The Middle Belt Forum (MBF) has said Nigeria is due for restructuring to enable all its stakeholders to have a genuine sense of belonging.
The forum said such restructuring would ensure that criminals who unleash terror on others will be brought to book.
The president of the forum, Dr. Bitrus Pogu, said this in an exclusive chat with LEADERSHIP on Nigeria’s celebration of its independence from British rule 65 years ago.
He said Nigerians should reflect to see what went wrong and build on what works for the country.
He however commended president Bola Tinubu for willing to consider state police which he said is similar to the Native Authority Police.
“So we need to think seriously and implement restructuring of this country, and have a constitution that is truly the people’s democratic constitution — starting from where we stopped in 1963, and then update it to address current realities,” Pogu said.
He said the 2014 Confab Report is a document that holds promise with regards to restructuring the country, adding that it is still valid till today.
He added that the document can be used to update the current constitution through a referendum.
He further explained that when Nigeria got her Independence 65 years ago, the new government was similar to Britain’s regional G
government and native authorities.
Pogu said “We also had two layers of policing, the Nigeria Police and the Native Authority Policing.”
He said the country also had forest guards and sanitary inspectors. He said the Post Office system was working “as they were still using the currency left for us by the British, which was the pound and shillings.”
The president of the forum, who recalled that Nigeria changed her currency to Naira in 1973, lamented the incursion of the military in political leadership.
“They centralised power, and all the original structures disappeared with it. States were created, and these became the federating units.
“Now, within the military years, though there was some infrastructural development, we gradually degenerated in terms of morality and in terms of statesmanship. For example, instead of seeing ourselves as Nigerians, we gradually went back to primordial sentiments of religion and tribalism.”
He continued, “We had the regions based on some primordial sentiments, but back then it was a healthy competition, rather than tearing each other apart the way we are going today.
“Our uninterrupted democracy started well with President Obasanjo in 1999, but presently it continues to degenerate, to the extent that today one dollar is 1,500 Naira plus.
“We have degenerated so much Nigeria that what was functional when Nigeria was born, the railway functioning and the post office, where you could even buy British postal orders and travellers’ cheques are all gone.”
He said that while some analysts would claim that improvements have been made in some areas, he stressed that primordial sentiments have taken over, “and people are more interested in wealth accumulation instead of production.”
He added that it is unfortunate that Nigeria has remained a consuming nation, importing everything and not producing enough for the people.
He argued further, “Unfortunately some people have exploited religion as a primordial sentiment and manipulated our young people, who are mainly uneducated, and gotten them into banditry, terrorism, and all sorts of vices.”
Pogu lamented that some parts of the country are not as habitable as they used to be, stressing that this situation has created a lot of pressure in the country.
“Now we are operating a system that was foisted on us by the military, and the Constitution as it stands today is not working. We need to go back to where we got it wrong,” he said.
According to the MBF president, the military jettisoned the people’s will and replaced it with a different system, a unitary presidential system.
“We are not saying having states as the federating units is bad, but we should return to what the people wanted under the 1963 Constitution and update it to address current realities so we can have a constitutional system that works for us,” he said.
