A consensus was reached Wednesday that the real enemies of Nigeria are not those agitating for self-determination, including the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB), Niger Delta Avengers and others, but the elites and leadership that have found comfort in the country’s faulty federal structure and the growing inequality in the national economy.

Speaking at the public interest symposium organised by The Island Club, in Lagos, Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian, Debo Adesina, said that President Muhammadu Buhari must understand that he was not elected only to do the mundane things of building roads and bridges but to re-engineer Nigeria as a whole.

And the Chief Executive Officer of Financial Derivatives Limited, Bismack Rewane, at the same event, with the theme: “The Second Buhari Administration: One Year After; The Economy and The Polity,” said that failures to take appropriate actions when necessary has put the country on the path to imminent economic recession.

Besides, he said that while the war against corruption is appropriate, the concept should not be limited to illegal cash and asset acquisitions, noting that even appointments based on tribal sentiments are part of corruption.

While describing the flexible exchange rate policy decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria as “reluctant”, but positive for the economy, he pointed out that the delay in its adoption contributed to the country’s economic challenges at present.

According to him, with the poor economic performance arising from poor policy responses, ranging from 15.7 per cent inflation; 31 per cent unemployment rate; and 45.6 per cent misery index, the present administration has generated a poor rating for itself and jeopardizes its chances in political arena, unless the tide turns for better soon.

Rewane noted that market economy must be distinguished from command economy, which runs by fiat and the dictates of the leadership, at the detriment of fundamental market and development dynamics.

Adesina said: “The real duty he should do for Nigeria is to begin the process of instituting a proper federation, releasing all of Nigeria’s potentials and putting an end to all discontents within the polity.”

“A country which fails to appreciate that its true essence flows not from oil but from its diversity of blessings and undermines the individuality of the different threads that make up its quilt ultimately primes itself for implosion.”

He noted that unless the country does away with a system that shackles the country to the hegemonic fantasies of a few, unites the people in poverty by caging their creative abilities and breeds the coalition of a deprived majority, prone to easy manipulation by a thieving minority, Nigeria cannot make progress into unity and prosperity.

Adesina emphatically stated that the architectural design of Nigeria’s federal system is faulty and any economic structure built on it is incapable of breeding prosperity for the people.

He argued that due to the distorted federal structure, too much of the resources are concentrated in an idle central government which has caused so much waste in untapped, marginalisation of most, exclusion from economic empowerment, poverty and discontent for the majority.

“To restructure Nigeria, of course, calls for will and boldness. And Buhari has nothing to lose by being bold. He has only one thing left to gain in life: a legacy. He can put an end to poverty and underdevelopment in Nigeria, put an end to inequity, discontent and so much grumbling by instituting a structure that respects individuality of the units and unleashes all of Nigeria’s hand on the work of building Nigeria,” he added.

Rewane reiterated that the country’s revenue is still dominated by oil and gas earnings, particularly in foreign exchange, lamenting that various leaderships of the nation have successively failed to build structures necessary for take off of effective diversification of the economy.

“The economy of Nigeria has not been separated from the oil and gas linkages up till now. Movement of goods and services and people have remained heavily dependent on the sector, particularly the petrol.”