If you carry out a vox- pop across Nigeria, and ask the people what can be done to solve the lingering and multiplicity of problems confronting the country, you would discover that, 90 percent of Nigerians are in support of restructuring. This same restructuring issue informed the convocation of National Conference in 2014, under President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, where different ethnic nationalities gathered and agreed on what can be done to address the restiveness in the country and give peace a chance at that time, and going forward. At the conference, about 500 delegates were drawn from all over the country and their deliberations lasted for five good months. This was under the Chairmanship of late Chief Justice, Idris Kutigi. Nine years after the first National Conference took place, Nigeria is still beset with restructuring problems and the issue rages on. For the purpose of this write up, these recommendations capture the mood of the majority of Nigerians at present as the clamour for power devolution continues to reverberate: (1) Revenue-allocation: Proposes reducing share of national income going to the Federal government and increasing share for the state. (2) Power should be shared and rotated at all levels of government. Presidency should rotate between North and South and among the six geo-political zones of the country.
Likewise, the governorship post should rotate among the three (3), Senatorial zones in the state. Looking at the above, this is where the discourse in Nigeria revolves, simply because these recommendations were never implemented by Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s administration, leaving the country today highly polarized and deeply divided along ethnic and tribal lines. Unfortunately too, the government in power, All Progressives Congress (APC), during their campaigns also promised to restructure Nigeria and lift one hundred million Nigerians out of poverty if elected into power. But Surprisingly, Nigeria is worse than what it was in 2015, and this situation really has left tongues wagging and given impetus to everyday demand to have a restructured Nigeria if at all the government is not paying lip service to the indissolubility of the country which is threatened from all fronts today. The Southern governors meeting now known as “Asaba declaration” whereby the deteriorating security situation in Nigeria was put on the front burner, amongst other demands to the Federal government warned on the danger of trivializing the clarion calls for restructuring.
The position of the Southern Governors however supported the 2014 National Conference which Nigerians at home and in overseas believe is the only way out from the political logjam that enveloped the country if at all the problems of insecurity and incessant killing of innocent and hapless Nigerians could be permanently put to rest. This was why the outburst of the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan who was reported to have opposed the Southern Governors stance on restructuring did not go down well with many Nigerians. You can only Restructuring still the way to go From the Archbishopric tell a blind man that there is no oil in the soup and not salt. Nigerians have tasted bad governance, both in the hands of the military and civilian regimes, under the discredited 1999 constitution as amended that was forced down the throat of the citizenry. Now the people know better having been governed by a constitution that does not reflect the interest of the masses but the few. Today, the agitation is constitution amendment that could largely reflect the aspirations of the Nigerian people. It is instructive to harp here that, those elected to offices are holding such offices on trust for the people and not to impose their own will on those who gave them the platform on which they stand. Anyone who pretends that nothing is happening in the society, looking at the deteriorating security situation in the country indeed is enemy of the people.
This is not the time to play partisan politics anymore with genuine demands of the people of Nigeria which was the case in the past. We call on the Federal government under the suzerainty of President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently look into the submissions of the Southern Governors who have also been commended by their Northern counterparts for speaking the truth, necessary for the corporate existence of the country. Waving the recommendations of the Governors by ordinary hand should not be contemplated at all especially now that restiveness and apprehension has enveloped many states across the country. Head or tail, restructuring is the answer to the myriads of problems confronting the country
