Call for restructuring of the country reverberated again on Wednesday in Lagos as spokesperson of pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Mr Yinka Odumakin, Prof David Aworawo, Mr Soji Awogbade of Voice of Reason (VOR), among others, declared it would be better for Nigeria to return back to true Federalism that worked very well for it in the First Republic else it would continue to fail in its attempt to develop.
The speakers, who also include Dr Francs Attoh, said this while speaking at the ‘Conference on Restructuring the Nigerian State,’ organised by the Institute of African and Diaspora Studies (IADS) of the University of Lagos.
Speaking on the topic: “The 2014 National Confab and the Notion of Restructuring,” Odumakin, who noted with disappointment the jettisoning of the reports of the last Confab, said Nigeria had entered a terminal crisis and cannot resolve any of the issues except it was restructured.
He said the call for restructuring of the country was for it to go back to federalism instead of a unitary government that it was currently running which had impeded its growth and development.
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“I think Nigeria has entered a terminal crisis and cannot resolve any of the issues except if it is restructured. When we say restructure, what we are saying is that let’s go back to federalism,” he said, recalling that the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo had long predicted in one of his books that any attempt to run Nigeria along the unitary line would produce the kind of country that the citizens had today.
“Awolowo has predicted in his book ‘Path to Nigeria Constitution,’ that any attempt to run Nigeria along Unitary line will produce what we have today and it is exactly what Awolowo predicted since 1967,” he said.
The Afenifere chieftain, who lamented the insecurity, high-level debt portfolio, poor state of infrastructure in the country, among others, declared that situation in Nigeria had continued to get worse all because of unsettled polity the country had found itself where some few elements had engaged in “control and command from Abuja,” the Federal seat of power.
“For us, we are not in the settled polity, they want to control and command from Abuja, we are having all this problem.
“Now look at how debt is tearing us into pieces. In the first three years of this government, we have borrowed more money than Nigeria borrowed in 30 years and we still want to borrow more. We have borrowed into bankruptcy and we want to borrow, who will repay? Unless we restructure, we can’t repay the debt,” he said.
Odumakin, while noting with sadness that Nigeria’s major cities now wore the look of villages in the 50s and 60s due to poor power supply, said every section of the country was no longer developing but under-developing, declaring: “Today, we are under-developing country.”
“So unless we go back to federalism and re-set the tools, there is serious danger for Nigeria because we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder,” he warned.
Also speaking, Prof Aworawo counselled that it was better for the country to go back to federalism when things worked for Nigeria and her citizens, declaring that restructuring was the structure that was on ground between 1954 and 1966 that ensured equity, fairness and development in all the regions in the country.
Aworawo, a professor of history and strategic studies at Unilag, said the abrogation of the federal system by the General Aguiyi Ironsi military regime was a mistake, pointing out that was the reason Nigeria was where it was currently whereby the Federal Government now had exclusive powers over nearly everything.
The historian said such development had even made countries, including Britain that were not richly blessed with natural resources “doing better than us.”
“That means there is something fundamentally wrong with the structure we are operating.
“What Nigeria should do is to seek to restructure, bring all the states together where equity, fairness and justice would prevail. What I need to tell Nigerians is that they should wake up and embrace restructuring.
“A restructured Nigeria is what can benefit all Nigerians. If we go on and on with this current situation, Nigeria would continue to stagnate and develop.
“Restructuring is an idea whose time has come, an idea that must be given practical application, that is the way that Nigeria can progress,” he argued.
Mr Awogbade, who is a Trustee and Joint Committee Chairman of VOR, while speaking on the topic: The Growing Popularity of Restructuring,” said a call for restructuring was simply about embracing the system that allowed the regions to attain their level of development witnessed under the federal system that was in operation in the during the First Republic.
The VOR chieftain called for negotiation to return Nigeria to enable the restructuring, noting that things were not working in the country all because “we have constructed a centre that is strong, too strong.”
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