How Nigeria can achieve restructuring – Ex-presidential Candidate

A former presidential candidate in the 2019 general election, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has said one way to achieve restructuring of Nigeria is for all parties calling for it to compromise in the interest of unity, peace, security and development of the country.

This compromise, he said, should be initiated by the executive through a constitutional amendment bill dealing especially, in areas where there already exists a clear national consensus.

Some of these areas he said are: creation of state and local government police, side by side with the federal police – to make policing more efficient and to bolster national security

He stated this in a statement on Wednesday.

Mr Olawepo-Hashim’s comment comes about a week after former president, Goodluck Jonathan, former INEC boss, Attahiru Jega and ex-minister, John Nwodo, gave different views on restructuring Nigeria.

The trio spoke at the Daily Trust Dialogue last week in Abuja.

Mr Jega said the clamour for restructuring was ill-informed as existing states would nearly never give up their autonomy, and it might plunge the country into another bout of ethnographic tensions.

Mr Nwodo, however, said Nigeria needs to be restructured because the constitutional history of the country shows that the only constitutions of the Federal Republic of Nigeria made by all the ethnic groups, were those of 1960 and 1963.

The 1999 Constitution, he explained, overthrew the sovereignty of the regions over their national resources and domestic security unleashing in the process an unprecedented fall of education standards, domestic security, and economic well being.

Mr Jonathan said the only restructuring needed in Nigeria is that of the mind.

Another view

But in Mr Olawepo-Hashim’s statement, he said “amendment to enable states government to have some control over the development of all mineral resources in the inland basins, amendment to ensure concurrent jurisdiction of federal and state government over electricity generation, transmission and distribution and electoral reform clause to include electronic transmission of results from all level of results collations” are necessary to achieve restructuring.

He said, “A simple Executive sponsored constitutional amendment bill narrowed to the aforementioned clearly defined items may get a resounding support if properly managed with the 36 Governors in Nigeria, as well as Speakers of the States Assembly.

“The requirements for 2/3rd support from the States’ Assembly of the federation will be achievable in order to meet the constitutional requirement of a valid amendment.’

“Nigeria must move forward together in peace and harmony. National building will not be completed in one day. There will still be life after 2023 and I am optimistic that Nigeria will survive and other issues can be looked into after 2023 elections by the grace of God. Let there be compromise where there exists clear National consensus.”

He further said the only area where he sees no compromise is the agitation by extremists forces to dismember Nigeria.

This comes on the heels of calls by some Nigerians, especially sociocultural groups, for the nation to be divided into regions as it was in the past.