Some pressure groups from South Eastern part of the country, have called on the relevant authorities to split Nigeria into six regions.
The groups – Igbo Youth Movement, Igbo Women Assembly and South East Christian Network – also warned business mogul, Prof. A.B.C Nwosu to stop working against his people.
The coalition said they were not clamouring for a restructuring of the polity, but a mere devolution of more powers, more resources and more responsibilities to the 36 states from the centre, that has been condemned by many stakeholders and activists from the South East.
Evang. Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko, founder of Igbo Youth Movement and Deputy Secretary, Igbo Leaders of Thought, in a statement issued on Friday, alleged that Prof. A.B.C. Nwosu has again betrayed his people, by placing his political relationship with a Northern 2019 Presidential hopeful over and above the survival and well-being of the country and the deliverance of his people from internal slavery.
According to him, Nwosu is merely flying a kite to test the waters and monitor reactions in order to lunch an attempt to sell the Northern version of restructuring down the throats of gullible Nigerians.
His words, “The North wants to retain the unjust and unfair 36 states and 774 LG structure by all means, but incidentally, that is the crux of the disaffection, that is at the root of the bitterness in the land. You cannot retain the source of the anger in the land and claim to have restructured the country, by merely devolving more power and resources to the states.
“That will not stop the agitation, unless they do not want all these agitations to stop, the only way to restore peace to Nigeria is a restructuring along the lines of six regions as federating units, built on true fiscal federalism, as the 1963 constitution where regions managed their resources and paid a certain percentage to run the centre. Anything short of that will achieve nothing,” he said.
He advised Prof. Nwosu to retrace his steps of attempting to sell Northern version of restructuring, just so he could be politically relevant with his northern friends, adding that “It’s a hard sell, it won’t fly”.
On his part, Bishop Micheal Ibeneme, coordinator of South East Christian Network lamented: “It’s a pity that Northerners always find willing Easterners, any time they plot to subvert and undermine any good thing in Nigeria.
“Prof. Nwosu knows the position of his people at Aburi, Ghana 41 years ago, he knows our people’s written position at the 1994/95 constitutional conference, where Abacha even agreed to adopt the six geo political zones as federating units, Nwosu knows the peoples demands for regional autonomy both at Obasanjo’s 2005 political reform conference and Goodluck Jonathan’s 2014 confab.
“He knows that the states cannot be the federating units, because the real quarrel is how the state and Local Government were created to cheat and oppress the East. Is he saying that the East should continue to suffer the cheating?
“We want our own Eastern region, where we will explode our potentials and go to the moon, why are they afraid to give us back our beloved Eastern region Dr. M.I. Okpara proved to the world what we can do.
“Only a reversal to six regions can save Nigeria now, I challenge A.B.C. Nwosu to get to his home town Nnewi and tell them that states will be the federating units, they will lynch him there.
“He should not destroy the future of his people just for 2019, political relevance, everybody knows the North, handed out that agenda to A.B.C Nwosu to market, it is a shame. The people will embarrass him.
“While pretending that he was supporting restructuring, he cleverly countered regionalism which is the key demand of the people, without reverting to regions, there is no point restructuring”.
Relatively, Chief (Mrs.) Mariah Okwor of Igbo Women Assembly said while many have been asking President Buhari to restructure Nigeria without delay, “the North have packaged their own perverted version of restructuring and handed it over to some people to sell”.
“Since John Kerry handed over the grave warning to both President Buhari and Sultan of Sokoto of the dangers of continuing the unhelpful delay to restructure Nigeria, the enemies of restructuring quickly articulated a watered-down and fake version which Prof. A.B.C Nwosu and Co. are now struggling to market. “We plead with him, that all the people want is regional autonomy and nothing else”.
Prof. A.B.C Nwosu had in a recent interview said, “Restructuring is not going back to regions; I am shocked at that kind of ignorance and nonsense. Who says restructuring is going back to regionalization”
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