The Governor of Kwara state, Abdulfatah Ahmed has stated that calls for the restructuring of the country should not be viewed as a way of balkanising the country, adding that the restructuring being advocated should be carried out along economic lines.
Interacting with journalists in Abuja yesterday, he explained that the restructuring Nigeria requires was one that would make the people take their potential to the fore and allow everybody contribute to human capital development and economic growth.
Ahmed asserted that it was at that level that Nigerians would begin to see that they were threatened by any section of the country taking laws into their hands.
According to him, “Certainly, Nigeria requires to be restructured, but along what lines? When you are using a process that has not translated into the desired benefits, you change it.
“But each time we talk about restructuring, people express fear that it is a way of balkanising the country.
“No. it is a way of reviewing how we have been doing things. If the way we have been doing things has not taken us to the promised land, what new way do we need to do?
“Our restructuring in the past had largely been political and driven by political exigencies. That is why the economic impact is not felt. We need to restructure on economic lines which might also require geo-political restructuring. But I think the most important thing is on the economic lines.
“We need to identify our economic strengths and put our energies in those strengths with specific ends in mind and allow for those economic ends to truly transform into human capital development that will transform into wealth creation. That is the kind of restructuring I think Nigeria should go for.
“And that is what will give everybody a sense of comfort without necessarily allowing ourselves to be reliant on a section of a country for support because every section of the country has one support or the other.”
The Governor said he was not aware that President Muhammadu Buhari said he would jettison the report of the National Conference convened by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, noting that there was a level of development that the nation must attain before thinking of implementing the report.
On the criticism that the change promised by the All Progressives Congress, APC, has been late in coming, he stressed that it would be unfair to make assessment without looking at where the nation is coming from, where it is and where it wants to be. The Governor pointed out that the President inherited huge problems, saying change would not come overnight.
His words, “We have seen changes in the area of corruption eradication because it is part of the bane of good governance. We have seen changes coming in the area of infrastructure deployment. The government is coming up with deploying infrastructure in energy, road and water at national and sub national levels.
“But of course, the challenges are enormous and that is why the changes are slow. Except we truly speak as a country and agree that we have to jointly move forward, it is not an APC or PDP thing. It is a collective responsibility. Enough of the bickering!
“This idea of thinking a section of the country or a part of the country would move us forward is not doable; it is a collective responsibility. Let us put our heads together and agree that we have a set goal of where we want to be at a point in time and pull our resources together to take us to that level.
“That is where we are today as a country because we have seen it severally in different parts of the world that homogeneity in religion, homogeneity in race, and homogeneity in language doesn’t guarantee success.
“What guarantees success is the ability to organise yourselves under set rules and allow yourselves equity and fair play that would take us to the promised land and that is what we need to do as a country and luckily we have a leadership with the will that is ready to take us to that leadership. As I think we need to embrace this and move on as a country these are part of the things I think we should look at.”
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