Former Governor of Imo State, Chief Achike Udenwa says the restructuring of the Nigerian federation will be more beneficial to the South-East geopolitical zone than the 2023 presidency.
He added that it was “useless” holding another election in the country when the federation continued to face seemingly intractable problems.
Igbo people would not be able to achieve much with the presidency, he said, until the federation was restructured.
Proffering a solution to the nation’s myriad problems, Udenwa said, “Restructure this country and let us have a working federalism. That is what we think will solve most of our problems.
“The way the Federal Government is not taking the restructuring thing very seriously is winning over a lot of people towards IPOB. The best we can do is to restructure this country.
“I have said it in an earlier interview that restructuring this country is honestly a win-win situation for everybody. Nigeria will wake up economically, socially. But as long as we continue operating this unitary government in the name of a Federal Government it will never work; you cannot run a unitary government in a multi-linguistic society like ours, in a multi-cultural society like ours.
“The presidential system, being a winner takes it, any of the tribes that grabs power poses a danger to the other tribes and that is why we are saying loosen it; let us go back to true federalism.”
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He said that restructuring of the federation could still be done before the 2023 general election, noting that the 2014 National Conference Report already addressed most of the issues that could lead to disagreement.
“There should be no 2023 elections without restructuring. It is useless having an election again in this country without first restructuring the country.
“What do you want to achieve if you cede the presidency to the Igbo? What do the Igbo want to achieve with the president without restructuring?
“Let us all insist on restructuring before elections. We have two years to the elections; we can restructure within two years. Restructuring to a large extent means rearranging the legislative list.
“It is not a very difficult thing; get a new constitution, talk of fiscal federalism. How do we share our resources; how do we contribute to the Federal Government? What are the powers in the Exclusive List, which are the powers in the Concurrent List and what are the Residual powers?
“If we want to rearrange these, it doesn’t need to take much time.”