Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE),
has condemned the recent act of taking a bill from Nigeria to President
Muhammadu Buhari, who is on a private visit to the United Kingdom, to append
his signature.
YCE also said that Nigeria is at
a crossroad based on its battles with numerous challenges such as insecurity,
unemployment, poverty and disease ravaging the country.
The Council said the nation is
suffering from governance deficit.
The council stated this in a
communique issued at the end of a meeting held in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital
on Thursday.
The meeting was presided over by
the council’s National President, Ademola Bakre.
It added, “The YCE is not happy
that Mr. President is signing that bill in the United Kingdom, especially when
we have an effective government in place, and when it has been the practice of
Mr. President to hand over to the vice president anytime he had to go abroad,
and the vice president would take over the activities of government. We are not
happy about that.”
The communique was read by the
Secretary General of the council, Kunle Olajide.
It added that “The centralised
unitary system of government in a heterogeneous country has been responsible
for the dilapidated infrastructure, dysfunction educational system and
unemployment, besetting the country.
“Unemployment of young graduates
is on the increase. Nigeria has now been declared as the ‘poverty capital’ of
the world.
“YCE, however, applauds President
Buhari’s determination to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next
10 years, but regrets to say as long as this unitary system of government is
not abolish for enthronement of a truly federal structure that pronouncement
will remain a dream.
“The administration must urgently
revisit the 2014 national conference resolution and the El-Rufai Committee
report on devolution of powers if the country must make progress. Necessary
bills, including Bill on Referendum must be forwarded without delay to the
National Assembly and state Assemblies for the required constitutional
amendment.
“The quickest and most appropriate
route to it, is granting autonomy to the federating units (states) to explore
and exploit the resources within their borders and deploy such resources
according to their priorities.
“Until 2015, insecurity
challenges, including kidnapping, murder and banditry were limited to the North
East, with occasional spillover to North Central and Abuja, Boko Haram
insurgency has been largely decimated but kidnapping, murder banditry, herders’
farmers clashes have enveloped the six zones of the country.
“Federal roads all over the
country are in bad shape. Most of the roads within the states must revert to
the state and only major roads linking states should belong to the Federal
Government for effective maintenance.
“Operation Positive
Identification by the military is definitely a misplaced priority and a
distraction for the military, which should be busy protecting our country from
invasion by ISIS and Boko Haram. The military cannot afford this distraction in
these trying times since Nigeria is not in a state of emergency. If need be,
the operation should be restricted to the North East.”
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