President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday softened his stance on the vexed issue of restructuring the country, saying he will follow the lead of the National Assembly to implement the wishes of Nigerians on the subject.
He told the federal lawmakers that they had a responsibility to ensure that the constitution responds to the call for a restructured Nigeria following already concluded regional consultations in their ongoing effort to amend the constitution.
The president made this comment while receiving the national executive of Ijaw National Congress (INC) led by Professor Benjamin Okaba.
LEADERSHIP Friday recalls that President Buhari had always, in his public statements, resisted popular calls from a wide section of citizens for restructuring the Nigerian federation, which has drawn criticisms to him, especially as his party rode to power on the promise of restructuring as one of its campaign promises.
His position was further weakened by a committee report of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) which recommended restructuring, among others. The committee was headed by Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai.
CAN Calls For Restructuring, Creation Of More States
But in his meeting with Ijaw leaders yesterday, President Buhari said if the people’s wish for restructuring expressed through the parliament gets to his table, he would not hesitate to give it his sign of approval.
Speaking “As soon as they finalise the process, necessary action would not be delayed on my part,” he said.
In a statement by presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, Buhari commended the leadership of the INC on their recent affirmation of belief in a united Nigeria and their support for the fight against insecurity by developing internal control mechanisms.
He implored the leadership of the association to use its influence “in making sure that we keep working together to keep this country a united, indivisible entity, so that we can tackle our problems together and overcome our challenges together.”
The president also used the occasion to address some demands of the association on several issues, including environmental degradation, restructuring, creation of states, allocation of operational licenses for marginal oil fields to Ijaw people, and inaguration of the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), among others.
On the Hydrocarbon Remediation Project, President Buhari said he had directed the Federal Ministry of Environment to ensure that the remediation efforts in Ogoni are implemented with a high percentage of local content and inclusion of the surrounding communities.
Similarly, the president said the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), under the same Ministry of Environment, was working to ensure that oil spills are reduced and new ones prevented while all relevant agencies of government had been directed to ensure that they enforce compliance by the International Oil Companies to international best practices.
On the creation of two additional states and more local government areas for the Ijaw people, the president said it was a legislative matter, which should naturally be handled by the National Assembly with concurrence at the state levels.
On the allocation of operational licenses for marginal fields to Ijaw people, the president said while he completely agrees with the demand,”the process of granting licences is guided by laid-down rules and regulations, most of which even favour local content and local contractors. I see no reason why they should not be granted such licences if they qualify.”
On NDDC, the president pledged that the Board would be inaugurated as soon as the forensic audit report is submitted and accepted.
“A contentious issue that has been a subject of discourse amongst the Ijaw people in recent times has been the need for the Niger Delta Development Commission to live up to its billing by delivering the required succour to the people of the region.
“Based on the mismanagement that had previously bedeviled the NDDC, a forensic audit was set up and the result is expected by the end of July, 2021.
“I want to assure you that as soon as the forensic audit report is submitted and accepted, the NDDC Board will be inaugurated. However, I would like to implore you that the Ijaw National Congress should play a more active role in making sure that the mismanagement that occurred in the past is not repeated,” he said.
The president also assured the leadership of INC that the completion of the East-West Road remains top on his infrastructure agenda, adding that the occasional disturbances by youths in some communities along the route of construction work would require the close attention and guidance of leaders in the region.
In his remarks, Professor Okaba urged the president to mandate the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to direct the relocation of the headquarters of all oil companies to their operational bases in Ijaw land and the Niger Delta region.
Reaffirming strong faith in the “overall and mutual benefits of true federalism and resource control to the prosperity and stability of Nigeria, Okaba assured the president that the Ijaws had no secessionist agenda.
Restructuring, Only Way To Save Nigeria – Bode George
Lending his voice to the restructuring clamour, former deputy national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olabode George, says restructuring the country is the only way to save Nigeria.
George noted that skewed governance structures are provoking everywhere the glaring indices of terror and widening chaos.
