The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) presidential candidate in the 2019 election, Maj-Gen. John Gbor (Retd), has said that the current configuration of Nigeria makes it ungovernable as a country.
He said this on Thursday in Abuja at a meeting of the Patriotic Action Nigeria (PAN), an arm of the John Gbor Foundation.
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According to him, the British colonialist deliberately created Nigeria and structure it in a manner that makes it impossible to function well and that former presidents could not have done anything to fix Nigeria.
Restructuring
He said that President Muhammadu Buhari, like his predecessors, is helpless and will not change the country, as long as the nation refuses to restructure.
“After 60 years of independence, Nigeria is yet to meet the national expectations and aspirations of its teeming citizens.
“Nigerians are increasingly more divided than ever before. People are locked down in their ethnicity and geo-political divides.
“The supposedly Nigerian citizens speak openly in defence of their ethnic group and the geopolitical divides of north, south, east and west.
“Sometimes, issues of religion are considered more important than our common identity as members of one nation.
“Over the years, these have metamorphosed into regional leadership of Arewa Consultative Forum for the North; Afenifere for the West; and Ohannaeze for the East.
“These organisations are strong organs set up to ensure that they obtain the maximum share of the resources coming from the Central Government,” Gbor said.
On the inability of former and current leaders to fix the country, the former Commandant, Nigerian Army Education Corps, said: “Nigeria is ungovernable.
“I pity Nigerian leaders, both former and current. President Buhari can’t do anything until we remove those things the British put there.”
He lamented that throughout the 1920s and 1930s Nigerian nationalists continued to demand the Nigerian nation and that the British were not comfortable with the strength of Nigerian nationalism.
He said: “The British strategy of divide and rule is still affecting our unity as a nation.
“It has an adverse effect on our national development, and it has eroded the faith and weakened the commitment of our citizens to the nation.
“The only way to go about it is to have a new constitution.
“We also need to untie and restructure our system.
“If we don’t do this, nothing will ever work in Nigeria, no matter who becomes the president of this country.”
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