By The Atlantic Post
Nigeria’s problems will need more than just Restructuring to fix. That was the position of Nigeria’s former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar in Lagos during the public presentation of the book, ‘In the belly of vultures’ written by Adetola Adeniyi.
Atiku, a Presidential hopeful in the forthcoming 2019 general election who had made the Restructuring of Nigeria a campaign issue has however advised that Nigerians should not see restructuring as a way out of the many challenges confronting the nation.
Atiku said that the current structure of Nigeria breathes and feeds on corruption; making it more difficult for the kind of leadership we clamored for to emerge. “I say this because some of those who argue against restructuring keep saying that it is not our main problem. Some say it is good leadership that we lack. Others say it is corruption that we should focus on instead. Well, my position is that all are important and should be addressed. But to pretend that the critical issues thrown up by the current deformed structure of our federation will disappear as soon as we have good leadership or tackle corruption is to miss the point.”
Atiku, who had unsuccessfully ran for the Presidency Nigerian Presidency in 2007 was the top mainstream Nigerian politician campaigning for the Restructuring of Nigeria before the El’Rufai led APC committee joined the band wagon with the ambiguous interpretation represented in their report. With Atiku’s latest rhetoric, we should expect an escalation in the coming weeks as the campaign heats up.
