Former Vice-President and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, recently called for the political restructuring of the country to strengthen its unity and stabilize its democracy.
The former Vice President is vastly experienced and has contributed a lot to the consolidation of the nation’s democracy, thus his views should not be dismissed without proper deliberations.
Even those who are against restructuring cannot defend the nation’s flawed political structure which accumulates power at the centre, making the federal government too dominant in comparison to the federating states.
This consequently creates unhealthy competition for power at the centre and, at the same time, stifling growth across the federating units.
To solve this problem, I agree that there is need to re-examine our existing strategy for unity and national integration, and also measure its effectiveness under present conditions.
It is also crucial that this re-evaluation be carried out by independent professionals in order to obtain objective solutions which are neither subjective nor ad hoc.
Nigerians from all over the country need to come together and support the process which aims to rectify the mistakes of the past. The change Nigerians have been promised should be allowed to go deep enough to transform the nations structure.
* Phillips sent this piece from Calabar, Cross River State.
The call for restructuring is a welcome one and I urge the President to have a second thought on the issue of restructuring because it will help bring to an end the issues of agitations across the length and breadth of the country.
Restructuring is truly the way to go.