The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has joined other prominent Nigerians and groups calling for the restructuring of the country.
The RCCG GO on Saturday called on the Federal Government, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, to urgently restructure the country to avoid a breakup.
The cleric who spoke at a symposium alongside the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi; former Governor of Cross River State and former presidential aspirant, Donald Duke and a former Minister of Education, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, warned that it was better to restructure the country as soon as possible or it will break up. “You don’t have to be a prophet to know that one,” he added.
Before Adeboye’s call on Saturday, there have been calls from different individuals and socio-cultural groups for restructuring the country. some groups in the South-East has threatened to secede from Nigeria over what is being described as they described as gross marginalization of their region.
The ruling All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government had in 2015 promised in its manifesto that the party would restructure the country. After winning the election, the party set up a committee, headed by the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, to work on the proposal, but since the committee submitted its report, the Buhari administration had keep mute over the issue.
At the 60th Independence Day Celebration symposium which was co-organized by the RCCG and the Nehemiah Leadership Institute, themed ‘Where will Nigeria be in 2060?’, Adeboye noted that Nigeria needed to adopt a unique system of government. He proposed a blend of American and British styles of government.
Adeboye, who was a former senior lecturer at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Lagos, said, “Why can’t we have a system of government that is 100 per cent Nigerian and is unique to us? For example, we started with the British system of government, somewhere along the line, we moved over to the American system of government.
“Can’t we have a combination of both and see whether it could help us solve our problems, because in Mathematics if you want to solve a problem, you try what we call Real Analysis, then if it doesn’t work, then you move on to Complex Analysis and see whether that will help you. If that fails, you move on to Vector Analysis and so on.
“I believe we might want to look at the problems of Nigeria in a slightly different manner. Some people feel that all our problems will be over if Nigeria should break up. I think that is trying to solve the problems of Nigeria as if it is a simple equation. The problems of Nigeria will require quite a bit of simultaneous equation and some of them are not going to be linear either – forgive me I am talking as a mathematician.
“Why can’t we have a system of government that will create what I will call the United States of Nigeria? Let me explain. We all know that we must restructure. It is either we restructure or we break-up, you don’t have to be a prophet to know that one. That is certain – restructure or we break up.
“Now, we don’t want to break up, God forbid. In the restructuring, why don’t we have a Nigerian kind of democracy? At the federal level, why don’t we have a president and a prime minister?”
Adeboye explained that we could have a President and a Prime Minister where responsibilities would be shared between them and that one is not an appendage of the other. He proposed that the president could control the Army while the prime minister controls the police, adding that the president can controls resources like oil and mining, the prime minister could control finance, internal revenue, taxes, customs etc.
He said, “At the state level, you have the governor and the premier and in the same way, you distribute responsibilities between them in such a manner that one cannot really go without the other. Maybe we might begin to tackle the problems.”
The Pastor also said that the place of traditional rulers could be recognized and restored in governance, noting that people respected and listened to the traditional rulers more than they do for politicians.
He said, “If we are going to adopt the model, then we need to urgently restore the House of Chiefs. I have a feeling that one of our major problems is that we have pushed the traditional rulers to the background and I believe that is a great error particularly for a great country like Nigeria.
“Go to any town in Nigeria, everybody in the town knows the paramount ruler in the town and they respect him (but) many of them don’t even know the name of the chairman of their local government. The traditional rulers are the actual landlords; they control the respect of their people.
“Without any doubt, we must restructure and do it as soon as possible. The United States of Nigeria is likely to survive than our present structure.”
