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Nigeria’s problems can’t be solved by restructuring alone —Yoruba Elders

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Restructuring alone cannot tackle the myriads of problems facing Nigeria without the various ethnic groups coming together to hold a round table dialogue on how to live together. This is according to the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE).

The Secretary-General of the YCE, Dr Kunle Olajide, who spoke at a press conference on Monday on the state of affairs in the country, said instead of restructuring, what the country needs was a new constitution where the issue of referendum will be addressed.

“What Nigeria needs to solve our problems is not restructuring. What we need in this country is a new constitution.

“It’s not anything difficult. We are in a democracy. Let the executive send bills to the National Assembly for imputing referendum into our constitution. A referendum is not in the constitution we are operating.

“There should be a referendum in any democratic dispensation. They should establish constituents’ assembly commission. We cannot run Nigeria as a unitary system. Reforming a country is a process, you cannot decree a nation into existence.

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“Restructuring cannot effectively tackle Nigeria’s problem. Restructuring is one of the by-products of a new constitution. The power in the exclusive list should not be more than 20. In the 1963 constitution, we had 16 items on the exclusive federal list.

“Emphasis must be placed more on getting a people’s constitution. This is a heterogeneous country. We are made up of different people with different histories, different backgrounds, different cultures and different priorities.

“Therefore, we must sit down together. We have several nations in Nigeria. We have the Yoruba nation, we have Igbo nation, Fulani nation, Hausa nation, Kanuri nation, Ijaw nation and so on with different priorities. Let us sit down and agree on how to live together.

“In my humble opinion, the simple reason is that we were not part of writing the constitution we are operating. If you recall, there are several contradictions even in the constitution that we are running,” the YCE said.

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