ASIDE corruption, restructuring is one of the issues that will likely determine the outcome of next year’s General Election. In 2015, APC as an opposition party struggling to torpedo the PDP promised restructuring and won the election but reneged after gaining power. Few months to another election, it began embracing restructuring again, even setting up a high-powered party committee to the bargain. Many are, however, taking APC’s new restructuring romance with a pinch of salt. Since his emergence as PDP’s presidential flag bearer, Atiku Abubakar has also made restructuring a swan-song, promising last Thursday at his Ibadan rally to, “within six months, start the process of restructuring” the country.
I may consider political asylum — Ex US Secretary of States, Albright
Two patriots, Shenge Rahman and Femi Odedeyi, acting on behalf of Egbe Omo Oduduwa, have come out to hold Atiku’s feet to the fire. Shenge I have known for four decades, dating back to our days at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). We were both members of the Left-leaning Alliance of Progressive Students (ALPS) and Movement for National Advancement (MONA). He was, and remains, a patriot par excellence. Now a lawyer, Rahman has canvassed his restructuring advocacy with a passion that demands he gets the listening ears of those that matter. Is Atiku the long-awaited messiah? Hear Rahman and Odedeyi:
“Restructuring calls into question the nature of the post-colonial State as it affects the Peoples of Nigeria. Africa’s post-colonial experience had been one of perpetual conflict between the post-colonial State and the various Peoples anchored on the separation between the People and the State, with control and dominance of the State being dependent on the hegemony of one Nationality over the other even as this is couched in “national” terms, and this taking precedence over all other existential matters; social and cultural existentialism of the Peoples play no part in the Architecture of the State, thus making the State a “foreign” entity. We must reiterate the fact that restructuring is a by-word for True Federalism, itself being a Union or Federation based on the Peoples; a union of two or more entities, reflecting a relationship between the “national” (centre) and the “sub-national” (Regional) entities. Indeed, every Union or Federation is based on a Union of Peoples which may now be administered either as states (as in the US), Regions as in Germany or Emirates as in UAE. For a Federation or Union to exist, therefore, the Peoples inhabiting a geographical space must make that decision.
“We are all witnesses to previous attempts at restructuring; where each administration followed the footsteps of its predecessors by making restructuring conditional upon completion of electoral cycle. Nigeria had been going this route since 1999, where an incumbent government or any aspirant will promise to restructure as a route to electoral victory. Need we remind ourselves what such promises via “public debates” or “Conferences” have done to our body-politic in legitimizing doubtful socio-political legacies – IMF debates, Political Bureau, Niki Tobi’s Constitutional review, Abubakar’s consultations, Obasanjo’s “Technical Review Committee”; Yar-Adua’s Constitutional Review, Jonathan’s “Confab”; APC’s Committee on Restructuring; yet, none of these yielded the desired degree of Autonomy for Nationalities/Regions making up Nigeria. The question, therefore, is how Atiku Abubakar’s process of restructuring will be different from the previous promises.
“We agree with the Yoruba truism that says one’s head cannot be shaved in his/her absence. Even if it is assumed that all Atiku Abubakar’s advisers on restructuring are Yoruba, it will still amount to shaving our head in our absence if we do not know exactly what Atiku and his party mean by restructuring, and if this meaning is not placed before the Yoruba people to decide upon in a referendum within Yorubaland such that a determination could be made by the People between what you offer and what had been our aspirations, which becomes the foundation for restructuring… Asking us to look forward to some legislation or Constitutional amendment from the National Assembly towards restructuring will be waving a flag at the problem; for, the current Constitution is the problem that must be resolved.
“The process of amending the 1999 Constitution abridges the right of self-determination or autonomy and, therefore, true Federalism in that the required concurrence of 24 states already denies self-determination, for, these states may or may not share similar existential prerogatives with others, hence asking one to determine the course of the other jeopardizes their existence. The discourse on and advocacy for the restructuring of Nigeria must therefore be put within the context of the Peoples to assert their right to self-determination and the various Houses of Assembly can organize the referendum in their respective state, even before the presidential elections. This referendum cannot be made subject to Atiku’s coming to power; for, restricting it to an individual’s prerogative will be akin to denying the re-establishment of the Peoples’ ownership of the apparatus of their own governance; the need for a referendum on restructuring does not depend on any individual, but a collective aspiration of the People, which the PDP would have subscribed to if it agrees with the referendum, regardless of success or failure of its presidential candidate.
