participation of the North. You cannot change Nigeria democratically without going through the process as defined in the Constitution and this is the support of two-third of members of the National Assembly, a two-third majority of State Assemblies. I assure you that without the support of the Northwest and Northeast, who if put together boast of 13 states, you cannot have the two-third majority to scale through.
Any northerner, who is aware of the strategic position of the region would not be afraid of any constitutional changes because he knows that it (restructure) cannot happen without his consent. For him to give his consent, he must know how the future looks like to him; so the argument is that those who are agitating for restructuring should please put in black and white how Nigeria would look like.
If you look at the arguments in the North, nobody came out openly and said he is opposed to the slogan, what we are saying is to make it bare for us to assess and evaluate what you are talking about. It is wrong for anyone to say that we are afraid.
From your analysis, it is evident that the federating units are not comfortable with the present structure, and …..
(Cuts in) No.Why is that?
(Cuts in) Hold it. It is wrong to take the 36 states as the federating units. We borrowed this word from United States of America. In the USA, 13 states revolted against British rule, they came together and proclaimed their independence and after the declaration, they agreed to form a union, which resulted in the formation of the United States of America. It was later other states joined. The 13 states were the federating units in America.
They decided to donate their power to the central authority they created, but the reverse is the case in Nigeria; there is nothing like federating units in Nigeria. You can call them federating states; they did not create Nigerian states. Instead, it was Nigeria that created the states. It is the centre that created the states.
First, the constituent units of Nigeria were Southern Protectorate, Lagos Colony, and Northern Protectorate, and they were brought together in 1914 and were named Nigeria. After sometime, the British colonialists decided to create Eastern Protectorate around 1921 or thereabout, by the time of amalgamation, there was nothing like Eastern Region.
The 36 states did not create Nigeria, and any changes that happened in Nigeria was created by Nigeria. If Nigerian state assemblies pass a resolution and you find that majority of them are in tandem with raging political issues, it will be correct to say that the agitation is coming from the grassroots. What is happening now is coming from small, but vocal pressure group exploiting their monopoly of the media making a lot of noise. When you have people controlling the media at the centre of unpopular agitation, the result is the overheated polity and conscious attempt to impose their minority view.
To the best of my knowledge, no single elected representative, be it at the state or National Assembly has identified with this latter day slogan or passed a resolution supporting restructuring. Those shouting themselves hoarse are doing that in their private capacities as individuals as guaranteed by our Constitution. Restructuring is not a nationwide appeal because it has not enjoyed the support of the elected representatives of the people of Nigeria.
You speak for the same North where IBB, Atiku are also calling for restructuring…..
(Cuts in) Despite the position the two personalities held in Nigeria, you are talking about individuals. IBB ruled for eight years as Military President, while Atiku served as civilian Vice President for eight years.
When they both threw their support for the new slogan, I celebrated that for the first time because of the strategic position they held in the past, they would come up with a clear definition of what we don’t know about restructuring. IBB granted an interview, and Atiku delivered lectures, and the point they harped on was almost identical but what is interesting is that I can understand IBB’s position because he was a military President, not an elected president, but for a man like my brother, Atiku…
I thought as a politician that he is, that he should have read our Constitution. He said you could restructure in six months. What are the details? That the budgetary provision for Federal Ministry of Works should be transferred to the states, and the same for Federal Ministry of Education and so on. He argued that these could be done within six months.
First, we already have a budget approved by the National Assembly as empowered by the constitution. How can we take the fund by the National Assembly for the Federal Government and now transfer them without the consent of the National Assembly? How do we do that? The money approved by the National Assembly was for federal ministries with their heads and sub heads cited in the Act. How do we achieve all these without recourse to the Constitution?
I wonder how Atiku wants to achieve these. If you are going to change a comma in the Constitution, I know you have to go through the
