Politics

REVEALED: Reason Buhari Is Ignoring Restructuring Nigeria – Ex-Minister

Published

3 years ago

Jan 24, 2022.

REVEALED: Reason Buhari Is Ignoring Restructuring Nigeria – Ex-Minister

EKO HOT BLOG reports that a former Minister of Youth Development and Sports, Bolaji Abdullahi, who is also a former National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has said that Muhammadu Buhari ignored restructuring because the President thinks it is a South-West agenda.

Abdullahi was part of the APC committee on true federalism led by Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State. Four years later, it has not been implemented. Asked in a recent interview with Punch the reason for the non-implementation, he said:

“I don’t have an idea but I think I understand to a good extent the challenge at the time. Like you rightly noted, I was a member of the committee and we travelled round the country and the take-off point was that the APC government promised devolution of power in its manifesto and it got to a point where Nigerians began to ask questions. We felt obliged as executives of the party to take action at that point in time regardless of the position of the government, hoping that we would start the conversation around it and be able to get the government to respond appropriately and that was why the leadership of the party at the time led by Chief John Oyegun set up a committee led by El-Rufai.

“One of the things we tried to do then was to disaggregate what people mean when they say true federalism. You would agree with me that the definition of restructuring has been caught up in all forms of political baggage to the extent that it means different things to different people.

“After our report came out, our hope was that we would be able to get the Federal Government to take the needed actions because apart from the report that made specific recommendations on what to do on constitution amendments, we even went to the extent of including draft amendments. I think what happened is that the manifesto of the APC had long been disowned by the government itself. The government felt it was the South-West wing of the party that inserted this into the manifesto of the party and the other wings didn’t believe in it; that was where the breakdown happened.

“So it was seen more or less as ACN South-West agenda, rather than the Buhari government agenda. That dissonance was a major challenge that report had. I don’t think anything would come out of the report for now especially as we head to the last lap of the administration.”

Quizzed further on if there is any reason for why it was called a South-West agenda, Abdullahi explained: “Don’t forget the party made a lot of promises in the build-up to the election. I was part of the campaign team as the Deputy Director of Strategy and Policy. We came up with all kinds of ideas on how we could change the country at the time and we made all kinds of promises as a result. I remembered we made a pamphlet titled ‘My Pact with Nigerians’ which contained what the President would do for the country. I remembered that one of the first things the government spokespeople did after the inauguration was to say some of the promises were made by overzealous members of the party.

“Some of those agendas were disowned by the government. I think it was the nature by which the party was put together. You had the CPC, ANPP, and the ACN. So, it was a special vehicle put together for winning the election. And it was the first time a progressive party was coming to power at the centre and some of the progressives’ agendas were coming largely from the ACN.

“Those primordial groups still remained intact even after winning the election and were still able to locate the boundaries of their own commitment within the general framework of the party. The attempt to mould the APC into a one unified party regardless of where they were coming from has not succeeded as well as it should as at then. I am no longer in the party; so, I don’t know what is going on there now.”

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