FALNA, NLC CALL RESTRUCTURING BLUFF, ADVOCATE ONE NIGERIA

Human right lawyer, and senior advocate of Nigeria, Barrister Femi Falana, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) as well as the human rights activists have described as unrealistic the call for restructuring of Nigeria as the campaigners are said to be haters of the unity of the country and self- cantered.

Falana stated this at a world press conference organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress, the TUC and other sister labour union.

Accoding to him, those calling for undefined restructuring are fanning the amber of disunity as such is done for personal reasons.

According to Falana, the dream of the founding fathers is for true federalism devoid of ethnicity and the likes. He said that such was the motive and how things are done on nationalistic level during the time of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Ahmadu Bello, the Awolowos among others.

He further stressed that poverty in proper reasoning, has contributed to agitation for federalism or rather restructuring of Nigeria.

You see, no one can agitate for state restructuring without economic restructuring, we should first of all talk about the economy of the country and on how to address the issue of people’s welfare. This is very germane and we have to address it and do not forget that this is a country where oil blocks are given to individuals while the generality of the people wallow in poverty”, he noted.

On the issue of National conference, Falana, remarked that most of the issues in the constitution of Nigeria remains unattended to. And such is the issue of available shelter to Nigerians, social welfare, which directly improves the lives of common man. “We must criticise the call for restructuring and I must tell you that there are two major pint of laws that automatically dealt with issue of rights of common man in Nigeria which is Basic free education and child rights, if such is dealt with as provided by the constitution of the Federal Constitution of Nigeria,then Nigerian will be better”.

The president of the NLC Comrade Aliyu Waba, in company of the TUC president, Boboi Kaigama, while addressing the media officially, started that true federalism cannot be a rocket science in Nigeria as such can only be achieved through the process of dialogue .
According to Aliyu Waba, “there is no country without problems of Governance and Nigeria’s case should not be exceptional. What I am saying is that there are so many issues we need to address to bring Nigeria under one umbrella. We should begin to address the issues on critical sectors and the passage of law on citizens.

Waba further reiterated that in attempting to resolve issues of conflicts of interest for the purpose of having a better union that Nigerians are irrevocably committed to dialogue, responsible and responsive dialogue that takes on board socio-economic justice, democratic culture, cohesion, political competitiveness, mutual respect and all those other values that strengthen a nation.

We believe that as huge and diverse as our country may be, just a desktop research will show that we are not so “peculiar or “diverse” that we are not able to manage just like established federal states like India, USA, the United Kingdom and most countries in continental Europe, particularly Germany, Austria and a whole lot of them which became federation as a result of wars. There is basically no country on the surface of the earth that was literally created by God and installed as a model federal state.

We are, therefore, never in doubt about the potential greatness of Nigeria as a federated nation but only if the greed of our elites, and what our great Literary icon, the late Chinua Achebe, calls the unwillingness or inability of its[Nigerian] leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership, will permit it rise from the ashes of its main challenge of bad governance to assume its rightful place as the capital of the Black Race”, he noted.

The President of NLC, noted that it will continue to therefore underscore the need for good governance in the country as a basis for any realistic development and eventual emancipation of the people.

If the resources available to us as a nation were well managed and not stolen by both the corrupt public and private sector operators, the escalating problems of (youth) unemployment, decaying infrastructure, non-funding of education, health and other social services, would have been adequately addressed.

He also pointed out that in estimation, that most of the issues in contention can be resolved through good governance, sustainable and transparent fight against corruption and addressing inequities and injustice in the system.
He stated that retreating into tribal or ethnic enclaves without first addressing these issues, amounts to abdication of collective responsibility and no more than making a bad case worse.

This, he remarked, is why Nigeria speaks to the ordinary Nigerians and Nigerians of good conscience to stand up and fight the evil in the system instead of attempting to destroy the whole nation.