…insists protests are Democratic rights but Nigeria needs Restructuring not regime change.
A group, Vote4Restructuring (V4R), has condemned the use of force by security agencies against protesters participating in the #RevolutionNow Protest as well as unecessary the arrest of Omoyele Sowore, the AAC Presidential candidate and the protests’ prime mover. From antecedents, Nigerian security agencies have always been too heavy handed in dealing with protests and need to upgrade their skills in that regard.
Firstly, protest by the people is a Right and one of the basic ingredients of democracy and any Government that suppresses such a Right is despotic and undemocratic. If Nigerians could protest during the military era, How can anyone rightly think that citizens should not protest against unpopular Government policies today?
From the announcement of the intended protests to its commencement, the DSS had enough time to invite Omoyele Sowore and other leaders of the protest for discussions on how to make the protests peaceful.
However, Vote4Restructuring (V4R) believes that the “revolution” Nigeria needs is not merely a regime change but Restructuring the Nigerian federation into Autonomous Regions in line with the 1963 Constitution.
Without jettisoning this failed structure, regime change will mean replacing one set of looters with another. Nigeria’s problem is neither APC nor PDP, nor even any other political Party. The trouble with Nigeria lies in the dysfunctional “unitary” federation the country is running.
Therefore, V4R has set for itself a four-year target to actualize the Restructuring of the Nigerian polity, with the conviction that before 2023 an overwhelming majority of Nigerians cutting across all geo-political zones, regardless of religious or political affiliations, should have accepted the reality that the Nigerian problem is not necessarily the ruling Party (the APC) nor is it the PDP nor any other opposition party for that matter. As such, instead of recycling candidates and political parties to continue another four-year orgy of lumbering through a structurally encumbered polity which logically breeds entrenched misgovernance, Nigerians shall all accept to Vote for Restructuring.
Ordinary Nigerians have every reason to be angry with this Government just as they were rightly angry with past governments for failing them.
Both the ruling party, APC and the main opposition party, PDP deserve the angst of Nigerians for promoting corruption and waste of resources while Nigeria is becoming the world’s poverty capital. From evidence, both from international sources and the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, Nigerians have become much poorer under Buhari. Insecurity has also spread from the North East to every part of the country. So, why should Nigerians not be angry?
On the other hand, the PDP has failed the long suffering Nigerian masses by not doing enough to fight their cause. The party’s failure to insist that the Buhari Government’s Anti-Corruption mantra be used as a yardstick for screening his ministers was disastrously embarrassing. Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, the Senate Minority Leader and other opposition senators kept mute in the face of confirmation of ministerial nominees who have pending corruption cases, the same purported reason for which the former CJN, Justice Walter Onoghen, was harried out of office. For not being alive to its duties as the key opposition Party, the PDP is part of the problem. We, however, commend Senator Dino Melaye (PDP, Kogi West) for being the only exception with his loudly pronounced conviction that “no ministerial screening was held” in the Red Chambers
Furthermore, the PDP has failed to celebrate one of its own, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State who did “the unthinkable” by commendably making public his Asset Declaration as promised. This is indeed a novelty which the PDP should not allow to be swept under the carpet. President Muhammadu Buhari and his Vice, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, trumpeting their anti-corruption mantra in the build up to the 2015 Election, promised to openly declare their assets. Unfortunately, they both failed to do so in their first term and never even mentioned it again, even after their second term inauguration.
Also, it is on record that since 1999, no elected or appointed Nigerian political office holder, whether of the PDP, APC or any other party, has had the courage and sincerity to go that extra mile. Governor Makinde, therefore, deserves to be celebrated for this “uncommon act,” which his peers and his party, the PDP seem uneager to emulate or celebrate.
V4R urges Nigerians to insist that their Governors and other political office holders all pass the Makinde Test by also making their Assets declaration public. On the other hand, V4R in collaboration with her civil society partners, shall champion a Bill before the National Assembly to enact a law that compels political office holders to make their Assets declaration public as a practical way of fighting corruption.
Our Conviction: As V4R holds firmly that the only way to “change” Nigeria and take our dear country to the “next level” is by impressing it upon the Nigerian masses that corruption is an ill wind that blows no one any good; more importantly, we are minded to rally the Nigerian people around our firm conviction that corruption will not be solved by our recycling emperors who sit at the Center in Abuja and unleash so called Anti-Corruption Agencies after their estranged past and current public office holders. Our problem, fellow Nigerians, is not in our stars but in the very unworkable structure of our polity.
Even the heightened insecurity in the country is also explained by the logic of a centralized Nigeria. From the 1960s leading up to the civil war, to all the mutual antagonisms and clashes between Nigerian ethnic groups, there is no explanation other than the fact that we are deluding ourselves trying to do the undoable, namely, to run a multi-ethnic country under a centralized system of governance.
We are, therefore, minded to rally every Nigerian to see where our problem really lies, which is the unworkable structure we are labouring to run. And we reaffirm that only a return to Regional Autonomy will bring back peace and security to Nigeria and put a great level of control on corruption, which is just one of the symptoms of a badly constituted polity.
Signed
Mazi Ikechukwu Bismarck Oji, MNSE
Convener, Vote4Restructuring (V4R)
Comrade Samuel Tabara
Secretary, Vote4Restructuring (V4R)
