The call for a political and economic restructuring of Nigeria got louder on Saturday, with one of the country’s leading clerics warning of a possible breakup if the calls were not heeded.
Pastor Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, declared that restructuring remained the effective solution to the various agitations for session coming from different parts of the country.
The well-respected church leader made the declaration in a 60th Independence Day Celebration Symposium organised by the RCCG and the Nehemiah Leadership Institute.
Nigeria marked its 60 years of nationhood on Thursday, but the calls of restructuring and outright separation from some regions drowned the drums of celebration. Calls came from the Indigenous People of Biafra in the South East and proponents of Oduduwa Republic in the South West.
Adeboye said restructuring Nigeria should be carried out “as soon as possible,” according to him, to avoid a breakup of the country.
“Without any doubt, we must restructure and do it as soon as possible. A United States of Nigeria is likely to survive than our present structure,” he said.
“Why can’t we have a system of government that will create what I will call the United States of Nigeria? Let me explain. We all know that we must restructure. It is either we restructure or we break, you don’t have to be a prophet to know that one. That is certain – restructure or we break up.
“Now, we don’t want to break up, God forbid. In restructuring, why don’t we have a Nigerian kind of democracy? At the federal level, why don’t we have a President and a Prime Minister?
Many political analysts have faulted the current structure of Nigeria as a federal system, arguing that it concentrates too much power at the centre. Such an over concentration of power at the centre, they say, has rendered inoperative the principle of derivation, where the federating units harness resources located within their domains and pay tax to the central government.
Perhaps, as a means of solving this problem, Adeboye advocated a new system of political arrangement unique to Nigeria or a hybrid of the American presidential system and the British Parliamentary arrangement.
“Why can’t we have a system of government that is 100 per cent Nigerian, unique to us? For example, we started on with the British system of government, somewhere along the line, we moved over to the American system of government.
“Can’t we have a combination of both and see whether it could help us solve our problems because in Mathematics if you want to solve a problem, you try what we call Real Analysis, then if it doesn’t work, then you move on to Complex Analysis and see whether that will help you. If that fails, you move on to Vector Analysis and so on,” he said.
“I believe that we might want to look at the problems of Nigeria in a slightly different manner. Some people feel that all our problems will be over if Nigeria should break up. I think that is trying to solve the problems of Nigeria as if it is a Simple Equation. The problems of Nigeria will require quite a bit of Simultaneous Equation and some of them are not going to be Linear either – forgive me I am talking as a Mathematician.”
Adeboye was a mathematics teacher at the University of Lagos before he answered the call of God for full-time ministry.
“If we have a President and a Prime Minister and we share responsibilities between these two so that one is not an appendage to the other. For examples, if the President controls the Army and the Prime Minister controls the Police. If the President controls resources like oil and mining and the Prime Minister controls finance and inland revenue, taxes, customs etc. You just divide responsibilities between the two.
“At the state level, you have the governor and the premier, and the same way, you distribute responsibilities these people in such a manner that one cannot really go without the other. Maybe we might begin to tackle the problems.
“If we are going to adopt the model, then we need to urgently restore the House of Chiefs. I have a feeling that one of our major problems is that we have pushed the traditional rulers to the background and I believe that is a grave error,” he warned.
