hehehehe......As
the clamour for restructuring continues in Nigeria, Peter Claver Oparah
takes a look at some of the major persons calling for it.
I read a recent report in a national daily, of ‘Southern and Middle
Belt leaders’ meeting in Abuja to insist on the demand for
restructuring. Out of curiosity, I decided to check these ‘leaders’ who
made this demand and lo and behold, the only names I saw were the same
PDP leaders that were very loud and prominent especially during the
nearly six years the Jonathan regime lasted. Again, one feature that was
common among these leaders was that all the mentioned names were very
vocal and very prominent in the well-financed campaign to retain the
Jonathan and PDP regime in 2015. Nearly all the mentioned ‘leaders’ have
been consistently featured in various financial scandals especially
linked to the $2.1 billion Dasukigate arms scandal from which most of
the illicit flow to the ill-fated Jonathan/PDP campaign were sourced. I
couldn’t imagine such relationship and I wondered when and how these
same people that were parts and parcel of government for nearly six
years and who salted tremendous personal gains from the byzantine
corruption that pervaded that era transmogrified into Southern and
Middle Belt Leaders just after they were shunted off power.
Such jarring contradiction is written all over the present
syndicated clap-trap about restructuring and the noisy manner in which
it is being clamored for. The paradox in the present clamor obtains in
people who, up till 2015 were sitting on the very zenith of power being
the loudest and the most insistent in declaring that it is either
Nigeria restructures now or heavens will fall. The contradiction that
those who till yesterday, employed power for the corrupt benefits it
served them but are today whelping about restructuring as if their lives
depend on it, is so obvious. Yes, their political lives that were
abbreviated with the historic electoral decision Nigerians took in March
2015 depend on the new-fangled restructuring they are yakking about.
Yes, their power to sit in high political positions and employ same to
freeload and plunder hangs on this chaotic demand for restructuring. For
sure, their loud claim to relevance, which came to an abrupt end when
their electoral ship wrecked in 2015, hangs on the restructuring clamor
they have made their war cry today. We have to grant them such rights
but that has not given any roadmap on restructuring. That has not shown
any clarity on what they mean when they whelp about restructuring.
But then, what is it in the restructure bogey those that were our
slave masters till just yesterday have now made their clarion call? What
is it for ordinary and storm-tossed Nigerians, in the present
orchestrated noise about restructuring? What is it for the long
suffering masses in this new fad about restructuring? What is it for a
country that is going through a painful mending process from the
vicarious plundering these same choristers carried out before 2015? No
one is telling us what our cut is in the present noisy clamor. No one is
telling the famished masses what they stand to gain should the country
accede to their noisome demand. No one is telling the poor, harassed
masses what significantly they stand to gain if the country
restructures. Most importantly, no one is providing any clarification on
what the restructuring is all about, how the country wants to go and
what makes this the only option left for a country that had been pulled
through consistent series of corrupt, rudderless and inchoate governance
since independence.
Nigerians are not being told what the clear results of such
hackneyed option to dealing with the malignant tumor of horrible
leadership would translate to them. The proponents of the present war
cry of corruption or nothing are the same people that despoiled the
country and vandalized it to the bones before 2015. Immediately they
were rusticated out of power, the shards of mischievous wisdom struck
them and they suddenly discovered the urgent need for Nigeria to
restructure or go down. The hypocrisy in the present call is that no
effort is being made to break down the restructuring mantra to clear,
understandable format, with clear indication of what each people or
component group stands to gain from this bogey. The dubious intent in
the present clamor is that those who have very blurred or no knowledge
of the term are the most agitated proponents today. Those who have spent
their entire political lives, fighting against and frustrating the
demand for restructuring in the past are the most fanatical proponents
today. In the sequel, it is understandable why there is such blurred
understanding of the topic today.
Most importantly, many Nigerians are asking which practical ways
Nigeria can restructure to meet the not-so-clear intents of those
hawking the restructuring totem today as if it is their second god. Ask
any of the noisy hawkers what we will gain from restructuring and you
hit a brick wall. Ask them the conceptual clarity in their demand and
you meet a bulwark. Most significantly, what happened between March 2015
and now to make restructuring the only cure-all panacea to Nigeria’s
problems? What is it that made restructuring so unattractive before 2015
but which makes it critically imperative two years after? What deep
fracture had happened between 2015 and today that has placed the life of
the country on the sole life-saving machine of restructuring? What ill,
what injustice, what wrong has Nigeria found it will never live with
after 2015?
When you gloss through these posers, you discover that the only
thing that happened was that PDP and its gargantuan corruption complex,
were offloaded off power. The only thing that has happened between 2015
and now is that free-loading and immense looting of the country’s
resources has been capped. What happened between 2015 and now is that
the perennial locusts and vampires that live off the resources of the
state have been rendered jobless. The only thing that has happened
between 2015 and now is that the same group of people; either in the
North, South, East or West who live off stealing what belongs to the
whole has been thrown out of power, for the first time in Nigeria’s
history. You can therefore locate the present syndicated cry for a
restructuring no one has really broken down to understandable level to
this historical reality. You can now understand why those that have
lived their entire lives opposing the demand for restructuring are the
ones raising strident calls for it today. The above were the reasons why
restructuring has become so attractive to the same leaders of PDP who
were in power for 16 whole years and who rather employed power as a tool
to satiate their corrupt carnal cravings. When fully grasped, the
restructuring bogey we have today is a distractive mantra to distract
the present government and soften the ground for the re-launching of the
cabal rusticated through the 2015 election and ease them into power
once again. The restructuring bogey we have today is nothing more than a
political strategy and has no intent to better the lots of Nigerians.
