Agitation for restructuring political, says Iriase

Deputy Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, Pally Iriase yesterday declared that the motive behind many Nigerians calling for restructuring of the country and promoting ethnic and sectional interests, was political “as many of those behind the agitations are those who lost out in the 2015 elections.”

Iriase who represents Owan Federal Constituency on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), also said that the feud between the Senate and the Presidency would be settled for the benefit of Nigerians.

He said if the call of those agitating for restructuring is genuine, they should have liaised with their representatives in the National Assembly.

His words: “It is an agenda setting by the opposition and Nigerians must begin to ask questions. Nigerians must be aware of the gimmick of politicians.

“Only recently I read in the papers that leaders of the South-South, South-East and the Middle Belt have come together and I looked through the list and I shook my head.

“May God help us because the press can create a monster from nobody, and I joined those who said that if you have the clout, you have representatives in the National Assemblies, why are you not drawing their attention to your desire for restructuring so that when you both reason, it will now become everybody’s idea. So if you look at the names, you will know that those who were on the side that lost in the last election are more in number in these meetings.

“Nigerians should be wiser, we have a terrible situation in our hand, when the price of crude oil was over 100 dollars per barrel for several years, these same elements did nothing except to help themselves from the common till. They saved nothing for the rainy day and the rains are here.”

On the feud between the executive and legislature, Iriase said there was nothing wrong with it provided the focus is on service delivery. He said, “My advice is that both sides must learn to accommodate each other. By our presidential system, none of the arms of government can go it alone and we must put a template in our comments.

“I think that disagreement is not an out rightly a bad thing because if there is no disagreement, whatever agreement you have will hardly be in the interest of the populace. I see the disagreement as a healthy one because we need to build institutions; we need to give respect to institutions.”