Ambode, Ekwueme, Gana, others insist on restructuring

Eminent Nigerians, including a former Vice-President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme; Afenifere chieftain, Chief Ayo Adebanjo; and a former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, on Sunday in Enugu, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to restructure Nigeria.

Others, who lent their voices to the call during the 17th Annual Convention of the Igbo Youth Movement, included former governors of Anambra State, Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife and Peter Obi, and Niger Delta activist, Ankio Briggs.

The theme of the convention was ‘Still in search of true federalism’.

The eminent Nigerians noted that it was time to restructure the country in line with the principle of “true federalism”.

Speakers at the event equally canvassed the implementation of the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference.

They argued that agitations for secession by a few nationalities in the country would reduce if the national conference report was implemented.

Ekwueme, in his address, stressed that it was time for Nigeria to revert to the basic principles and arrangements left behind by the country’s founding fathers.

Going down memory lane, Ekwueme observed that his incarceration by the military in 1984 at Kirikiri prisons afforded him the opportunity to reflect deeply on Nigeria’s problems.

According to him, he came to the conclusion that a six geo-political zonal structure was the solution to the ills plaguing Nigeria.

Ekwueme added, “The six-geopolitical zonal structure will take care of minorities in both the North and the South.

Ekwueme argued that what Nigeria negotiated and agreed on with the British colonial authorities before independence in 1960 was a regional government arrangement, where each of the federating units had a constitution, which was annexed to the Republican Constitution of 1963.

According to him, the Republican Constitution provided a sharing formula, which allocated 50 per cent to the regions, 30 per cent to a distributable pool and 20 per cent to the centre.

“There is a need for us to return to the basics from what we inherited from our founding fathers,” Ekwueme said.

Adebanjo, who equally went down memory lane to trace the origin of federalism in Nigeria to the pre and post colonial constitutional conferences, insisted that Nigeria must be restructured to correct what he described as the damage done to the country’s constitution by the military.