Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search
Breaking News:
News  

‘Unitary governance structure constraining Nigeria’

By Seye Olumide
01 August 2016   |   2:46 am
Though Buhari got a lot of support across the South West states during the 2015 elections, the Yoruba leaders appear no longer comfortable with his leadership style barely a year after.
Brig. Gen. Otu Oviemo Ovadje

Brig. Gen. Otu Oviemo Ovadje

Ohaneze laments that 50 years after Ironsi, Fajuyi’s death, nothing has changed

Apparently, the Yoruba nation may have come to terms with the fact that only restructuring, irrespective of the negative disposition of President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), toward the subject, is the only way to resolve the numerous problems confronting Nigeria.

Though Buhari got a lot of support across the South West states during the 2015 elections, the Yoruba leaders appear no longer comfortable with his leadership style barely a year after.

Indeed, some of them are beginning to allege that the ruling party has reneged on the agreement to restructure the country, entered into, during the build up to the elections.

This more or less reflects the position held by the caliber of Yoruba elders and representatives of South South and South East, who assembled in Ibadan, the capital city of Oyo State at the weekend, where it was resolved that “the process to restructure Nigeria, beyond all doubt and necessity, should commence, without further delay.”

In fact, some of them insisted that to delay the subject beyond now “could pose a very big danger to the corporate existence of the country, going by the spate of crises and unrest happening across Nigeria.”

The setting was the golden remembrance of late Col. Adekunle Fajuyi, who was assassinated during the July 1966 counter coup along with Gen. Aguyi Ironsi, the then military Head of State. They were both killed during the Head of State’s visit to Fajuyi in Ibadan.

Many challenges confronting the country were extensively reviewed and discussed the event, which attracted prominent Yoruba leaders including governors and their representatives, traditional rulers, renowned scholars and politicians, ex-senior military officers and business moguls.

The presence of the House Majority Leader, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila and a former Commissioner of Information and Strategy in Lagos State, Mr. Dele Alake, who anchored the programme, was interpreted in some quarters to mean the endorsement of former governor of Lagos and one of the leaders of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other South West APC leaders.

In an expression that look as if the Yoruba nation is again under threat, given developments in the country arising from the posturing of Buhari’s administration, the leaders of the South West may have decided to forgo their individual differences and come together to speak in one voice, demanding restructuring of the country.

This time around, their yearning was not to realise any presidential mandate, like they collectively did during the June 12 1993 Presidential Election, widely acclaimed to have been won by Chief Moshood Abiola, neither was it to agitate for the marginalisation of the South West in the body polity, like they did during the administration of the immediate past President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

They were not even championing the unity of Nigeria, like they claimed to have done during the Biafra Civil War in 1967; what they seemed to be demanding now was basically the renegotiation of the Nigerian state through restructuring.

Although they didn’t indicate interest to pull out of the Nigerian union nor requested for its dismemberment, all that mattered was a situation where all the components units should develop at its paste, become viable and prosperous but under one union.

In his address, Governor Segun Mimiko of Ondo State said there was need for all the ethnic components that made up the country to create a nation of their dream, “The Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and South South need to crate a viable nation of their dream contrary to what we are currently witnessing.”

The governor posed a pertinent question to the Yoruba and Igbo leaders, wanting to know if the two nations have done what was required to ensure that the two illustrious sons, who were killed during the counter coup of 1966 did not die in vain. “The Yoruba nation have already provided the intellectual platform to bring the needed change but the issue was that such expected change has been elusive.”

He cited the role the region played during the civil war, its struggle for the actaulisation of the June 12 1993 Presidential election, the ousting of the military from power in 1999, the struggle to enthrone the Jonathan’s presidency in 2009 during the agitation for Doctrine of Necessity and its part in bringing on board the Buhari’s change agenda, saying: “what we need now is political restructuring.”

