By Suleiman Shehu
Rep. Adedeji Olajide (PDP- Ibadan South-West/ North-West Constituency) in Oyo State, says Nigeria is in dire need of restructuring for rapid development.
Olajide, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Ibadan, said that the country needed to be restructured for it to witness progress, adding that to overcome its current challenges, concentration of power at the centre should be decentralised.
He said that restructuring has nothing to do with being either Yoruba, Hausa or Igbo.
According to him, we must all make genuine efforts to change the current system, because it is ineffective in giving us a productive country.
“To achieve this, there must be religion tolerance and nobody should impose on one another; the North, South, East and West must sit down and agree on the way to go,” Olajide said.
He said that since the country prospered in the days of regionalisation, it would not be out of place to go back to those days by restructuring the country to reflect regional system.
“For instance, the Cocoa House and many of the Odu’a property were built with Cocoa money. If we can go back to that and forget about oil, because oil is no longer even environmental friendly.
“We have alternative sources of energy and we need to sit down as a nation and talk about restructuring and right now, we have the time to sit down and do so,” he said.
The lawmaker said he was interested in resource management, especially with the abundance of resources in the South that could be used to develop the region.
He was, however, optimistic that the restructuring of his dreams would soon come to pass, noting that it was one of the top agenda of the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku.
“Once, Atiku emerges the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the restructuring of country would become a reality,” Olajide said.
The lawmaker, seeking re-election, also said that he was not satisfied with the way and manner local government administration was being handled in the country.
“It is worrisome, because local governments don’t have autonomy, and this is affecting rapid development at the grassroots and in Nigeria as a whole,” Olajide said.
He also called for state policing system, irrespective of the trust issues associated with whether or not the state governments would be fair with their respective policing system.
“If you go to the United States, California runs one of the largest economy in the world and they have both the State and Federal Police,” he said. (NAN)(www.nanmews.ng)
SYS/MAS/GOK
Edited by Moses Solanke/Olagoke Olatoye
