeria does not seem likely ever to transform into a country that works,” he declared.

His remarks are contained in a lecture entitled, “Which Way Nigeria”, delivered at the inauguration of the new president of The Challenge Club, Ibadan, Oyo State, Chief Afolabi Odelana, a copy of which was made available to Sunday Tribune.

Akinrinade is among leaders of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) that confronted the administration of former military President Ibrahim Babangida that annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election.

He said he was not surprised that the country had been wobbling and fumbling, because “in the beginning, there was no Nigeria. There were ethnic nationalities and kingdoms in this space. Prior to the British conquest and invasion of the different ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria, these thriving nations were independent nation states, with organised municipalities.

“This contrived marriage of diverse ethno-national groups continues to produce tensions and difficult moments for Nigeria. This historical antecedent has now given birth to our current realities – social, economic and political. As the level of instability, confusion, poverty, danger, and uncertainty stands and grows in Nigeria today, most citizens find ourselves wondering what lay ahead for Nigeria, hence this topic you have asked me to speak to,” he said.

According to him, global political happenings over time constituted an ample evidence that over-centralisation in “many diverse nations  – such as Nigeria – would  generate a political culture of confusion, inefficiencies of government institutions, unbridled corruption, abject poverty and hopelessness for the vast majority of its citizens.”

He warned: “Africa, as a continent, and Nigeria in particular, can no longer afford to play the ostrich to global developments,” stressing that the “the Yoruba people, will continue to agitate for resource control.

“No country in the world, where people are forced to co-exist on disagreeable terms lasts. Nigeria will not be an exception if ‘true federalism’ is not entrenched as a national principle of coexistence. It was clear from the beginning that a unitary system would not work in Nigeria as Lugard’s attempt to construct Nigerian unity through an amalgamation failed.

“If you ask me ‘which way Nigeria, ‘in my view, it is apparent that a regional structure with fiscal federalism’ is germane to the future existence of Nigeria as a nation,” he said.

He restated the imperative of restructuring and returning the country to the post-independence political arrangement.

“Rather than working on the next mega party, or rearranging the sitting and feeding order in a sinking Nigeria-Titanic. What is now imperative is for the Nigerian nation to sit together in order to chart a new course for the Nigerian people and nation.

“With economic sabotage bringing the country to its knees [with pipeline vandalism in the South-South costing Nigeria approximately over N100 billion to date (in the last 24 months) and with centrifugal forces seizing hold of the nation’s security from all directions [with Fulani herdsmen menace alongside infiltrated foreigners], the omens are very dire indeed.

“We the Yoruba people are rightly concerned about our nation within a Nigerian construct. We are concerned that power in Nigeria is too concentrated at the centre. We have a Federal Government that is too powerful, overbearing and with vast resources at its disposal than it has the capacity to manage,” he stated.

“All the powers and authorities at the centre are now being used to hold the rest of Nigerians as slaves in our own country. This makes devolution of power a very important national issue and this is central to what we Yoruba people demand.

“This is because nations do not just happen by historical accident. Rather men and women of vision and resolve build them. Nation building is therefore the product of conscious statecraft, not happenstance. The impact of poor governance architecture on our polity has been unmistakable in the increasing erosion of elements of federalism in Nigeria since 1966.