The Afenifere Renewal Group has said it doubts the capacity of the El Rufai-led committee of the All Progressives Congress on restructuring to advise the party appropriately on the subject.
The pan-Yoruba socio-political group, in a statement signed by its publicity secretary, Kunle Famoriyo, reiterated that restructuring has to be according to the expressed wishes of the people of Nigeria, irrespective of the outcome of the El-Rufai-led committee.
According to the group, the majority of the committee members have hitherto publicly denounced the subject as either irrelevant or irresponsible and their publicly known personal stance may largely influence the committee’s report.
It is on record that the committee’s chairman recently said on a live TV broadcast that “A lot of the talk about political restructuring is political opportunism and irresponsibility in my opinion” and he does “not believe that the 2014 CONFAB report is a sensible basis.”
Gov. Ganduje was also reported, while addressing National Youth Council of Nigeria in 2016, to have said that restructuring was not the way out for Nigeria.
Gov. Lalong, while addressing Law School students recently said APC has no stance on federalism, despite the prominence given it in the party’s manifesto, while the Party’s Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, believes that restructuring should not take priority for now.
“While we are prepared to give this committee the benefit of doubt, it would appear that the APC continues to waste precious opportunities that its 2015 electoral victory presented to it on a platter of gold to salvage Nigeria, in accordance with its manifesto,” the statement said, while adding that “as of now, there is really no luxury of time to continue to dress peoples’ genuine agitation in convoluted bureaucracy and officialdom.”
“We, therefore, hope that the party can come down from its high horse and listen to the loud whispers of Nigerians, which portend an unprecedented humanitarian crisis waiting to occur in the absence of a genuine attempt at restructuring the country.”
