Prominent Human Rights Lawyer, Mr Femi Falana, SAN, has called for an urgent restructuring of Nigeria.
He made the call in Lagos at the 19th Mike Okonkwo Annual Lecture with theme: ‘Nigeria’s unity: Matters arising,’ saying: “The restructuring I’m talking about is not the one that will put more money in the pockets of rulers. It is a restructuring that will transfer the enormous power at the centre to the federating units. Don’t be talking of 2023. What is of urgency now is restructuring.”
Falana, the guest lecturer, said the Federal Government has failed to promote national integration through the discriminatory treatment meted out to women, non indigenes and settlers in different parts of the country.
According to him: “Section 15 (3) of the Constitution has imposed a duty on the state to encourage national integration by providing adequate facilities for the citizens and to encourage free mobility of people, goods and services throughout the country; securing of full residence rights for every citizen in all parts of the federation; encouraging inter – marriage among persons from different places of origin, religious, ethnic or linguistics groups and promoting or encouraging the formation of associations that cut across religious, ethnic or linguistics groups or other sectional interests.
Notwithstanding that Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution and Article 2 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights have prohibited discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or place of origin or birth, the official manipulation of the concept of indigene has led to violent communal clashes among many people in the various parts of the country.”
He said that the crisis in Nigeria is rooted in its faulty foundation, noting that Nigeria was not created by the people, but by “Europeans who met at an illegal conference in Berlin.”
“At the Berlin conference of November 1884 to February 1885, the various communities in Africa were partitioned among European colonial exploiters. A large area later christened Nigeria was allotted to the British government…The amalgamation was essentially designed to serve the interest of imperialism and not the interest of the Nigerians,” Falana said.
According to him: “Restructuring without the equitable redistribution of the commonwealth will not promote unity or political stability. Unity is not an abstract phenomenon. In concrete terms, unity means the corporate existence of Nigeria.
The fact that the unity of the country is based on ruthless exploitation of the working people is of no moment as far as members of the ruling class are concerned. Since the rich are united in exploiting our national resources the exploited poor and oppressed people should unite to free themselves from poverty.”
He also believes that the issue of state policing among others needs to be immediately addressed to fix some of the challenges the nation currently faces.
“You want to police Lagos, but you bring a policeman from Sokoto like the colonialists will do and you take somebody from Lagos to Sokoto. Policing begins with intelligence gathering,” he said.
Falana said: “The nation cannot be seriously restructured without equitable redistribution of wealth. Therefore, those who have cornered our commonwealth should not be allowed to talk of restructuring in vacuum. In other words, the campaign for restructuring should encompass the decentralization and democratization of political and economic powers which have been privatised by all factions of the ruling class.”
President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo, who chaired the event noted that the Federal Government has continued to adopt a soft stance in dealing with the activities of the Fulani cattle herdsmen, while a tougher approach was used on the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
He alleged that the attitude of the Nigeria Police Force in tackling the mayhem unleashed by the herdsmen suggested that they were compromised, and added that “the duty of the police is to prevent the commission of crime and not to come out after crime had been committed.”
He said Nigeria must resolve the imbalances before the country can achieve lasting unity and peace.
Naija News/The Sun
