From: Agaju Madugba, Katsina
Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina State has described the clamour for restructuring of the country as ‘diversionary’, arguing that the issues of governance and leadership remained the most fundamental areas that needed urgent attention for the nation to make progress.
Governor Masari said this, on Wednesday, while inaugurating a technical committee on restructuring, to collate views of the Katsina people on the matter.
According to him, “Restructuring has been going on since the amalgamation of the country in 1914 and continued even beyond independence in 1960 but it has not solved any problems,”
He explained the relevance of the committee noting that no responsible government should ignore the current nationwide clamour for restructuring, “although restructuring has different meanings for different people.”
Whatever the arguments, according to Governor Masari, there should be what he described as a ‘strong central government’ in order to address recurrent issues like religion and other forms of extremism and secessionist agitations.
Masari said, “After independence in 1960, a state was added to bring Nigeria to four regions before the collapse of the First Republic in 1966.
“Ironsi brought a unitary system of government and Gowon later came up with a12-state structure and Babangida left a 29-state structure while Abacha later created six additional states.
“From three regions to 36 states, we still talk marginalisation, we still talk sectionalism and tribalism. So, it is obvious that it is not the creation of states or creation of additional local government areas that will address the fundamental problems of this country.
“We support the idea of true federalism on the basis of our understanding of the meaning and we strongly believe in devolution of powers in some areas that will not weaken powers of the central government.
“There should be a strong federal government in order to check the excesses of those who may come through the umbrella of religion or tribe to cause injury to the corporate existence of this country.
“We need a strong central government to handle issues of internal security, foreign policy and such other issues that are of common interest to the entire country.
“The Federal Government should be empowered and encouraged to deal with threat in whatever guise to the corporate existence of the country.”
The committee which has six weeks to submit its report is chaired by a former Governor of old Kaduna State, Alhaji Saidu Barda, with a former Inspector-General of Police, Alhaji Ibrahim Coomasie, Alhaji Wada Maida, Brig-Gen. Ahmed Daku (rtd), Justice Sadique Abdullahi Mahuta and Prof. Ismaila Tsiga, among others as members.