Atiku Criticizes The North

Former vice president, Atiku Abubakar has taken a swipe at
northerners who are opposed to the current clamour for the restructuring
of the nation, accusing them of laziness.

“I don’t know what those who are against restructuring are afraid of. Those afraid must be lazy,” he declared.

Speaking last weekend in Abuja while delivering a keynote address
at a youth forum organised by a conglomeration of civil society groups
under the auspices of Play Forum, Atiku said he would continue to speak
against the current faulty ‘unitary federalism’ structure even at the
detriment of his political ambition.

“I want to agree essentially that there is every need for us to
sit down and talk about our future. This is because the arrangements in
the last 50 years or so have not served us very well.

“I am not a product of the current structure of Nigeria. I am a
product of regional government. I saw the government at work and I have
also seen the current arrangement at work.

“That was why I came out, some people even said to the
detriment of my political career, to advocate for restructuring or
rearrangement or whatever you call it, of the present structure of the
country. I still stand by it. But we cannot determine the nitty-gritty
of this restructuring until we are able to dialogue and agree on how we
want to continue to live together as a country.

“It is good that all the representatives of the ethnic groups
agreed that we should continue to live together. I believe it is
imperative. But I also don’t believe in the current arrangement, which I
have always referred to as unitary federalism, which was a creation of a
prolonged military rule.

“It all started after the civil war, when General Murtala
Mohammed set up the Constituent Assembly of 1978 and specifically
instructed the Assembly to recommend a very strong Federal Government
which no component can challenge or try to secede from. He was
understandably coming from the perception of Biafra civil war. He felt
that the war was caused by the region, which felt that it was too
independent to pull out of the country. Subsequently, they kept amending
the constitution centralising more and more power at the centre,” he said.

The Waziri Adamawa blamed the current political structure on the
failure by military government to implement the Constitutional
Conference of 1994/1995 recommendation of a single term of six years for
the president to rotate among all the six geo-political zones.

“Of course, I was a member of the Constitutional Conference of
1994/1995, and what we actually drafted was not what they eventually
came out with. We proposed a presidential system with single term of six
years to be rotated among the six geo-political zones of the country.

“By now, about four zones would have produced the president. We
also said that after 36 years, we could review that provision if
Nigerians believed it is the best season, otherwise we could discard it.

“By the time we won election in 1999, we saw an entirely
different constitution. I was told that they set us a review committee
headed by Niki Tobi (retired Justice of the Supreme Court), which
tampered with the draft and ended up with the constitution we now have
today. However, on a serious note, we have seen that the fact that a
zone produced a president does not mean that he will get the zone
developed. Former president Jonathan could not construct a road from
Port Harcourt to Bayelsa.

“Even the South West road we started during our administration,
he could not continue. Until former president Obasanjo finished his
eight-year term, he could not complete the road from Lagos to Otta where
his farm is.

“Another issue that needs restructuring is the economy. Left
for me, I will ask every part of this country to take charge of its
resources while the Federal Government should handle defence, foreign
affairs, and immigration among others in the Exclusive List.

“I use to tell people that I would not have gone to school if I
was born today. My parents were so poor they won’t afford to send me to
school. I was born during the era education was free, food was free for
me, I was sponsored from primary school to university. There was even a
job waiting for me before I graduated. Yet there was no oil then. I am
not certainly a product of oil boom Nigeria.

“So, I don’t know what those who are against restructuring are
afraid of. Those afraid must be lazy. We fought the civil war with the
Igbo. Today, the Igbo have been completely rebuilt, but we still find
mud houses in the north. Is it the fault of the easterners that the
north is like that?” he queried

“So, there are more fundamental issues that we need to deal
with after which we would have settled on what basis we want our
federation to be. How do we draw the boundary because even the Ijaw are
not contiguous to each other. I come from a state where we are
minorities. In Adamawa, whether you are Hausa, Fulani, Christian or
Moslem, you are from the minority. It is the same thing in Taraba.

“I think that what is most important is the devolution of
powers and resources with the various governments whether states or
regions. How do the people hold those in power accountable for the
resources handed over to them? We are not as educated as we are today in
the First Republic, yet it beats my imagination how those in charge of
the local governments were more efficient, honest and transparent in
accountable administration Since we have agreed to remain one successful
country, it is not complicated because you can start with all the
recurrent items in the constitution. The president can dialogue with the
governors or National Assembly for states to take charge of the roads,
hospitals, schools and such other items in the Concurrent List while the
Federal Government will continue with items on the Exclusive List.”