Sesan Laoye || Human rights activist, Mr. Festus Keyamo has said that those clamouring for restructuring are not sincere as they want to use it to dominate their people.
Keyamo made this Assertion while delivering a lecture at the Nigerian Bar association Law week in Ibadan.
According to him, they are neither sincere nor genuine compatriots, they are selfish people who want to colonize their fellow human beings in their locality and areas.
The human rights lawyer who raised a fundamental question said, right now no one can differentiate the intention of all the groups calling for the country to be restructured because majority are those who want political relevance and want to be vibrant economically
He said that because they don’t have good intention, agitation for restructuring would never end since others agitating or jumping into the demand are disgruntled leaders and politicians who want to remain relevant, or who may have been down economically and want to use it to exploit the economic advantages in their respective areas
He condemned the enormous powers at the centre saying that this has been one of the major reasons why the country is not settled, saying that the Senate has made a killing from the committee work. “”The upper legislative chamber has made a killing of the committee work because of what they derive from it, and that is why they always fight to be chairmen of juicy committees’’
In the lecture titled Ethnic agitations, rethinking the amalgamation Keyamo argued that section 9 of the constitution would not give room for any restructuring to take place in Nigeria because the national assembly members would not want anything that would not want them relevant.
He pointed out that for any restructuring to take place section 9 of the constitution must be amended or completely repelled. ‘’ With this section in place, restructuring would not go anywhere because it does not give room for referendum and because of this, the legislators would not want to relinquish the powers already vested in them by this section9 of the constitution.’’
The firebrand lawyer and civil right defender believe there is nothing wrong in restructuring, but what could make it work is for the electoral system in Nigeria to be reformed. The electoral system should be returned first before Nigerians could think of restructuring.
According to him, the reform should start from the process adopted during voting which are faulty, right from the registration of voters to the period of counting votes. He pointed out that votes from the polling units as soon that they are counted be transmitted electronically at once and not until they get to the collation centres where the votes are manipulated to favour candidates preferred by the master or those who must have spent money for their selfish interests and what they stand to benefit from the preferred candidate.
He believed that if the voting system is modified in a way that would not give room for rigging those yearning for power or elected offices would know that if they don’t support the people over restructuring, they would not be voted for or allowed to run for a second term ‘’unless they know that it will cost them the votes of the people for their next line of action in politics, they will not support any peoples’ oriented agitations.’’
He said that now, those elected to public offices, don’t care about the people because they know that their voted does not count. Some of them, he said as soon as they get to power forget the people to do what they like.
Talking on the last national conference which was put up by the former President Good Luck Jonathan in 2014, Keyamo argued that over N15billion was spent to put the conference together including the allowances of those who participated but unfortunately nothing came out of it because the present Government, that took over from the Jonathan’s administration, has failed to do anything about it, saying this has always been the problem with the previous ones before that.
On the amalgamation of the country by Fred Luguard, he pointed out that it was ill motivated and not in the interests of all the various ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. To him, the British, amalgamated Nigeria because of her economic consideration, adding that the 1914 amalgamation is the one that is giving room for various agitations all over the country