Perpetua Egesimba
Veteran filmmaker and President of Midwest Movement, Dr. Pedro Obaseki, and the President, Project Victory Call, aka PVC Naija, Dr. Bolaji Akinyemi, and others have added their voices to the call for the restructuring of the country.
Obaseki who spoke in Lagos during an event organised by PVC Naija tagged: “The confluence: discussing the president, CEO and C-in-C 2019-2023?” lamented that people are scared of restructuring because the paradigm sounds like some form of agitation which shouldn’t be so. He outlined the potential and benefits as well as the need to lobby those who can make restructuring come true.
According to Obaseki, in a properly-structured federal arrangement, Obafemi Awolowo was able to build the defunct Western region, Denis Osadebey the Mid-West while Nnamdi Azikiwe the East, urging that the country should restructure.
“In revenue allocation formula, you cannot allocate what you don’t originate. Prior to now, Nigeria had a revenue-sharing formula which was called 50:30:20. The formula was simple. That is how it works in every federating unit in the world.”
He reiterated that restructuring of the country is what is needed, adding that the Nigerian constitution which is currently in use was written by one man.
“The opening page of the Nigerian Constitution is big deceit. It begins with “we the people,” and the question is ‘when did we the people ever sit to write that constitution?’
“So we must sit and agree just like Obafemi Awolowo, Nnandi Azikiwe, and Ahmadu Bello did, to negotiate the union so that Nigeria will be a greater place where we can harness our ethnic national strength and resources for the greater good.”
Obaseki said no part of Nigeria can survive alone and as such cannot divide not because they don’t want to divide but because the strands of the interrelationship are interwoven.
“There must be a proper paradigm engagement where everybody will know that there is equity, truth, justice, and freedom of expression and movement. We have to go back to Nigeria where no man is oppressed, not based on where one comes from.”
He further said that the policies of the President Muhammadu Buhari APC-led government as they affect the entertainment industry were next to zero. He noted that the administration hadn’t engaged anybody, lamenting that all the entertainers were just relying on themselves rather than on an enabling environment provided by the government to fight piracy or train personnel.
Dr. Akinyemi said the event was aimed at ensuring that there was enough information for people to really understand what restructuring is all about and go into lobbying so that those going into offices would be made to realise the potentials and benefits it holds for all.
“The PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has promised to restructure the country if elected; we want to know how PDP hopes to achieve that because the last person that came sold restructuring to us and we voted for him and now, we are still on the topic.
“We know that restructuring is not meant for the executive; it is the legislative responsibility. That is why we want to discuss it now so that those that want to go to the red chambers and the House of Representatives can be engaged so that before they get there, we will have just one single expectation from the 9th Assembly. And that is the fact that Nigeria must be restructured.”
Other discussants at the forum included; Dr. Charles Eghweree of the Department of Political Science, University of Benin and PDP senatorial candidate for Lagos West, Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour, among others.