Gowon casts doubt on the viability of restructuring, cites multi-ethnic diversity

Former Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, has expressed doubts over the viability of the clamour for restructuring, citing Nigeria’s over 500 ethnic groups with varying languages and dialects, as major impediment.

Gowon would appear to be toeing same path as another former leader of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, who had also disagreed with Nigerians demanding for the restructuring of the country.

Obasanjo had rejected restructuring outright, saying the only restructuring Nigeria needed was the restructuring of the minds of its citizens.

Gowon, who made his own argument in the restructuring debate when he spoke at Minna, the Niger State capital on Friday, reasoned that it was likely to have about 500 different ideas of restructuring going by the number of different ethnic groups in the country.

“Nigeria is made up of over 500 ethnic groups, languages and dialects and so many various groups called nationalities and they want restructuring. This restructuring everybody is asking for, we will have about 500 different ideas of restructuring.

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“There is call for restructuring to reduce the number of states to only a few either back to the old region or to the zones. Those are some of the ideas that I do not know whether it will be possible for any state today to wish to be merged with another state.

“Let us see whether our politicians will see guidelines to be able to achieve what they want. But I have my problem whether the states will be financially capable so they will be able to run their states properly”, he said.

 

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