By Moshood Adebayo
LAGOS State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, yesterday, led notable Nigerians, including Ayo Opadokun, Ndubusi Kanu and others to canvass the restructuring of Nigeria.
They spoke on the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, which has become a watershed in the nation’s political life.
The governor, who was represented by Secretary to the State Government, Tunji Bello, urged Nigerians not to forget June 12. “This is a day we must continue to remember because we have been practising democracy; at the end of the day, we are not actually doing what we should be doing.
“If you look at the topic of today, it says ‘Democracy and its inclusiveness’, but, what do we have today? We still have a long way to go, and that is to say that we are not practicing true federalism. “Like Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu said, what we owe Nigeria, today, is nothing but true federalism, and for us to be able to achieve true federalism, we have to work hard for it.
“We still have a long way to go. If you want to live by Abiola’s memory, if you want to honour him, we owe him a duty to ensure that we install a viable democracy and that viable democracy can only be installed if we have true federalism which we are presently not practising, and that is very important.
“For us, Lagos as it is today, has everything to stand by its own. We run the police, we have the most viable infrastructure in the whole country, yet, we are not given what we deserved.
“Look at the number of local governments we have; if we run true federalism, we would not be having 37 local council development areas (LCDAs) and 20 local governments.
We should be able to create the number of local governments that we desire. It is very important for all of us, as a duty, to ensure that some of the things we have gained since we returned to democracy is for us to have a viable federal structure and for that reason, the memory of MKO Abiola will continue to guide and abide with us…”
A chieftain of defunct National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), Ayo Opadokun, who was chairman on the occasion, also canvassed re-structuring of Nigeria. He said its inability to be restructured had done a lot of damage to her existence as a country.
“This country is the eight largest exporter of crude oil in the world, yet, it has the largest number of poor people in the world. Something must be wrong with us, something wonderfully is wrong with Nigeria.
“Let me say here that Nigeria will never get out of the woods until we restructure this skewed, warped, lopsided national structure. We will continue to grope in the dark. We will never find our bearing until the country is restructured.”
Lamenting non-recognition of the winner of the historic election by successive governments in the country, Opadokun urged President Muhammadu Buhari to summon up the courage to recognise Abiola as the winner of the election.
“Since Obasanjo, as the greatest beneficiary of Abiola martyrdom failed to recognise him and Yardua did not as well as Jonathan, I am advising President Muhammadu Buhari to summon the courage to ask the electoral management body to make the final announcement and pronounce Abiola president-elect of 1993 election.”
He also urged the Federal Government to pay all debts owed Abiola’s companies as well as his families, which, he said, had suffered untold hardship since his death
On his part, former military governor of Lagos State and a NADECO chieftain, Ndubuisi Kanu, said issues of militancy, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and others will not stop until the country is restructured.
“We should brace up and be prepared. Prayers will not solve the problem. We have to get back to a federal Nigeria.
“If not, we should be prepared because what we are seeing is just a child’s play. I have not lost faith in the country’s old anthem (Nigeria we hail thee) but not this one,” he said.