Prominent Nigerians and groups have called for the restructuring of the country into regions, because the way Nigeria is currently constituted is not working.
The leaders include Ambassador YemiFarounbi; Prof John BunmiAyoade;
Dr. Sadiq Abubakar Gombe; Chief Ndidi Benjamin, representing President-General, Ohanaeze Ndigbo,Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu; Chairman Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Oyo State,Chief Okorie; representative of Hausa community, Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu,Deacon Owolabi Oladejo, Comrade Jare Ajayi, among others.
They made the call during a one-day symposium organized by The Rebirth Group and Rebuilding Nigeria held at the Conference Centre, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.
The theme of the symposium was: ‘From the Founding Fathers to the Prodigal Sons and Daughters: The Challenge of Nation-building and Development’.
The Chairman of the occasion was Ambassador Yemi Farounbi while the keynote speakers were Professor John Bunmi Ayoade and Dr. Sadiq Abubakar Gombe.
According to the communique issued and signed by Farounbi and others,Nigeria,.as currently constituted, is not working in the best interests of Nigerians and the way the country is structured.
The communique read that the participants agreed that: “There is the need to make the central government weaker in relation to other levels of government in the country. In other words, the central government should concern itself only with issues that the federating units cannot handle.
The participants proposed discentralisng the country into six regions perhaps in line with the present geo-political zones, but each region would be equal to the other in status and ranking.
It also stated that restructuring into regions is not meant to abrogate states as presently constituted.
“The regions would form the federating units to make the country to be known as United Regions of Nigeria (URN) with each region having its own Constitution and be autonomous.”
“To avoid domination or even sit-tight syndrome, heads of each level of government should be rotational on the basis of the constituents within that enclave. The head who would be from a part of the area in question would have a person from another part as deputy.”
