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‘Northwest designed to permanently oppose restructuring ’

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THE staunch anti-restructuring position of the Northern part of Nigeria has been described as being in line with an alleged deliberate historical design to ensure that most parts of the North remained more advantaged than other sections of the country in the allocation of resources.

It was also observed that the All Progressives Congress, APC, had become too disposed to the interest of the Northwest geopolitical zone at the expense of other zones.

These were the submissions of two eminent Nigerians, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi, and Col Tony Nyiam, retd, who played key roles in Nigeria’s march to nationhood at different times.

While the former is one of the few surviving nationalists, who fought for the country’s independence, the latter was among those, who attempted to topple the regime of Gen Ibrahim Babangida, retd, in 1990 on the account of their belief that the country was structured to favour the north in all aspects.

The duo, who made these disclosures in separate exclusive chats with Saturday Vanguard, were unanimous in their submission that the Northwest geopolitical zone may continue to oppose restructuring given the huge allocation it derived from the current socio-political configuration of Nigeria.

On the strength of the argument, they noted that the current calls for restructuring affirmed that only rejigging would stop the worsening North-South dichotomy in the country.

Amaechi, a former Minister of Aviation in the First Republic, said: “The position now is that Nigeria must be restructured. We have to renegotiate the basis of our coexistence as a country. What we have now is what the military from northern Nigeria imposed on everybody and that is not a constitution and it will never work. People are getting conscious of what is going on. Now, we had a country where the wealth which is derived from southern Nigeria, especially the Niger-Delta area is being used to develop the north at the expense of the people who own the wealth”
Vanguard, August 19, 2017

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