Restructuring: Northern elders insincere to the Ideals of Ahmadu, Balewa, Bakare says

Pastor Tunde Bakare has said that the elders of the North opposing restructuring of Nigeria are not truthful to the ideals of northern founding fathers.

Bakare said this on Friday in Ibadan, at an event organised to mark the 50th year anniversary of the assassination of the first military governor of the defunct Western Region, Lt.-Col. Adekunle Fajuyi.

According to Bakare, the General Overseer of Latter Rain Assembly, the opposition mounted against restructuring of Nigeria by the North, questions the sincerity of the motives of the perpetrators of the counter coup that led to the death of Fajuyi in 1966.

“The elders of the North, who today are opposed to the call to restructure Nigeria, have deviated from the ideals of the founding fathers of Northern Nigeria like the late Sir Ahmadu Bello and Tafawa Balewa. They were forerunners of Fajuyi in the Nigerian hall of martyrdom.

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“Lest we forget, these great Nigerian leaders from the North made it clear in the series of constitutional conferences that heralded Nigeria’s independence that true federalism with regional autonomy, was the only condition under which they would exist within a Nigerian nation.”

“It is inconsistent with the interest of the North or the South for the current pseudo-federal structure to persist. If the elders of the North are true elders in this generation, I charge them with the words of the wisest king to ever live which says ‘do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set,’ said.

He added, “Our current leaders must find courage in heroic deeds of Fajuyi, they must find courage to restructure and to reconcile aggrieved sections within the nation.”

By Ebere Ndukwu …

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