Elder statesman and Second Republic senator, Prof Banji Akintoye has berated Nigerian politicians for their desperation for power.
He said such desperation has nothing to do with people’s welfare but for self-interest.
Akintoye appealed to well-meaning Nigerians to plead with the country’s politicians and pressurize them to slow things down and ease their desperation and excessive determination to win at all cost.
Akintoye who stated this in an interview with the Next Edition on the state of the nation, lamented that different motives other than service to the nation were responsible for the inordinate ambition of some of the nation’s politicians.
“It is no longer a question of seeking political power to serve the people. What is happening is that the politicians are seeking power to accomplish the agenda that is not necessarily to do with the interest of Nigeria. Some are personal agenda. Some are extremist agenda. Some are extreme religious agenda but all together the signs, the omens don’t look good for this nation,” he said.
The elder statesman also reiterated his call for the restructuring of Nigeria, saying that the country won’t progress as a nation with its current structure.
He argued that Nigeria has come to the point where it must be restructured or it will explode.
“We stand today at a point in the history of Nigeria when Nigeria has to be restructured or it will blow up. If Nigeria is not restructured the way we now stand, not many sections of Nigeria are prepared for what is going to unfold, “he said.
According to him, many Nigerians have realized the importance of restructuring the country.
“I think more and more Nigerians now understand the need to restructure the country. It used to be a few voices crying for restructuring but more and more people understand the need for restructuring now. The basic fact is this, when you have a large country like Nigeria that is made up of hundreds of different ethnic groups, you cannot make the terrible mistake of managing the affairs of that country by one single government at the centre.
“You cannot do it in Nigeria, our country and our people have suffered tremendously over the years; compare the 1950s and today, we didn’t have oil then but our three regional governments were working in partnership to produce considerable amount of prosperity for our land.
READ ALSO: INEC Is Incompetent, Works For APC – PDP Chief
“In the north, the Northern Regional Government partnered with the groundnut farmers to make Nigeria one of the greatest exporters of groundnut in the world. The Western Regional Government partnered with our cocoa farmers. We gave them assistance and the cocoa farmers became a great deal of support for the development of the western region, so the regions were the largest producers of foreign exchange in the federation.
“In the eastern region, the same thing was obtainable; the region majored in the production of palm oil and palm kernel. So on the basis of development, leaders of each region was developing at its pace and we were growing into a comfortable country.”
“Each section of Nigeria can develop its own section of entrepreneur. Each section of Nigeria can develop its own programmes for its own youths and that’s what we need. We need the freedom of the various sections of Nigeria to develop according to their own culture and circumstances and at their own pace; that is what restructuring means,” he said.
