It's Madness Sign To Think Nigeria Will Work Without Restructuring – Soyinka

 Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Saturday, re-echoed the call for restructuring the country as a means of tackling some of the major problems confronting it.

Wole Soyinka

Soyinka stated that there was a consensus among Nigerians that the country must be restructured urgently, saying anybody still asking what restructuring means despite the numerous explanations already provided should be ignored because such persons had chosen to be ignorant deliberately.

The elder statesman spoke at the 2021 Obafemi Awolowo Lecture titled, ‘Whither Nigeria?’ organised by the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation.

The event, which was held virtually, had in attendance dignitaries, including a former Secretary-General of Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku; the Emir of Sokoto, Saad Abubakar; Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi; former Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II; and former Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Obadiah Mailafia, among others.

Awolowo, who died in 1987, would have been 112 years old on Saturday.

Soyinka said, “There is a consensus that this country whether in terms of governance, economic relations, security, educational policy, cultural policy, etc, requires restructuring. Even the word ‘restructuring’ has been restructured in many directions, in cogent expression which will mean the same thing for everybody.

“For me, for instance, I emphasised decentralisation, reconfiguration…We all know what we have now is not working, it’s obvious and we can’t continue along the same line and say that it will work, it is sign of madness.

“I want to make a plea to all governors, stop being so timid. Push this federal envelope as far as it can go, even while we undertake the technical aspect of restructuring whether in terms of dialogue, evolving the constitution or whatever, something has to go on, after all, we’ve had so many of these confabs.

“My plea is to governors to start with: You are charged with the immediate responsibility of the welfare of your own people in whatever term and if you study the constitution carefully, I have done this with lawyers, and it seems that a lot can be done at this moment.