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Bisi Akande Accuses Military Govts Of Creating Lopsided Political Structure

  Former Interim National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Bisi Akande, has criticised successive military governments that ruled Nigeria for 29 years … Continue reading Bisi Akande Accuses Military Govts Of Creating Lopsided Political Structure


Former APC Interim National Chairman, Bisi Akande
Bisi Akande Accuses Military Govts Of Creating Lopsided Political Structure
Former APC Interim National Chairman, Bisi Akande (file)

 

Former Interim National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Bisi Akande, has criticised successive military governments that ruled Nigeria for 29 years since independence.

The former Osun State governor faulted the previous military governments for creating what he described as the ‘lopsided political structure’ of the country.

Akande said this while delivering in a paper on “Devolution of Powers and National Restructuring” on Saturday at the APC-USA Second Annual Convention in Washington D.C., United States.

He accused the military of creating states and local governments by fiat for selfish reasons rather than through any scientific political reasoning.

The former governor also alleged that the military might have inequitably created more local governments per population per state in the north than in the south, thereby giving the north an unfair advantage in revenue allocation from the national treasury.

He reiterated his call for restructuring, describing it as equitable rearrangement and redistribution of the existing states and local governments per population within the various ethnic nationalities.

Appropriate amendments to the country’s Constitution, according to him, will be required to accommodate the various rearrangements and redistributions.

The former APC chairman, however, admitted that it would be politically unwise to define the word equitable in such a way that it would be easy to convince those enjoying the said unfair advantage at present to surrender such.

He identified restructuring as a Herculean task for all Nigerians compared to the political change of power for which the APC was put together.

“The North is a largely Hausa-speaking people traditionally mix-bred and assimilated with and governed by minority Fulani rulers through Islamic emirate system since two centuries ago.

Akande alleged, “The North has been amalgamated with the South in-law and in fact since a century ago. And, presumably, the Fulani has been perceived to be manipulating the North to rule Nigeria since independence.”