Why Nigeria has to be restructured now—Akingba

Dr Amos Akingba was the keynote speaker at the meeting of the Conscience of the Yoruba Race, held in Ibadan, last Friday. He speaks with MOSES ALAO on why restructuring is imperative.

The thrust of the meeting seemed to be how the Yoruba race can come together to overcome the obstacles to restructuring, one of which has been identified as the need for the National Conference report to pass through the National and State Assemblies given the fact that the North, which is not on the same page with the South on the subject of restructuring, is in the majority. With such a major challenge, do you think the National Conference report can scale through if it gets to the National Assembly?

The North is no longer what you think it is; now they have the core North comprising North-East and North-West and their members in the National Assembly are not one. Secondly, if the National Conference report is to go through the National Assembly, I believe things will go normally, otherwise, we can get the Confab report to become sacrosanct without the National Assembly, because the National Assembly is a consequence of the constitution. In other words, the constitution gives rise to the legislature, executive and judiciary. Truly, people should know that the constitution is a social contract; it is not binding until it is adopted by the people who signed it. So, people come together to say they want to live together under the following terms and agreements and they sign and they take it to the people and once the people affirm it, it becomes the law. What is inside it will include the arms of government. So, if the owners of the constitution, the people, find out that there are hitches and problems to be resolved, then they can amend it. The United States of America has about 27 amendments in 200 years. We have never agreed at a conference in Nigeria to live together under these conditions; the British forced something on us and the military also forced something on us. Even the current constitution was forced on us by the military. So, it means we can do a constitution without the National Assembly. If the people say that let us go through a restructuring, so be it.

But can the Nigerian people speak with one voice on restructuring?

Let me also tell you this, those who were against restructuring before are now embracing it. They are now in some kind of trouble and they know that it could be more and could destroy them, so they are now asking for restructuring. However, we have to be careful on the demand for restructuring so that they do not just restructure here and there and fail to carry it out in totality. That was what we addressed at the 2014 National Conference, a whole scale reform and we will cross the bridge of getting it implemented when we get to it.

There is the belief that restructuring and true federalism are words espoused by the elite and that what the average man on the street wants is food on the table. So, do you think restructuring can address all the problems facing the country?

In any society, the elite get the best of what is going. A majority of the people are traders, artisans, children and so on and even among the elite, there are engineers who are not interested in what is going on, but some people must govern the country, some people must give it direction while some must continue to ask for what is right and what is best in the interest of those who do not care or do not even know. So, it is not as if the elite is a bad word in itself; they have a responsibility to make their society better. They are people who know and they must lead people who don’t know. So, if you say that only the elite are asking for restructuring, then it is a good thing and the outcome will affect every Nigerian for good. If and when the constitution is properly done and owned by the Nigerian people, it will give powers, justice, rights and responsibilities to all Nigerians; to all the people, such that when you play your part in the daily life of your country, that country will take care of you.

The elite have been given much by the society and providence and as they say, to whom much is given, much is expected. So, they must lead and not turn themselves into misleaders. So far, that is what they have been; in the public service, mosques, churches and private lives, the elite have been misleading the people and that must end.