Fidelis David in Akure
A legal practitioner and retired military officer, Olumuyiwa Adu has advocated the need for Nigeria to be restructured along geographical line in order to ensure equity, justice and security in the country.
Adu said there is no shortcut to development than restructuring, which would ensure true federalism, a development that would make each region to grow based on their own strengths.
Speaking with journalists in Akure, Adu who is an aspirant under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Akure North/South Federal Constituency blamed the security challenges being faced in the country on politicisation of security issue.
He said: “A country where you want to offer admission to citizens of this same country and you say some people can have lesser mark and some have higher. Is that a country? We can only call it a country, not a nation because we don’t do things in common, we don’t share things in common. There is lack of equity and justice.
These are things that restructuring will address, if only it is allowed. In Nigeria today, the structure is such that the whole of the north was divided into two and the South was divided into four and the core part of the South, North Central geopolitical zone which supposed to be in the South is ceded to the North.”
Adu expressed regret that all the institutions in the country are located in a wrong place, explaining that before sitting any industry, or any institution, there must be certain things called natural resources or endowed resources that will support it to function.
“You cannot locate what is not supposed to be in a dessert in a dessert, so these are the issues. There is no equity, there is no justice. Look at what is happening on the streets. A country where we have banks, look at what you see today where currency are sold on the streets without being arrested and we are talking about bringing down the value of dollar to naira. How can that work? A lot of things are not done rightly,” he added.
He said restructuring would ensure that the country prioritises projects just as he advocated removal of state of origin in the constitution and replaced with state of resident.
“Restructuring will ensure that we prioritise our projects and what do I mean by that? We don’t have electricity, Ajaokuta is in moribund, we went borrowing money to construct road and rail lines, whereas if you have electricity and you are able to develop that Ajaokuta, from there, the steal we need to construct the rail tracks will come from there without importing them from Germany. The only thing we need is technical support.
“A country where we are still talking about state of origin. These are the things we need to address in our constitution. I am a lawyer, I am not just going to the National Assembly as a lay man who doesn’t know what is in the constitution, and if you don’t know what is in the constitution, you can’t perform well in the National Assembly.
“I want a country where we talk about state of residence and not state of origin. If you leave in Ondo state, you should have an identity card or a social security number that gives you the claim that you leave in the state. You should be able to pay your tax, the government should have your data and everything.
“ There are areas in this country where you have only one building and they call such area a local government and in another area, you have so many population and call that same area a local government and they take the same allocation”, Adu Stressed.
