Former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, should lead the call for restructuring of Nigeria in order to save the country.
Expressing this view while reacting to the former head of state’s recent call for reforms and acknowledgement that Ndigbo have been marginalised for long in Nigeria, the founder of Igbo Youth Movement (IYM) and Secretary of Eastern Consultative Assembly (ECA), Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko, said in a statement issued at the weekend.
”People in power today and their handlers know all too well that no amount of constitutional amendment would save Nigeria now, they, therefore should urgently quit exploiting our ethnic and religious divisions in order to sustain their false narrative that Nigeria can survive without fundamental restructuring of the polity into true federalism and regional autonomy, anchored on power devolution, delivered through a brand new people’s constitution affirmed by a referendum,” he said.
He said the continuous silence of the authorities in the face of the twin scourge ravaging the land, namely, the ruthless brigandage of herdsmen and blood thirsty Boko Haram warriors, and their seemingly free reign, has become odious.
“What is really worrisome,” he said, “is the continuous unhelpful hypocrisy by the central government, that a piecemeal amendment of the untidy 1999 unitary constitution would return sanity to the land. Nothing could be further from the truth. What may be true is the unpalatable fact that people in power today are willing to allow the bloodbath to thrive, just so they could hang onto power, deciding the fate of 200 million Nigerians.
“The ugly sores afflicting the nation today, hunger, poverty and other economic woes bedevilling our land today, e.g. unemployment, violent crimes, corruption that has seized our soul as a people, the damaging self-centred political culture of our elite club, loss of hope and faith, as seen by various agitations and the confusion and anger that has enveloped our country, all point to one thing: the unitary structure inspired and enthroned by unelected military leaders, cannot carry the edifice any longer. We either decentralise or crash.”
According to Uko, “the unitary structure may have helped win the civil war, forcefully wedge the country as one, but it certainly cannot sustain the edifice today, with the ever growing population. We are clearly passing through the discomforting season, known by political historians as the calm before the storm. Our prayer: may the storm never arise.”
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