Southern governors gathered and called for restructuring of Nigeria. I will be happier to have Nigeria restructured, but I cannot see this call as anything but a high level mischief intended to blackmail the federal government. These governors, like their foot soldiers, are simply blowing hot air to overheat the polity to hide their political or administrative inadequacies. To some of them, the call for restructuring is a mere ploy to divert public attention and cover the monumental conflicts between their colossal receipts and their meager records of service delivery.
It does not make sense for these governors to adopt an option unrecognisable to the law to press for the restructuring of the country when they have carefully handpicked henchmen loaded in both chambers of the National Assembly to give them not only a restructured but a divided Nigeria if they are serious and ready to have one. Why go to a brothel looking for a priest if one is actually looking for one? Why not simply call and give their representatives a matching order to table their demands on the floors of the National Assembly to have Nigeria restructured. If the option of having things done by extra-constitutional means is applicable in a democracy, why are Nigerians forgoing good roads, hospitals and schools just to maintain an expensive National Assembly which, if I have to remind, is vested with the responsibility to resolve conflicts like this?
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The truth is, the “book of blackmail” is more of an operating manual of Nigeria’s democracy than the constitution. People get by blackmail more what they could not by constitutional means. This may explain why some politicians will rather agitate or even sponsor protests to unleash anarchy just to have the president out of office when they could wait for tenure expiration to resolve their miseries. It may also explain why, for instance, the South East could “restructure” and wholly submit its leadership architecture to Nnamdi Kanu on a platter of gold just to negotiate political position. Could blackmail have a better name?
Nigeria is structured to operate on well-defined laws and trying to circumvent these laws to achieve any objective is akin to resolving chaos with chaos. Some people should get it into their heads that the idea about the Northern part of the country being parasitic is a ploy to hoodwink the gullible into buying the sinister plots of wrong Nigerians skillfully planted in wrong places. Restructured or otherwise, the North could survive on its own and will not be deterred or blackmailed by mischievous advocacies. The earlier we learn this, the better our chances to build a peaceful Nigeria or to have peacefully divided Nigeria.
Finally, if these Southern governors are comfortable usurping the constitutional responsibilities of their members of the National Assembly, should they not explain why the rest of Nigerians should continue picking their bills?
Maiwada Danmallam wrote from Kaduna
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