Tinubu must not jettison Nigeria’s restructuring — Afenifere

Afenifere, on Tuesday, March 5, advised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu not to reject the call for the restructuring of Nigeria, having been one of the Nigerians who called for the restructuring during his tenure as governor of Lagos State.

The pan-Yoruba socio-political group added that a blueprint for restructuring the country is available.

Mogaji Gboyega Adejumo, the Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, said this while discussing with journalists shortly after the caucus meeting of the group, held at the Isanya Ogbo Ijebu residence of Pa Ayo Adebanjo, its leader.

Afenifere said that the idea of restructuring the country was geared towards adopting the parliamentary system of government.

It noted that the restructuring would help in cutting down the high cost of governance and the enormous amounts of money being spent on electioneering and, more importantly.

He said, “Sometimes last year, in November, a committee under the leadership of Oba Oladipo Olaitan was set up to aggregate Afenifere’s view on restructuring and today, the committee said that the report is ready.

“However, this report will still be considered by the executives of the group, after which it will be taken to the general assembly, where all the members will get to know what we stand on restructuring as Afenifere, and we shall then print the report, do our various publicity on it for people to be enlightened on what we believe on restructuring.

“Tinubu himself is a product of Afenifere. He was elected on the platform and ideology of Afenifere. He took the Federal Government to court under the leadership of former President Olusegun Obasanjo 31 times in an effort to implement restructuring.

“He didn’t do anything when former President Muhammadu Buhari was there for eight years; probably, he was bidding his time because he knew that northerners wouldn’t implement restructuring because they thought it wouldn’t favour them.

“But Tinubu is there now as the President; he is answerable to us all as a product of Afenifere and as what the whole Yoruba did under the Afenifere in Adamasingba, Ibadan, Oyo State in 2017 that what we want is nothing but restructuring.

“For this 2017 meeting, we invited the South-South, South-East and Middle Belt, and this is the beginning of what we called the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum.

“So, we are still meeting at this forum when other zones will also submit their recommendations, so what we took to the 2014 National Constitutional Conference is what we are submitting, even though some things have changed. We will then take it before the National Assembly for their approval.”

The publicity secretary hinted that the group is proposing a parliamentary system of government in the greater interest of the country.

He added: “What we are actually proposing is the parliamentary system of government. The late Chief Obafemi Awolowo didn’t have to campaign in Ijebu Igbo; all he had to do was to win in Ikenne to become a member of the House, and whoever the leader of the party became the Prime Minister or the Premier.

“The old Western Region was from Badagry in Lagos to Asaba in present-day Delta State, but he never had to be campaigning everywhere as we do now. It makes governance so cheap; nobody will have to spend billions on campaigns again. You will need as much as N100 million to campaign for local government chairmanship elections.

“So, under this system, you will from your constituency come into the House of Assembly, and it is from here you will choose your ministers and your commissioners. You are not going to appoint anyone again from outside but those who have been elected into the House of Assembly.

“With this system of government, we will be spending one-tenth of the humongous resources we are using to run this presidential system of government.”