As the clamour for restructuring continues to gain momentum amongst Nigerians from various walks of life a Northern political analyst, Abdul Tafawa Balewa have rejected the call for restructuring and recommended a political genocide that will phase out the current crop of political leaders in the country today.
His statement is coming shortly after Acting President Yemi Osinbajo described those clamouring for restructuring due to marginalisation of various kind as seekers of political positions.
Dr. Tafawa Balewa, while speaking with a journalist during the gathering of PDP Global Ambassadors at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja which also coincided with the meeting of the Forum of PDP former ministers at the same venue.
The son of a former prime minister of Nigeria Late Abubakar Tafawa Balewa insisted that what Nigeria needs now is a political genocide that will sweep clean the toxic crop of leaders that have held us down for so long and so we don’t need restructuring because Nigerians are very fashionable they love conspicuous consumption so when any word comes into vogue they would use it and beat it to death and so that is why today they are talking about restructuring now, it is a call from lazy minds.
“There has to be a political genocide and not a violent one because they just have to be sloughed off like dirts off the actual liquid because we need to get a good substrate for that liquid to become clean,” the Northern leader said.
“This is the only country we can call our own and it can be the most progressive and best country in the world, and so we just need to stop choosing bad leaders which we’ve always done.”
He went further to state that the kind of democracy we are practicing in Nigeria is obsolete and cannot work even if Nigeria were to be restructured, due to the fact that the current crop of leaders have always been recycled and cannot offer anything much to us in the future.
“In most bicameral democracies, it is the opposition that actually rules even though there may be a ruling party in the sense that both the ruling party and the opposition are targeting the improvement of the nation. So the opposition now sees things that are not working with the main government and they work together to eventually evolve something that raises the quality of life in that country,” he said.
In his words, “A good example is what is happening in India which is the closest democracy to ours. However in Nigeria we have not learned much about what democracy means or how we should run it. We’ve had a lot of people who have been in government for a long time, but have a dearth of ideas on what to do or not to do. So these global Ambassadors represents a new breed of people outside those who have been in government before now and have failed to catch up with the analog world, even though we’ve had analog, digital and today nanotechnology.”
He further decried the large number of people who have ran our government before but were just there to take what they think is theirs and not what they think is meant for the people.
“Remember that every single state in this country has enough under and above its ground to make it the wealthiest state anywhere around, but we lie to ourselves that we are a bigger economy than South Africa, even though South Africa has just 40 million people whereas we have over 200 million people. What do we need to do to meet up with what our future needs cannot be resolved by the current crop of politicians, so they need to go. They not only cannot think but they cannot think for a burgeoning Nigeria,” Dr. Tafawa Balewa said.
Each state and zone can survive by itself if we have capable hands to take care of them. In fact I can tell you that we were structured before, if you look at where the calls are coming from which is the South East, I think they need to go inside and ask their governors some questions. The truth is that we have been backward because we have had illiterate and unfocused people in government for so long and we need to change that.”
Reacting to the October 1st quit notice issued by the Arewa Youths to the South Easterners, he said Nigeria will not be Nigeria without the Igbos, the Fulanis, the Hausas, the Efiks, the Ijaws, the Yorubas and all other ethnic groups. Nigeria is going to be Nigeria, it is only wishful thinking and the product of an idiotic and imbessilic thought to think that any part of Nigeria can move out and there would be no recourse.
“Those people in the North also issuing the ultimatum need to look inward to their governors as well because I don’t know any governor who can hold his head high at the moment. Every single state is getting whatever the federal government feel that they deserve in terms of allocation, but what are they doing with it? Why do we have all this division about religion? Nigeria is not going to break up, it is going to remain and if it continues this way whatever we need to do to get rid of those cancers we need to do them.”
Uchechukwu Ugboaja is a freelance journalist.
