The Director-General, Voice of Nigeria, Mr. Osita Okechukwu has blamed the various challenges facing the country on previous administrations.
Okechukwu, who spoke during a rally organized by his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, at Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State on Saturday, said previous regimes enthroned ethnicity, poverty and other vices in the country.
He, therefore, urged the Niger Delta Avengers and other seccesionist groups not to misplace their anger but to join President Muhammadu Buhari’s war against corruption.
The VON DG appealled to Ohaneze, Afenifere, Ijaw National Congress, and by extension all the agitators for restructuring or separation of the country, “to agitate and negotiate for critical physical and social infrastructure with President Muhammadu Buhari, rather than the current feverish agitation for restructuring or outright secession.”
He added that “for the avoidance of doubt, one is not against the trimming of the Exclusive Legislative List in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, so as to shed some federal powers to the states and local government councils.
“I am in the same page with the age long adage of our great ancestors, which states interalia: ‘if you don’t know where the rain started, you may not find a solution to the drench’.
“Therefore, with hindsight, the causative factor which regrettably simulated the current heightened agitation for restructuring or secession is crass and unbridled corruption. Let’s join Mr President to kill corruption. “Let’s not forget the common knowledge that if the successive regimes had revamped our decayed physical and social infrastructure, if they had not squandered our commonwealth and if they had not promoted ethnicity and religion, today no Nigerian could have been bothered on who is Chief of Army Staff or Inspector General of Police.”
“To be specific, if the erstwhile president, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan,GCFR, and ex-president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR, had utilized the unprecedented Oil Windfall to fix our power sector, erect modern rail lines, build or update our refineries 2nd Niger Bridge and our school and health institutions; nobody today will have anything to avenge for.
“In sum, the painful wind of hunger, despair, despondency and gross unemployment is blowing in the North West, South West, South South, North Central, South East and North East. No ethnic or religious group is immune to hunger ravaging the land, which believe it or not it is the outcome of crass and unbridled corruption, not per se creation of more states, regions or outright secession.
“Accordingly, it is more sane and pragmatic that Ohaneze, Afenifere, Ijaw National Congress and indeed all sundry separatist groups should channel their agitation to total war against corruption, in league with President Buhari. This is the foundation and surest route to Nigeria’s resurgimento.”
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