The governor, however, tasked the Yoruba leaders whether they were ready for the change as: “we must move forward again to determine the type of change we want now by developing our indivisible package of Yoruba nation.”

Prof. Banji Akintoye, author of the History of the Yoruba People, said Nigerians, but for the challenges confronting them, were designed by God to lead the black people out of economical bondage “unfortunately no black nation, as at today could boast of being part of the technological development happening around the globe, the Yoruba nation was not an exception.”

He said restructuring was necessary now because it would spell doom for the entire black race should Nigerians and the Yoruba in particular fail. He warned that no constituted authority could destroy the Yoruba race to build a Nigeria neither could anyone destroy the Igbo Nation or South South people for the sake of Nigeria.

Akintoye added, “If anyone thinks fighting corruption was the only way to make the country prosperous, such person is only deceiving himself.”

In his speech, the founder, Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare challenged the present leadership of the country to emulate the heroic deed of Adekunle Fajuyi, “they must find the courage to restructure; they must find the courage to reconcile aggrieved sections within the nation; they must find the courage to reintegrate into united nationhood the diverse interest groups in the Nigerian nation. Then, and only then, would we have truly honoured Adekunle Fajuyi and the ideals he died for.”

Brig. Gen. Otu Oviemo Ovadje (Rtd.), who invented the Emergency Auto Transfusion System (EAT-SET), harped on the stance of Ironsi and Fajuyi as worthy sons and professional soldiers. He said their death ought to have brought about the development of the country beyond it was presently.

Also speaking on behalf of the President General of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chief Gary Enwo-Igariwey, his representative, Aku Akabueze said it was not just important but necessary for Buhari to have a look at the recommendations of the 2014 national Conference, which proffered some implementable solutions to the crisis in the country.

The Ohaneze group lamented that 50 years after the two loyal officers paid the supreme price for the development of their country “Nigeria has not ceased from shedding the political blood nor addressed its political differences.” He, therefore, called on the APC-led government to do the needful by restructuring the country.

In a communiqué signed by the Alani of Idoani Kingdom, Gen. Olufemi Olutoye (rtd.), the Yoruba people expressed unhappiness with the damage that has been done to its cultural and economic life by the unitary governance structure, which has been foisted on the country gradually since independence, and which has drastically limited and constrained its civilization.

He said there was nothing Nigeria could offer the people that could compensate for the relentless erosion of their culture, which they were proud of and which deserved to be cherished eternally.

Olutoye in the communiqué insisted that to get out of the crisis confronting the country, it must be restructured so that the federating units would be able to develop and harvest their resources to revive development and economic prosperity of their people.

In the keynote address, Prof. Niyi Osundare said, “As yet, Nigeria has no ‘unity’ to negotiate or not to negotiate. Which is why President Muhammadu Buhari must not only read the reports of the 2014 National Confab; he owes himself and the country a critical duty to read, digest, deliberate on, and identify its implementable parts – beyond all partisan and ethno-regional considerations.

“To wave off the lingering call for a re-structuring of this country is to risk the possibility of suicide through denial. Fredrick Lugard’s expedient contraption has been aching in every joint since 1914. If the house has not fallen according to Karl Maeier’s apocalyptic prognostication, it is simply because Nigeria has been extraordinarily lucky. The Avenging Angels of the Niger Delta, the resurgent Biafra agitators, the increasingly violent clashes between nomadic herdsmen and native populations, and other ethno-regional and religious eruptions in different parts of Nigeria are all pointers to the cracks in the walls of the house that Lugard built for the glory of the British Empire.

The component parts have never met on any genuinely democratic platform to negotiate the terms of their co-existence. We cannot afford not to do something about this imperfect union. To refuse to re-structure is to prepare to de-structure.”

Some prominent leaders present at the event include, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Gen. Alani Akinrinade, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, Mr. Jimi Agabje, Dr. Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu, representatives of Yoruba socio-cultural groups and others.

0 Comments