Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
The Bayelsa State governor, Henry Seriake Dickson, has commended the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), over its far reaching recommendations on the issue of the proposed restructuring of the country.
He, however, called for a sincere implementation of the committee’s recommendations before the 2019 election. Dickson said that the recommendations had further strengthened the agitations for true federalism and resource control in the Niger Delta.
He said restructuring Nigeria would calm frayed nerves and strengthen the nation’s unity. According to him, implementing the report before 2019 general elections was the true test of the sincerity of the APC on the issue of the recommendations.
The Special Adviser to the Governor on Media Relations, Mr. Fidelis Soriwei, quoted the governor as having made the comment in an interview with journalists over the recommendations of the APC’s Committee on Restructuring submitted to the party by Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State.
The El Rufai committee had recommended state ownership of onshore mineral resources including oil, state control of police, prisons and merger of states.
Dickson said that he had to commend the APC for the recommendations on restructuring, which, he said, came from an unexpected quarters; from people whose leaders had opposed the calls to restructure the country.
The governor said that what the APC committee did in its recommendations were the most fundamental of all the approaches to the burning issue of restructuring in the best interest of the country.
He stressed that as a politician driven by conviction, he had to commend the APC on its bold recommendations on restructuring because it was right and worthy of appreciation. He called for the establishment of a multiparty committee to work out the final details for the executive arm to sponsor a bill to the National Assembly.
He stressed that there was need to mobilise national consensus to engage the National Assembly in order to ensure the implementation of the core issues raised in the report before 2019 general elections.