Buhari cannot continue to evade the question of restructuring

That Buhari could refer to those agitating for restructuring as being naïve and dangerous shows that he is out of touch with reality and that he is not fit to be President of the country. To put the record straight, Buhari is the most dangerous and naïve person in Nigeria at the moment for holding such belief.

Nigeria, as presently made up, is blessed with massive human and natural resources to the extent that throwing a stone in an open place in the country, you are most likely to hit a world-known Doctor, a world-class Lawyer or Engineer. Unfortunately, the country is being ruled by such an element like Buhari that cannot differentiate between the call for restructuring and secession.

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Buhari has frequently insulted the collective intelligence of the Nigerian people by comparing restructuring with secession. However, the signal that the fear of Buhari has sent to us is that he is still being ruled by his crude military dictatorship tendencies that there is the possibility of an overthrow because of his failure to meet the yearnings of the people of the country. So, in his brain, every call for good governance is equals an overthrow of his government which is far from the truth.

Rather than confront the woes facing the nation headlong, Buhari is interested in gagging free-speech which is clear in his suspension of the activities of Twitter in Nigeria all because it has become a tool to call the attention of the world to the devilish activities of his government and also his attempt to amend the Nigerian Press Council Act and the National Broadcasting Act which will make him to have total control over the press which is like the Public Officers Protection Against False Accusation Decree (Decree No. 4, 1984).

The President has only seen the smaller picture and not the larger picture by always shouting that he is committed to making the judiciary and local government functional, yet; he is against the call for restructuring which his party campaigned with during the 2015 general elections. This is bad for the country’s polity as it has shown the President as an inconsistent ruler that only pays lip-service to the issues of governance.

It is interesting to note that the President had, during his visit to Lagos to commission the railway terminal some two weeks ago, said that State Governors should play their part in tackling insecurity. As usual, in his characteristic manner, he was trying to shift the goalpost because there is no way Governors can tackle insecurity when the Constitution does not grant them power over the Police Force in their respective States. The President needs to give room for restructuring of the country which will allow each region/State to develop at their own pace. Through this, each State will have control over their resources and it will at the end-point boost local production of food items which will help fight the critical issues of extreme poverty.

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The President and his legion of Ministers and innumerable aides that lives in a bubble at rocky height must come to the realisation that State Police is an important component of Federalism since sovereignty is divided between the Central authority and federating State authorities. In fact, the beauty of the establishment of State Police is that it is in line with the principle of federalism on which Nigeria fashions its constitution.

Buhari and his acolytes should stop taking refuge in self-deception and quickly come to terms with the words of Victor Hugo that “there is something stronger than all the Armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.” As against the earlier submission to ‘fate’ of seeking daily survival without being bothered about how the country is being ruled while their leaders continue to rob them of existence, the Nigerian people have eventually begun to organise, demand what they call true federalism as against the neo-enslavement which is at play.

We must stop deceiving ourselves. The question of restructuring can no longer be evaded, most especially at this period of our national life, because it is a call that has been in public debates for long. It is time for the constitutive parts to reconstitute themselves into an acceptable structure of collaboration if at all there will be harmony and greatness, and the Constitutional amendments going on must reflect these. Anything other than this is an effort in futility.

Right now, the country is sitting on a time-bomb and the President must at this point in time listen to the demands of the Nigerian people. And, those who choose to misunderstand and misrepresent the purposes of the call for restructuring are creatures caught in the warp of time. After all, government exists for the State and not the State for the government.

Israel (GANI) writes from Ibadan, Nigeria.