In an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday in reaction to his recent statement on restructuring, George said the Nigerian state is sinking deeper into loose banditry and general uncertainties.
He maintained that policing can no longer be centralised, adding that it is one of the cardinal points why the restructuring of the Nigerian state is important.
He said history will be kind to Buhari if he aligns with the clamour for restructuring, adding that his advice to the president is “without partisan or ethnic intimations.”
The letter reads in part: “It will be wrong and even cynical for anyone to pretend that the present Nigerian structure is smooth and without flaws.
“On the contrary, the very skewed structures are provoking everywhere the glaring indices of terror and widening chaos. From Sokoto to Calabar, from Jigawa to Delta, from Borno to Rivers – the Nigerian state is sinking deeper into loose banditry and general uncertainties.
“Virtually everyone is vulnerable. There are no safe havens anymore. The present policing architecture is obviously unsuitable to modern threats and challenges.Policing can no longer be centralised. This is one of the cardinal points why the restructuring of the Nigerian state is important.
“Power has to be loosened at the centre for the survival of this very fragile union. The states must be constitutionally empowered to determine their growth and development. We cannot all be held down by an overarching unitary system that stunts merit and halts individual progress and initiatives.”
He said Nigeria can only survive when the states can prosecute their individual vision, explore their God-given resources at their own pace without the intrusion of the central organ.
He continued, “The states are suffocated, stifled, hindered and cluttered by inimical constitutional constraints that are savaging to developmental enlightenment. We are a nation of nations whose innate diversities should be cultivated as our collective advantages.
“Where we have disparate visions, where we have contradicting values, we can steer towards a unifying compromise without anyone being elbowed out. We can reconcile on the peace table without recourse to sectional triumphalism which invariably fans the embers of violence.”
He insisted that a nation can only be sustained on the platform of equity and fairness and not when some sections feel fettered and squeezed out of the national equation.
“While I will never support a violent dissolution of the country, I am a strong proponent of a very loose, tight and elastic union where each state can freely assert itself without any overbearing intrusion from an outsider, where the indices of economic advancement are devolved to the states, where policing is enforced as local matters, where natural resources are controlled by state organs and where the collective wealth of a state are sustained and steered towards the development of each state,” he said.
President Begins 8th Medical Trip To London Today
Muhammadu Buhari will proceed to London, the United Kingdom on June 25, for a scheduled medical follow-up.
Mr Femi Adesina, the president’s spokesman, confirmed this in a statement in Abuja on Thursday.
“He is due back in the country during the second week of July, 2021,” he stated.
LEADERSHIP Friday reports this is the eight time the president will be going for a medical check-up in the UK since he took office six years ago in 2015.
The president returned from his previous medical trip to London in April after two weeks. It was his seventh trip to London in six years and his first outside the shores of the country since the outbreak of COVID-19.
With the lockdown in most countries occasioned by coronavirus, President Buhari did not embark on any medical trip. The pandemic deprived most African elite of the option of travelling to developed countries to seek medical attention.
The president had on March 30, 2020 flown to London for what the presidency described as a routine medical check-up.
Checks revealed that Buhari has spent 183 days on medical vacation in the UK in six years.
LEADERSHIP Friday recalls that a year after the president assumed office, precisely on June 6, 2016, he travelled to London to treat “a persistent ear infection”. On January 23, 2017, he travelled to the UK again for a 10-day medical vacation but the trip was extended and he spent 49 days.
Similarly, on May 7 in the same 2017, the president returned to the UK for another medical vacation where he spent 103 days.
Again, on May 8, 2018, he returned to the UK to see his doctors. Also in August that same year the president travelled to London on a working leave and returned on the 18th of the same month, spending a total of 16 days.
In 2019, Buhari was on a 10-day private visit to the UK from April 25 to May 5.
That same year, the president on Saturday, November 2, proceeded to the United Kingdom on a private visit from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where he had travelled for an official trip to attend the Economic Forum of the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh.
The trip he made in April and this one complete the figure.