The tragedy is that some people see the demand for restructuring as
a North versus South war which is just a way politicians across board
divide their victims and recruit them to fight for them. If
restructuring is a southern agenda, why did the country not restructure
for the 14 years the South held power under Obasanjo and Jonathan? Why
is it that the kingpins of the present restructuring who were loud
players in this era did not seize that golden opportunity to restructure
Nigeria to the desirable format in this long historical stretch? Why is
that the so-called ‘Southern and Middle Belt leaders’ who enjoyed the
booty of that era and are now belching sterile hot airs, didn’t employ
that benevolent opportunity to restructure Nigeria to the desired taste
they are prescribing today?
It is right to mention that when the South West was making this
demand for restructuring in this fourteen years period, it was shouted
down by those who today masquerade as Southern and Middle Belt Leaders.
Of course, they wanted to savor the sweet aroma of power then. The ring
leaders of these desperate campaigns forget their Northerness and
Southerness when they loot and quickly remember their unique identities
in seeking selfish options to their problems. In recruiting their
victims into doing their dirty jobs, they exhume their sectional
identities and wear them like badges of honor. That is what the
so-called ‘Southern and Middle Belt Leaders’ did when what unties them
was the fact that they were parts of the horrendous PDP vandalism that
happened the other day. They were very prominent in the ultra corrupt
scheme to perpetuate the last regime in power and they were handsomely
rewarded for such dirty efforts. As they were doing that; just two light
years ago, Nigeria was a perfect state. As soon as Nigerians
disappointed their selfish political cravings, they saw the fault lines
in Nigeria, which only restructuring can solve and they have made a war
cry of it that all Nigeria’s problems would be solved only if we
restructure. What bland hypocrisy!
The above shows that there is no sincerity, no patriotism and no
honesty in the present blurred demand for restructuring so it is neither
meant to solve any problem nor serve the country any fruitful benefit.
It is a selfish quest for rehabilitation by a cabal that does not fathom
life outside power for the generous stealing rights it guarantees them.
It is a strategy to shout themselves back into reckoning and create
rehabilitative platforms they believe, can launch them back into power.
It is no coincidence that the same principalities that domesticated
power for very ulterior motives for the 16 years the PDP debauchery
lasted are the most noisome today in the chaotic demand for
restructuring. It is not happenstance that the very people who, through
deliberate acts and schemes, frustrated the genuine call for
restructuring for 16 years are the same people making ominous threats
should the government not concede to their weird appropriation of
restructuring.
To be fair to them, it is the Yorubas that have consistently
clamored for a restructuring of the country. This call is espoused in
all their demands from the Nigerian state in the many fruitless
constitutional conferences that have been held especially since the
annulment of the June 12, 1993 election. The other component units or
tribes, either because of lack of clarity in the call or because they
find no real attachment to it, have bandied against and defeated such
demand. The Yoruba call for restructuring is firmly anchored on their
demand that Nigeria revert to regional governance and this demand hardly
saw the light of the day because other Nigerians, rightly or wrongly,
did not buy into it.
But then, since Afenifere, the socio political group that had
hitherto served as the mouthpiece of the race decided to sell itself off
to the erstwhile Jonathan government and become a subset of the PDP,
this marked the end of the clamor. The meeting of the individual
interests of Afenifere members in exchange for working for the
continuation of the Jonathan and the PDP era became a more attractive
project Afenifere embarked upon in 2015 but it sank with that project
and with it, the originality of their demand for restructuring. Not that
it marked the end of restructuring but the capitulation of Afenifere
robbed restructuring of the needed conceptual clarity that should drive
the debate. In the absence of this clarity, what we have today is a
noisome clanging by those that lost their deposit in the last election
and the clanging is by way of distracting the present government than
achieving anything. That is why there is this chaotic and hardly
agreeing riot amongst the agitators such that restructuring has today
become that mythical elephant felt by seven blind men.
God, be thanked, the APC, which holds the biggest chunk of the
stick, being the party in power, has come out to clarify its position on
restructuring and has indeed set up a ten-man committee to fine tune
and present its position on restructuring. That serves as the most
practicable answer to the restructuring bogey being presently syndicated
all over the place by those that lost power in the recent election. All
those entertaining the thought that they will noisily stampede or
blackmail a ruling party to adopt steps they never dared take when they
were in power, should do well to wait for the APC to come out with their
roadmap to restructuring the country as that remains the only viable
option in meeting the demands of this syndicated noisome clamor.
***
Peter Claver Oparah writes from Ikeja, Lagos. You can reach him at peterclaver2000@yahoo.com.
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