RESTRUCTURING: Buhari’s ex-adviser wants Nigeria broken into 109 federating units

The debate on restructuring and how Nigeria should be restructured has continued to throw up different opinions and controversies.

An elder statesman, Ahmed Joda, on Friday suggested that the 109 senatorial districts in the country be transformed as federating units.

This according to Joda will solve the ongoing restructuring demand and contain the agitations.

Joda was appointed head of the transition committee which President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) set up in 2015 to work along with members of the committee from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to ensure that then President Goodluck Jonathan handed over power to Buhari smoothly.

He was also a federal permanent secretary in the 1970s and the first chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission.

His advice on the issue which has continued to dominate national discourse in the past months now, was given in Yola, the Adamawa State capital at the APC zonal meeting for the state and Taraba on true federalism..

He said, “My choice is that we break this country into 109 federating units because this number is large enough to make viable administrative units. It can reduce the present intolerable level of the cost of governance in this country; it will wipe out the protocols and all the other encumbrances that we now have to bear and which have now bankrupted us.”

Read also: For true federalism, Nigeria needs to revert to 1960 constitution –Nwabueze

According to Joda, regionalism and geopolitical zones are unrealistic. He said that only few people, the Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa share common cultural beliefs or interests, while other groups in Nigeria have different tribes and do not share common interests.

This came just as an elder statesman and constitutional lawyer, Ben Nwabueze, has also on the same issue canvassed that the country return to true federalism as practiced in the 1960/1963 Constitution.

 

 

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