Leader of the pan-Yoruba
socio-cultural group, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo has fired back at former
interim national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former
governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande over his stand on the clamour for the
restructuring of Nigeria.
Chief Adebanjo noted that there
was no way to federalise Nigeria without restructuring the system.
He was reacting to a recent
comment by Akande that “restructuring is not our language. Go and ask those who
are advocating restructuring to define it. What I told you just now is
devolution of functions; from the centre to the peripheral government to the
states and the local governments.”
He added that “restructuring is a
language of other bodies and groups of people. You can always direct your
questions to them on what they mean by restructuring; whether restructuring in
economy or in politics or whatever, go and ask the advocates of restructuring
what they mean by restructuring, that is not in the APC manifesto or
constitution.”
But, Adebanjo, who spoke at the
fifth Babatunde Oduyoye birthday lecture in Ibadan, yesterday, said
restructuring was not a strange word as it was the same restructuring that
brought Akande to power, as a governor in Osun state, between 1999 and 2003, on
the platform of Alliance for Democracy (AD).
“Restructuring was the basis
under which Akande became a governor. I was the chairman of the party, the
campaign then was sovereign national conference, to be able to restructure the
country to federalism. We filed that resolution in every House of Assembly at
that time, including Akande (in Osun), including Bola Tinubu (in Lagos). What
then is the problem?
“And, when they said they don’t
understand restructuring, I said if you don’t understand restructuring, you
understand the constitution Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sarduna of Sokoto, Ahmadu
Bello and Nnamdi Azikiwe agreed to; that is what we are asking for. Why do we
say we want to go back to what your grandfathers agreed to? You said no. Is
Muhammadu Buhari more northerner than the Sarduna? That is the problem. Please,
let us explain this thing to our people. Nobody wants to separate the country.
It is their propaganda to hit us and we are going to stop it.
“There’s no reason Nigeria should
go astray, except the intellectual themselves are not up and doing and that is
what I believe. Many of you, you are not up and doing. Intellectuals that we
knew in the early ’50’s guided the society. The Action Group, to which I
belong, the intellectuals, were the brains behind and others, But, the
intellectuals are now silent…
“The moment you are given a
government appointment, you turn your intellectualism upside down and you begin
to practise what you never preached, that’s unfortunate. I only hope you’ll
take note because we are going, you are the people coming and if it had been
the practice of what we knew, we should go and rest with people like you coming
up, doing the right thing.”
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You more than correct. "The moment they are given government appointment, they turn their intellectualism upside down". They become liars; they become unable to understand simple things that will move the country forward...
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