“Yes, individuals have roles to play in history, and have indeed played such roles, but then only in circumstances where the general, collective aspiration is yet to be concretized and ascertained; hence the individual may become the catalyst. Once the threshold of societal pursuit is reached, as it had been for the Yoruba in the quest for restructuring in Nigeria, such pursuit can no longer become dependent on the individual who can then function only in tandem with other individuals in the quest… We expect Atiku/PDP to subscribe to our “Yoruba Manifesto” in its entirety or, in the alternative, present the Yoruba People with their own notion of restructuring.
OUR DEMANDS:
(a) A Federal Nigeria, through a Federal Constitution, to be known as The Union of Nigerian Constituent Nationalities, with a Federal Presidential Council, whose members will be selected/elected from each of the Nationalities as Federating Units and from whom a Head of State will be selected/elected as the primus-inter-pares with an agreed term.
(b) YORUBALAND, geo-politically known as the ODUDUWA REGION and consisting of the present states of Ekiti, Eko, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo and all Oodua lands in Kwara, Kogi, Edo and Delta States to become an AUTONOMOUS Nation in a UNION OF NIGERIAN CONSTITUENT NATIONALITIES and recognizing all persons in the Diaspora, of African descent who claim Oduduwa/Yoruba ancestry, either through cultural affiliation or genealogical connection.
(c) The Central Government of the Union shall have no power to interfere/intervene in the affairs of the ODUDUWA REGION, save as shall be agreed to by three-quarters of the members of the region’s Parliament.
(d) There shall be a Division of the Federal Armed Forces in the Region, 90% of which personnel shall be indigenes of the Region. The Divisional commander shall be an indigene of Oduduwa Region.
(e) ODUDUWA Region shall adopt a Parliamentary System of government. This Parliament shall have the power to make laws governing taxes, duties, excise, payment of debt, etc. It shall have the power to make laws governing the sourcing of funds on behalf of the Region and to regulate commerce with the co-prosperity spheres within the Union of Nigeria. This Parliament shall have the power to establish Regional Police Service with responsibility to investigate Regional crimes.
(f) The Judicial power of the Region shall be vested in the Region’s Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, Customary Court and Other lower courts as the Parliament may establish.
(g) Oodua Customary forms of land ownership shall be respected. Exploitation of mineral resources shall be the prerogative of the host community without prejudice to the right of the Local, Provincial and Regional Governments to levy appropriate taxes for the welfare of the people of Oodua land”
So long a letter, which its authors had forwarded to the Yoruba leaders who attended Atiku’s Ibadan rally! The ball is now in PDP/Atiku’s court. Is their “restructuring” political gimmick like Buhari/APC’s, which will be discarded after next year’s election, or do they mean business? The answer, as they say, dangles in the air!
FEEDBACK
RE: Aregbesola and Metele
True to type, you came out smoking about the many malfeasances and gaffes of the APC/President Muhammadu Buhari Presidency and in Osun State under its immediate past governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. The two-part article were replete with facts that Buhari and Aregbesola and their “never-see-anything-wrong” supporters would find difficult to fault. Aregbesola was “imperial”, not servant-Governor (apologies to former Governor of Niger State, Aliyu Babangida); neither modest nor humble in his approach to governance, he governed Osun with irritating arrogance and false claim of an inclusive government where he arrogated to himself a monopoly of knowledge. He deluged Osun with social programmes mindless of the resources to execute them, leaving behind huge financial debts. Osun ought to jump-start a process of public hearing to probe Aregbesola’s tenure or else there would be a repeat performance of such bad governance by the new governor who, incidentally, is Aregbesola’s acknowledged protégé. Aregbesola is a metaphor for “bad governance.” Osun must be spared the rigour of going through another agonising eight years of similar pattern of governance.
The Metele military debacle is stomach-turning and rightly depicts man’s inhumanity to man. Because of greed, insensitivity by military commanders in charge of Federal ill-equipped troops sent on a suicide mission to confront deadly and vicious Boko Haram insurgents who daily kill our soldiers “like rats” and a FG always in denial of the true position of goings-on, one cannot but agree with the summation of Sonola Olumhense, The PUNCH’s syndicated columnist, on why he often criticises Buhari (Sunday Punch, December 9, 2018). Meaning: Other writers see what you see as the foibles of the current administration. And as a concerned patriot, you wrote about it constructively, recommending solutions on how to move the country forward – most especially the immediate sacking of non-performing and roguish Federal military commanders. Buhari die-hards may want to call you unprintable names, harass or intimidate you, please don’t be detered! Truth shall always prevail. Be constantly encouraged by the immortal words of Albert Einstein..”If I were to remain silent, I would be guilty of complicity.” —Yacoob Abiodun.
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