Seriake Dickson, senator representing Bayelsa west, has
urged President Muhammadu Buhari to consider restructuring the country.
He stated this when he featured on a programme on the Africa
Independent Television (AIT) on Monday.
Citing the report submitted in 2018 by the All Progressives
Congress (APC) committee on restructuring led by Nasir el-Rufai, governor of
Kaduna, Dickson said the federal government can address insecurity by devolving
powers to states.
“Now, we need presidential leadership to talk about the
issues of constitutional reform, which is at the foundation of a lot of
distortions that we now see, because you
have a system in the 1979 presidential constitution, where too much powers were
given to the centre to the detriment of the so-called federating units and the
local government areas,” he said.
“The president of
Nigeria has enormous powers. He cannot pull back and be in a shell, and not
show leadership. He has to come out to use his powers to rally the nation
together to inspire the country.
“The president’s party has done a very exhaustive job in the
area of restructuring — at least one component of it, a critical component of
it, devolution of powers. The APC rightly set up a committee chaired by the
governor of Kaduna state, with senator Adetunmbi as secretary and other
members, and they did a very exhaustive work.
“They went as far as drafting legislations that can bring
that to be. What we need now is the presidential leadership. The president’s
party promised restructuring; the president’s party campaigned on it; the
president’s party has majority in the national assembly, and the president’s party
has brought a roadmap for that.
“If they devolve as
proposed, you won’t have a situation where governors will be crying everyday
with hands on their heads like widows, because they are helpless in the areas
of protecting the citizens of their states.”
The former governor of Bayelsa also kicked against the
establishment of regional security outfits, adding that the president can end
insecurity by initiating an executive bill outlawing open grazing in the
country.
“What the president should do by showing leadership is by
drafting a legislation, an executive bill, clearly outlawing open grazing in
Nigeria, instead of allowing states and regions to come up with different
security outfits,” he said.
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