 …Says he is ready to sacrifice political ambition over restructuring
Former
vice president, Atiku Abubakar has taken northerners who are opposed to
the current clamour for the restructuring of the nation to the
cleaners, accusing them of laziness.
“I don’t know what those who are against restructuring are afraid of. Those afraid must be lazy,” he declared.
Atiku
who spoke last weekend in Abuja while delivering a keynote address at a
youth forum organised by a conglomeration of civil society groups under
the auspices of Play Forum, said he would continue to speak against the
current faulty ‘unitary federalism’ structure even at the detriment of
his political ambition.
“I want to agree essentially that there
is every need for us to sit down and talk about our future. This is
because the arrangements in the last 50 years or so have not served us
very well.
“I am not a product of the current structure of Nigeria. I
am a product of regional government. I saw the government at work and I
have also seen the current arrangement at work.
“That was why I
came out, some people even said to the detriment of my political career,
to advocate for restructuring or rearrangement or whatever you call it,
of the present structure of the country. I still stand by it. But we
cannot determine the nitty-gritty of this restructuring until we are
able to dialogue and agree on how we want to continue to live together
as a country.
“It is good that all the representatives of the
ethnic groups agreed that we should continue to live together. I believe
it is imperative. But I also don’t believe in the current arrangement,
which I have always referred to as unitary federalism, which was a
creation of a prolonged military rule.
“It all started after the
civil war, when General Murtala Mohammed set up the Constituent Assembly
of 1978 and specifically instructed the Assembly to recommend a very
strong Federal Government which no component can challenge or try to
secede from. He was understandably coming from the perception of Biafra
civil war. He felt that the war was caused by the region, which felt
that it was too independent to pull out of the country. Subsequently,
they kept amending the constitution centralising more and more power at
the centre,” he said.
The Waziri Adamawa blamed the current political
structure on the failure by military government to implement the
Constitutional Conference of 1994/1995 recommendation of a single term
of six years for the president to rotate among all the six geo-political
zones.
“Of course, I was a member of the Constitutional
Conference of 1994/1995, and what we actually drafted was not what they
eventually came out with. We proposed a presidential system with single
term of six years to be rotated among the six geo-political zones of the
country.
“By now, about four zones would have produced the
president. We also said that after 36 years, we could review that
provision if Nigerians believed it is the best season, otherwise we
could discard it.
“By the time we won election in 1999, we saw an
entirely different constitution. I was told that they set us a review
committee headed by Niki Tobi (retired Justice of the Supreme Court),
which tampered with the draft and ended up with the constitution we now
have today. However, on a serious note, we have seen that the fact that a
zone produced a president does not mean that he will get the zone
developed. Former president Jonathan could not construct a road from
Port Harcourt to Bayelsa.
“Even the South West road we started during
our administration, he could not continue. Until former president
Obasanjo finished his eight-year term, he could not complete the road
from Lagos to Otta where his farm is.
“Another issue that needs
restructuring is the economy. Left for me, I will ask every part of this
country to take charge of its resources while the Federal Government
should handle defence, foreign affairs, and immigration among others in
the Exclusive List.
“I use to tell people that I would not have gone
to school if I was born today. My parents were so poor they won’t afford
to send me to school. I was born during the era education was free,
food was free for me, I was sponsored from primary school to university.
There was even a job waiting for me before I graduated. Yet there was
no oil then. I am not certainly a product of oil boom Nigeria.
“So, I
don’t know what those who are against restructuring are afraid of.
Those afraid must be lazy. We fought the civil war with the Igbo. Today,
the Igbo have been completely rebuilt, but we still find mud houses in
the north. Is it the fault of the easterners that the north is like
that?” he queried
“So, there are more fundamental issues that we
need to deal with after which we would have settled on what basis we
want our federation to be. How do we draw the boundary because even the
Ijaw are not contiguous to each other. I come from a state where we are
minorities. In Adamawa, whether you are Hausa, Fulani, Christian or
Moslem, you are from the minority. It is the same thing in Taraba.
“I
think that what is most important is the devolution of powers and
resources with the various governments whether states or regions. How do
the people hold those in power accountable for the resources handed
over to them? We are not as educated as we are today in the First
Republic, yet it beats my imagination how those in charge of the local
governments were more efficient, honest and transparent in accountable
administration Since we have agreed to remain one successful country, it
is not complicated because you can start with all the recurrent items
in the constitution. The president can dialogue with the governors or
National Assembly for states to take charge of the roads, hospitals,
schools and such other items in the Concurrent List while the Federal
Government will continue with items on the Exclusive List.”
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