MILITANTS ARE NOT CRIMINALS – Kanu

               

  Nigeria will never get out of the wood until we restructure -- Opadokun

The annulment of  June 12, 1993 presidential election adjudged as the fairest and freest in the history of Nigeria by the military junta of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida threw democratic decency and the peoples will to the waste bin. It was an action Nigerians saw as an affront to the ethics of emerging structures of democratic stability.

It is now Twenty-three years when the self acclaimed evil genius did the unthinkable and Nigerians are still asking for another at the structural inequality in this Country.

Speaking in Lagos in an occasion to mark the 23^rd anniversary of June 12 annulment widely acclaimed to have been won by the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, former Lagos Military Administrator, Ndubuisi Kanu and the Convener of the Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reforms (CODER), Ayo Opadokun, have called for true federalism in the country.

In his own speech, Kanu said the nation was struggling with numerous problems because true federalism and restructuring had not been put in place.

“We are at this time struggling to build and we may still have the chance to build the country but it is a dwindling chance. Whatever is happening now in the country, either militancy, IPOB and others will not stop until we go back to the Nigeria that we are expected to build-a federal Nigeria.

“We should brace up and be prepared and not be afraid. Prayer will not solve the problem alone. We have to get back to a federal Nigeria. If not, we should be prepared because what we are seeing is just a child’s play. I have not lost faith in the country’s old anthem (Nigeria we hail thee) but not this one,” he said.

Also, Opadokun lamented the plight of Nigeria, saying that despite the fact that it is one of the largest producers of crude oil in the world, the masses were still very poor and impoverished.

“This country is the eight largest exporter of crude oil in the world and yet has the largest number of poorest people in the world. Something must be wrong with us. Something wonderfully is wrong with Nigeria. Let me say here that Nigeria will never get out of the wood until we restructure this skewed, warped, lopsided national structure. We will continue to grope in the dark. We will never find our bearing until we restructure the country,” he said.

Opadokun called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sum up the courage to ask the electoral body to make final pronouncement that MKO won the June 12, 1993 presidential election and then proceed to confer on him post humous honour.

Special Adviser to the Lagos Governor on Civic Engagement, Kehinde Joseph, in his welcome address said June 12 was the day the masses of Nigeria relegated all those tendencies that had continually been militating against the unity of the nation to the background and embraced common hope and aspiration by voting massively for Abiola.

Ambode, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Tunji Bello said June 12 was a day “we must continue to remember because we have been practicing democracy. At the end of the day, we are not actually doing what we should be doing. If you look at the topic of today, it says Democracy and Its Inclusiveness, what do we have today, we still have a long way to go, and that is to say that we are not practicing true federalism.

For now all the militants agi­tating for violent break-up of the country should tarry a little. It is not only the Joint Militants or the MASSOB or the Fulani herdsmen terrorists or the Boko Haramites who are displeased with Nigeria and are dead on finding or creat­ing a New Order. Virtually every nationality in Nigeria is fed up with lopsided nature of the coun­try’s polity.

The heavy responsibility of re­structuring rests squarely on the shoulders of President Muham­madu Buhari. He should take the bull by the horn and restructure this country. It is his lot. And it may well be the reason the Gods allowed him to record a win after four rigorous attempts.