The nonagenarian leader of Afenifere, Ayo Adebanjo, has lampooned Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and the All Progressives Congress leader, Bola Tinubu, for playing dumb over the demand for restructuring of the country.
According to Punch newspaper, Adebanjo said it was unfortunate that Osinbajo and Tinubu who promoted restructuring, are now pretending as if it was not included in the APC manifesto during the election campaigns in 2015.
Buhari has continually shoved aside any discussion on restructuring. And on his Independence Day Speech, asserted that the country’s unity was non-negotiable. This also got Adebanjo angry, who recalled that the terms of Nigeria’s unity were negotiated in 1950 and nothing stops the component parts to continue negotiating the unity today.
According to Punch, Adebanjo said Buhari’s ignorance could be excused because he was a “small boy” at the time the unity of Nigeria was negotiated. But he advised the president to study the records and learn from it.
The 93-year-old said: “He (Buhari) is talking nonsense. These are the kinds of things that cause trouble. How can the President of a multinational, multilingual and multi-ethnic society say the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable? We negotiated the unity of Nigeria in 1954 before independence.
“The 1960 Constitution was a product of negotiation that arose from the London constitutional conference.
“Of course, I can’t blame him (Buhari). He was still in primary school at that time, so, he couldn’t understand. He should go back to the records.
“Before the constitutional conference, the country was being run as a unitary government and that was what caused the crisis.
“When we got to that conference, Chief Awolowo re-educated them that you cannot run the country as a unitary system. It was at that conference that Nnamdi Azikiwe was converted to federalism and when he returned from that conference, Azikiwe, at the airport, declared that federalism was imperative. It was in the Daily Times of 1954.”
