Fayose restates call to restructure Nigeria

Governor wants state police, power over mineral resources

Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has called for restructuring of the country. He said it was strange for the All Progressives Congress (APC), which, as opposition party led campaign for true federalism to move against it now.

The governor, who hailed the position expressed last Thursday, by the Southwest APC, said the party, must now stop playing to the gallery and set the machineries in motion.

In a statement issued in Ado-Ekiti yesterday by Lere Olayinka, his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Governor Fayose said, under the present APC government of President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria is returning to a full-blown unitary system of government.

He said it is on record that the APC said at a debate on ‘Addressing the rising insecurity in Nigeria, what is the master plan?’ organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) on December 18, 2014, that it would ensure true federalism and adequate community policing to curb the protracted security challenges.

Fayose explained, “Sad enough, now that it is the ruling party, the APC is no longer talking about true federalism, especially the state police that it canvassed while in the opposition.”

Governor Fayose, who maintained that states must be strengthened for the country to develop, added, “Nigeria developed faster in the fifties and sixties when it was practising confederal system of government, with the regions almost autonomous.”

“A situation where there are mineral resources in a state and it cannot do anything about them without approval from the Federal Government will not foster the development that we all yearn for.