Restructuring: Atiku commends APC governors, others

Former vice president and chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar, has commended the resolution of the APC Governors’ Forum, which called for restructuring and true federalism, saying, “the issue transcends religion and ethnicity.”
Atiku Abubakar also described as patriotic the convergence of positions around restructuring by leaders and stakeholders from diverse regions of the country, noting that it confirmed that he (Atiku Abubakar) was not just a lone voice in the wilderness in the inevitability of restructuring of Nigeria for the good of all.
The former vice president, in a statement in Abuja by his media office, explained that the agitations for secession would not had arisen if the country had shown sincere readiness to address the underlying problems that fed the agitations by separatist forces.
According to Atiku Abubakar, the restructuring debate transcends the ambition of any single politician in Nigeria, and that any attempt to ignore the agitations can make a bad situation more complicated.
He further explained that avoiding a problem would not solve that problem, adding that with so much hate, distrust, suspicions and fears in the country, political leaders should not be afraid to confront the challenge.
To him, our current federal structure should be freely discussed by allowing the federating units voice their grievances with a view to finding workable solutions that protect the rights and interests of all.
He said the country could not afford to allow bottled-up frustrations of the people to explode into violence, which “threatens not only innocent lives, but also harms the country’s economic assets.”
He therefore praised the APC governors and other leaders and groups for their courage to confront the country’s most urgent national challenge, adding that separatist agitations were dangerously threatening the country’s unity and indivisibility. To his mind, “no country could afford to take these threats lightly.”

 
Seyi John Salau