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•To present proposal for 15 federating regions
From Adesuwa Tsan, Abuja
Restructuring Nigeria has become a “national survival strategy” and a necessary step towards restoring stability, productivity and confidence in the country, the Concerned Citizens Assembly has declared.
The Convener of the Assembly, Deacon Owolabi Oladejo, stated this on Monday in Abuja at the opening of a national conference on restructuring, which brought together representatives of ethnic nationalities and other stakeholders from across the country.
Oladejo said growing insecurity, economic hardship, mutual distrust and declining confidence in public institutions had made it necessary for Nigerians to forge a new consensus on the structure and future of the federation.
He said the Assembly was created to provide a platform through which Nigerians could determine how they wished to be governed, insisting that the initiative was not sponsored by any government, political party or sectional interest. “Today, we gather not as spectators of history, but as its makers,” he said.
According to him, restructuring based on the consent of Nigerians would provide a peaceful and constitutional route to addressing some of the country’s long standing political and economic problems.
“That is why restructuring has become a national survival strategy,” he said.
Oladejo advocated a federation of autonomous and economically viable regions operating within one sovereign Nigeria, with responsibilities devolved to the level of government best positioned to perform them.
He also called for fiscal federalism that would reward productivity rather than dependence on federal allocations.
He argued that Nigeria’s unity would be strengthened, rather than weakened, when it is built on justice, equity, mutual respect and genuine federalism. The organisers disclosed that they would present a proposal for 15 federating regions as part of their recommendations for restructuring the country.
The proposed regions, they said, would be developed around such considerations as cultural and linguistic affinity, geographical contiguity, economic viability and political sustainability. The General Secretary of The Rebirth Group (TRG) and Citizens for Restructured Nigeria (CRN), Ambassador Ali Ocheni, said consultations carried out across the six geopolitical zones indicated widespread dissatisfaction with the excessive concentration of powers at the Federal Government level.
Ocheni said the groups consulted citizens in Ibadan, Kaduna, Enugu, Gombe, Port Harcourt and Jos between May 2024 and March 2026.
He said the consultations identified over-centralisation and excessive concentration of executive authority at the centre as major factors contributing to Nigeria’s fractured national cohesion and weak economic performance.
“Power must be devolved to the sub-regional federating units of government with separate but mutually administered federal and regional constitutions,” he said.
Ocheni said participants were favourably disposed to a return to a regional federal structure similar to that provided under the 1963 Constitution.
He argued that autonomous regions would encourage healthy competition, productivity and cooperation while allowing different parts of the country to develop according to their peculiar resources and circumstances.
Ocheni rejected what he described as piecemeal amendments to the 1999 Constitution, arguing that Nigeria requires a new constitutional framework produced through broad consultation and popular consent.
He said the conference would consider proposed Articles of Federation, the powers and responsibilities of the federating regions, fiscal federalism, natural resource management, regional constitutions, security architecture, citizenship, human rights and intergovernmental relations.
On the proposed 15-region structure, Ocheni said the figure was not necessarily final.
He explained that the number of federating regions could eventually be more or fewer, depending on the outcome of further consultations and the freely expressed wishes of Nigerians.
The organisers said resolutions emerging from the conference would be forwarded to the Presidency, National Assembly, state governors, state Houses of Assembly and the international community. They said the objective was to place before the relevant institutions a framework for further discussion and possible action on the restructuring of the federation.
The conference comes amid renewed calls for devolution of powers, fiscal federalism, resource control and stronger sub-national governments, with proponents arguing that Nigeria’s highly centralised political and economic structure has increasingly become incapable of adequately responding to the country’s security and development challenges.
For the Concerned Citizens Assembly, however, the restructuring question goes beyond administrative convenience or constitutional engineering.
It is, Oladejo maintained, now a question of how to preserve Nigeria by making its component parts sufficiently autonomous, productive and confident in the federation.
