Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa SAN writes from Lagos…

THE PRESIDENT AND RESTRUCTURING

Nobody forced the President when he was campaigning in 2015, to make a solemn declaration in support of true federalism, the President was not compelled to travel all the way to London, to address stakeholders at Chatham House, on his avowed commitment to restructuring and devolution of powers, with a promise to operate as a repented democrat, upon assumption of office. Further to this, his own political party, the All Progressive Congress, APC, released a Manifesto, wherein it promised to amend the Constitution to achieve devolution of powers, state police, resource control and true federalism. Both personally and collectively through his political party therefore, the President is bound by his solemn undertaking to achieve true federalism and restructuring, through devolution of powers. The President cannot now shift this great burden, as he purported to do with the governors, in seeking to push the responsibility for security of lives of the people to those who have no control over the law enforcement agencies. The National Assembly is under the firm grip of the President and his party, APC. How they will mobilize their legislators to amend the Constitution is not the headache of the people of Nigeria. All we ask for is true federalism.

Six years down the line, the President is yet to fulfill his promise of fundamental constitutional amendment to achieve devolution of powers, to the citizens and instead of apologizing for this abysmal failure, the President has turned around to attack the people, in describing those agitating for restructuring and true federalism as being ignorant and lacking in knowledge. It would then mean that the APC too, as a political party, is totally ignorant and lacking in knowledge, when it purported to set up its Committee on Restructuring headed by the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. That Committee travelled all over Nigeria, claiming to collate the views of the people on restructuring and it indeed submitted its report to the President. What this means is that the President and his party deceived Nigerians and indeed the whole world, with their Manifesto. And it is no wonder that the APC has not been able to find its bearing, even as the ruling party in power. Since the inglorious exit of its erstwhile National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomole, through a coup d’etat that was stage-managed by the President right in his office, the party has remained comatose ever since, as if under some kind of spell. It has not been able to organize any convention to elect its national officers, it has no enduring party structure and it is being administered by interim officers who have spent well over one year in office, without accountability or control.

Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN
22/06/2021
Lekki, Lagos.