By Sam Oladapo
By all yardsticks, the unfolding political horizon in Nigeria regarding the electioneering campaigns for the 2023 general election, is very different from the scenarios of the past because the momentum has been largely issue-based. Thus, unlike the previous electioneering climate of campaigns of calumny, character-assassination and mudslinging, most of the leading presidential candidates have been admiringly speaking to Nigerians on their mission to resolve the key issues bordering on survival of our nation as a federation and socio-economic geo-polity in dire need of a flight into her destined greatness in the comity of nations.
Cheeringly, one of these key issues is the widely publicised Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s well espoused restructuring plan for Nigeria if he wins next year’s presidential election. As it will be recalled, in a recent media chat with the Nigerian Guild of Editor, NGE, in Lagos, the Waziri Adamawa openly canvassed for the restructuring of Nigeria.
According to him, he has already prepared a draft amendment bill for the restructuring of Nigeria and it will be introduced to the National Assembly on the first day of sitting of the 10th Assembly, next year as an Executive Bill if elected as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Federal Republic of Nigeria next year.
Alhaji Abubakar who hinted that he is not making the document public now, however assured Nigerians that issue of resource control, which has continued to be a major high-point in talks on restructuring of Nigeria as well as devolution of power and state police, are a major focus of his restructuring plan for the country.
To further demonstrate his commitment to the issue of restructuring Nigeria, the PDP presidential flag-bearer in next year election also said that in preparing the draft restructuring amendment bill, he assembled a team of lawyers who are some of the bests in the country from each of the six geo-political zones so that each zone would have representation and a sense of belonging in his restructuring package for Nigerians. He also said he took into account various interests of each component part of the geopolitical zones of the country in his draft bill.
The former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, GCON, has continued to receive massive applause all over the nation for his vision and courage to have an articulated plan to deal decisively with unbundling the cloggy pseudo ‘unitary-federation’ the nation has been running since the enactment of Decree 30 of 1966, which in spite of its abrogation, has haunted Nigeria and clogged its path to evolving true federation that began in colonial Nigeria through to the First Republic when healthy rivalry and competition among major components of the federation birthed the groundnut pyramids in the North, massive cocoa produce in the West, vibrant palm oil production in the East and massive export-earning rubber production in the Mid-West.
There is no denying the fact that Alhaji Abubakar is a visionary leader for choosing to sponsor an Executive Bill on the undying issue of restructuring of Nigeria if he becomes next Nigerian president. As a matter of historical fact and to a considerable extent, most of the Constitutional Conferences held on the Nigerian federation since 1953, have all had restructuring of the structural defects in our nation’s socio-political constitution as main focus. It can even be said that the undying flame on restructuring Nigeria was the biggest issue in both the 1995 and 2014 Confabs held in the country.
Without an iota of doubt; the big question is: why the undying flame on restructuring and why is it good tiding for Nigerians that Atiku Abubakar, a prime player and notable figure in political Nigeria in more than past three decades; is spearheading its entrenchment in our socio-political system?
Without any colouration, the period of our national life as an emerging power was the ‘pre-oil boom’ era when the component regions attained their very best in internal developmental strides in governance, leadership development, socio-economic constitution and creative wealth creation yet unsurpassed in the nation’s history.
As succinctly articulated in 2017 by Yinka Odumakin, late scribe of Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-political group and a diehard Apostle of restructuring, “A Nigeria earnestly restructured, is a Nigeria positively restored: a country restored to a previously-travelled path of developmental progress, rapid educational advancement, robust and committed Public Service, which genuinely and competently served the Nigerian public – both at Federal and regional levels. Restructuring will bring back THE CONDITIONS for a return to that golden era of public service and effective governance, regionally and at the Centre.”
Odumakin espoused further: “A Nigeria restructured is a Nigeria with enhanced leadership-building culture, where a truly-federal system allows each region to locally identify leadership for public governance, nurture and closely monitor such leaders for hard work and spirit of public service, focused on the development of each region, at a pace and a rate that reflect the quantum of each region’s effort and efficient use of local resources; indeed, the rivalry-for-regional-success resulting from a truly-federating Nigeria will boost sustainable development across all zones of the country…A Nigeria restructured is a Nigeria where the Central Government, along with its lower-level Federating Constituents, will, and must, be strong”
Of course, if this is where the proposed Atiku Abubakar ‘Restructuring Plan’ will eventually land Nigeria and Nigerians, he deserves our accolades, applause and massive support to lead us to the promise land envisioned by Nigeria’s founding fathers, where once again, our country will be the envy of all other nations on God’s planet.
• Oladapo, social commentator and veteran journalist, writes from Lagos.