gas activities, you begin to see that Nigeria is being carried sorely on the back of the Niger Delta states. That arrangement can no longer be accepted. If there are people in the Niger Delta that accept that, there are those that do not accept that arrangement. We have to resolve these issues.
Now, when you have a situation where Kano State is getting a share for 44 local governments in the monthly revenue coming from Bayelsa State and Bayelsa has only 8 local governments, it is no more acceptable. The revenue is also coming from Rivers State and the state has only 23, the injustice is no longer acceptable and that is why the tension and resistance are there. You have the Igbo who feel that after 50 years, they have invested in the North heavily but every now and then, their investments are at risk and their lives are at risk. They lose everything and sometimes including their lives. You cannot continue to tell those people that they should continue to take such risks in Nigeria. So, we must sit down and find a solution.
We must agree that the situation cannot continue and that we cannot sustain the unity of the country that way. I do not see why people are saying that people like us in the Niger Delta want to go or that the Yoruba are clamouring for fiscal federalism and regionalism. Look at the Middle Belt! They have been overrun by the Fulani people. These are people who are strangers in Nigeria. The Fulani are not originally from Nigeria. They came into Nigeria to meet people in places like Kwara State, Adamawa and all those places. So, if we want Nigeria to stay together, we truly ought to sit down and tell ourselves the truth. But if we cannot stay together, we must go our separate ways.
From the way you are sounding, are you in any way thinking that restructuring which is enjoying support from the majority of people today would not sufficiently address the challenges facing the country.
Ordinarily, if you look at what restructuring should mean and what it actually does mean, if you restructure, it is very simple. Why are we calling for restructuring? We are calling for restructuring because the arm of governance that should go with the federating units which are the states has been taken away by the Federal Government.
The Federal Government is the centre and ordinarily, the Federal Government should be looking after the external security of the nation to make sure that our borders are not compromised. They are supposed to make sure that the Fulani herdsmen that are coming from Niger, Chad and so on are stopped. That is part of what the Federal Government is supposed to do; to take care of immigration, Customs and such establishments. But for the states, they should make sure that their states are secure. For instance, I am from Rivers State, the power and right to secure Rivers State truly if we are practicing federalism should be with the state government.
The Federal Government has no business with the activities of the local governments to the extent of giving local governments, allocations every month. That is why the North created so many local governments for themselves. They left the true meaning of federalism and are running a military kind of federation. In doing that, they have taken away powers of the state and that is why people are calling for restructuring. The term restructuring is not complex and‑ers that the Federal Government has taken away. The states should build their hospitals, Universities, roads and whatever they like with their resources. What is restructuring? You leave the resources of Abia state for the people of Abia State, you leave the resources of Kano for the people of Kano. If any state wants to have 60 or 70 local governments, it can go on and have it. That is the problem of the state. But when you now create local governments to be fed by the centre and they are not equal, people would say no. Bayelsa State has eight local governments whereas Kano has 44. How do you justify that?
So, when people say restructuring, that is basically what we are saying. Some people say if you want to restructure, you go to the National Assembly knowing full well that by the 1999 constitution, which is really a military decree, you have locked down restructuring. This is because you are saying you cannot restructure unless you go to the National Assembly when you know that when the issue goes there, you have the number to turn it down. These are the reasons why it may not be possible to restructure. This is even as I have been one of the people that have clamoured for a very long time as far back as 2010/2011; I have been saying that we need to restructure the country, we need a new constitution. Even in the 2014 confab, that was the position I took and I was alone. My own people from the South South were in opposition because I was saying let us have restructuring and they thought I was tilting towards the Federal Government but the status quo was accepted. We have gone full circle that even the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar has joined in the call; it was last year that I heard him speak publicly on restructuring and even a week ago, I was on a panel that critiqued his position on restructuring. I believe that if he maintains what he is saying, he has more or less accepted that the country needs and must be restructured.
So, people like Atiku are the ones that are giving Nigeria one last chance of survival. Now, if we are saying that we would restructure, the question is, what does the Federal Government mean by restructuring. We have a situation where the All Progressives Congress(APC), during the
