The All Progressives Congress
(APC) says restructuring the country will be better achieved under the
government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Yekini Nabena, acting spokesman
of the APC, said this while reacting to the debate between Vice-President Yemi
Osinbajo and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.
Nabena said the ruling party
believes that good, sincere and purposeful leadership at all levels “will
propel the country to its deserved heights”.
“Sincere efforts towards
achieving true federalism are more important than politically-exploited
populist rhetoric which achieve nothing,” he said in a statement.
“With emphasis on practicability,
constitutionality and reality, we are confident that true federalism or
restructuring as some will like to call it will be better achieved under the
President Buhari-led APC administration.”
Backing Osinbajo’s view, the
spokesman said Nigeria does not need geographic restructuring but good
governance.
Nabena said Nigerians must not
surrender to “ethnic champions who promote campaigns to breakup the country
into tiny bits or other unrealistic and unpatriotic proposals in the name of
restructuring to solve our problems as a country.”
“Osinbajo in his well-articulated
response to Atiku, submitted that what Nigeria requires now is not geographic
restructuring but good governance, honest management of public resources,
deeper fiscal Federalism and a clear vision for development.
“The APC cannot agree more with
Prof. Osinbajo. It must be said that the calls for restructuring by many
politicians is often time a populist and opportunistic ploy to latch on and
politically exploit simplistic public narratives on the panacea to Nigeria’s
problems and not necessarily for its realism and practicability.
“Past administrations have
splashed billions of public funds to convene several national conferences,
subsequently left conference reports to gather dust and achieved nothing. Bad
governance, corruption, bigotry and other ills remain the limiting factors that
continue to hold the country back.”
According to him, a
well-articulated roadmap to ensure a “well secured, better governed Nigeria
with equitable distribution of resources within the component federating units,
is being given serious attention.”
“Recall that the APC set up a
committee on true federalism under the chairmanship of the Kaduna state
governor, mallam Nasir El-Rufai. The Committee submitted its report to the
immediate-past National Working Committee, making its recommendations on twenty
four items that Nigerians expressed views to balance our federation.
“These items are: creation of
states; merger of states; delegation principle; fiscal federalism; devolution
of power and resources between state, federal and local governments; federating
units; form of government; independent candidacy; land tenure system; local
government autonomy; power sharing and rotation; resource control; types of
legislature; demand for affirmation for vulnerable groups — people with
disabilities, women and youth; ministerial appointment; citizenship; state
constitution; community participation; minimum wage; governance; judiciary;
state re-alignment and border adjustment; circular status of the federation and
referendum.
“A practical approach to
implement the committees report is being considered by the federal government.”
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