PDP chieftain urges FG to heed calls for restructuring

The Federal Government has again been urged to heed the calls for the restructuring of the country without further delay.

People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State, Chief Sunny Onuesoke, made the plea while addressing journalists on Saturday in Asaba, Delta State.

Tribune Online recalls that prominent leaders including former Presidents Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida, former Governor Peter Obi, Pastor Enoch Adeboye of RCCG as well as Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Middlebelt Leaders Forum and Afenifere, among others had all admonished the FG to restructure the country.

Onuesoke urged the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, heed the calls of the leaders and the masses who are in majority for the restructuring of the country to save it from imminent collapse.

He pointed out that the government should “listen to the views of the people and evolve acceptable ways of addressing the problems confronting the country rather being nonchalant and combative about it.

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The one-time PDP governorship aspirant stated that Nigeria, today, does not run fiscal federalism and this has been proven in several areas including the federal police, national grid, education, agriculture, mineral resources and other areas codified in the Exclusive Legislative List.

“A Nigeria restructured is a Nigeria enhanced by the removal of the current perverse –incentive system, where many people seek elected and appointive government positions, not to develop the God-given resources of their local areas and local lands, or add to the wealth of their communities, but instead to feed on, and loot the un-earned monthly allocations from the centre.

“A restructured Nigeria will be a Nigeria in which the Central Government will no longer be able to automatically pool funds un-evenly from different parts of Nigeria while re-distributing the same funds unfairly and inequitably at the expense of the larger contributors among the various states and local governments – regardless of the quality of policy choices and good-governance efforts by state and LG leaders.

“A Nigeria restructured is a Nigeria where every area, region or zone of the country will be able to devote more thinking time, conceptualisation, research, exploration and analysis to its mineral and agricultural resources, with a view to developing an economic value-chain from them, which is the first serious step towards the development of manufacturing capacity across the country,” he averred.