First Republic politician and an Awoist, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has told southern and Christian leaders, criticizing the United States Secretary of State, John Kerry’s recent visit to Nigeria as discriminatory, to calm down, claiming that the U.S diplomat visited Nigeria with a specific message for Northern leaders.
Recall that during the two-day trip, Kerry had after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, visited the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar III, and also met with 10 northern governors.
Shortly after, the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, stated that the visit was discriminatory, personal and divisive, adding that it was aimed at encouraging the ongoing persecution of Christians in the country in favour of northern Nigeria and Muslims.
The CAN President, Rev. Dr Olasupo Ayokunle, who stated this in a statement by his aide: Pastor Adebayo Oladeji, condemned Kerry’s action in strong terms for lack of respect to the heterogeneous nature of Nigeria.
But the octogenarian, who has been a strong voice for the restructuring of Nigeria into fiscal federalism, said in an interview with Vanguard, that Secretary Kerry came to deliver a bombshell to Northern leaders, who are considered to be against restructuring the country because the current structure favours them.
He stated that Kerry told Buhari and northern leaders that Nigeria may face serious problems without restructuring and that the United States and other Western powers would not come to the aid of Nigeria, if it implodes on account of the faulty structure.
According to Adebanjo, “You cannot bastardise restructuring. We want a new constitution, not amendment. Our constitution needs a surgical operation. That was what we did at the 2014 National Confab. What we agreed there is compatible with federalism.
“What we are practising in Nigeria as federalism, where is it practised in other parts of the world? Where is it practised in America, Europe or Australia? It is only in Nigeria that we have this kind of federalism. That is why John Kerry warned northern leaders that they should ensure restructuring of the country and that if they refused they will not be able to handle the consequences.
“That is why they are talking about empowering the local governments but empowering local governments is not the solution to our problems. We need regional autonomy so that each zone will develop at its own pace.”
In reaction to the concerns raised by CAN over Kerry’s visit, the United States Mission in Nigeria explained that the Secretary did not sideline Christians in the meeting with religious leaders in Sokoto, claiming that the most senior official interacted with both Muslims and Christians during the engagement in Sokoto.
A spokesman at the US Mission in Nigeria, Larry Socha said: “In Sokoto, Secretary Kerry met with both Christian and Muslim leaders to discuss religious tolerance and ways to counter violent extremism affecting all Nigerians.”
Reiterating his call for restructuring along regional basis as was witnessed in the First Republic before the military coup of 1966, Adebanjo stated that palliative measures like giving the states and local governments more powers will make little or no impact in addressing the country’s burning problems.
According to him, “My stand is very clear: No restructuring, no Nigeria. We all know what restructuring is and cannot pretend about the kind of restructuring we need in Nigeria. We all know the kind of country our founding fathers left for us. It was the military that de-structured Nigeria after the coup of 1966.
“The constitution that we are using now is a military constitution. It is not the constitution that our forefathers got for us. When the coup happened in 1966, the military changed everything…The problem we are having now is because of non compliance to the federal principle of the country.
“The beneficiary of the in-balance of this constitution are the northerners. How the north have more local government areas than the South? How are the local governments in Kano and Jigawa more than those in Lagos? The military at that time just allocated states and local governments to themselves. There was really no criteria with which they arrived at those local governments. They now went further by allocating funds on the basis of the number of local governments.
“We want equitable distribution. We don’t want any region to be more favoured than the other. Every region must have autonomy to rule itself and we all combine at the centre for what joins us together. If we had no federal system, Awolowo could not have done what he did in the Western Region.”
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