Respected Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has lent his voice to calls for the restructuring of the Nigerian federation, saying the sovereignty of the nation should be and is negotiable.
"We had better understand it too that when people are saying ‘let’s restructure’, they have better things to do. It’s not an idle cry; it is a perennial demand."
Speaking during a visit to Punch headquarters on Tuesday, Soyinka said decentralisation of the nation would ensure healthy rivalry among the component units.
He insisted that it was wrong for previous administrations in the country to say that Nigeria’s sovereignty was non-negotiable, submitting that the position was antithetical to development.
Soyinka added, “I am on the side of those who say we must do everything to avoid disintegration. That language I understand. I don’t understand (ex-President Olusegun) Obasanjo’s language. I don’t understand (President Muhammadu) Buhari’s language and all their predecessors, saying the sovereignty of this nation is non-negotiable.
"It’s bloody well negotiable and we had better negotiate it. We better negotiate it, not even at meetings, not at conferences, but everyday in our conduct towards one another.
“The Pro-National Conference Organisation was about restructuring when this same Obasanjo said it was an act of treason for people to come together to fashion a new constitution. Those were fighting words; that you’re saying, ‘I commit treason because I want to sit with my fellow citizens and negotiate the structures of staying together’ and ask the police to go and break it up and arrest us.
“I remember that policeman, who said if we met, that would be treason. I wasn’t a member of PRONACO at the time. That’s when I joined PRONACO. If you’re saying to me, ‘I am a second-class citizen; I cannot sit down and discuss the articles, the protocols of staying together’ and you’re trying to bully me, I won’t accept.”
He stressed that Nigeria could not continue with a centralisation policy, which encouraged what he described as “monkey dey work, baboon dey chop” mentality.
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