Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olabode George, has said that various problems bedevilling the country can only be resolved through restructuring, which would only bring about true federalism.
George, who was speaking with journalists at a conference on Thursday in Lagos, on Nigeria’s Democracy at 20, said to achieve true federalism, the country must implement the resolution of the 2014 National Conference.
Speaking on the theme of the conference titled: “Nigeria Democracy at 20: Our Challenges, Our Ordeal”, the PDP chieftain said the infractions in the constitution were responsible for the country’s failure.
He said the nation is today suffering due to failure to do what is right, noting that state police and local control of resources, if implemented, would address germane issues affecting the country.
According to him, “Solutions to the country’s challenges have been itemized in 2014 national conference reports. Let there be true federalism, restructuring. The President cannot be in Abuja and be monitoring things happening at local governments”.
George said 20 years of democratic rule had not produced the desired results, stressing that the country was passing through excruciating moments.
He said: “Our nation has reached an epochal stage this very month of May, in the year of our Lord 2019. Our democracy is now 20 years old of successive, uninterrupted continuity and maturation.
“This, by any standard or any stretch of historical interpretation, ought to be celebrated, if we were in normal times. But unfortunately, we are not in normal times. This is a period of ferment and tumult. Our nation is not at ease.
“We are all ill- defined, ill-shaped, broken into a thousand pieces. The democratic purity is dangerously distorted, bruised, disfigured, savaged, hurled to the brink of a ruinous precipice. Our once glorious and beautiful mosaic of cultural plurality and sectarian diversity are being mangled, forfeited on the altar of infantile partisan and parochial divisions.
“This nation is without ethical leadership, without honour, without credible vision, lacking in purposeful articulation. The scourge of nepotism, the poisonous bile of tribal triumphalism, the hate infested curse of provincial fixities are now gaining grounds everywhere, defining the thematic aberrations of our times.
“Let us be truthful and frank: our nation is embattled, scourged and savaged by the virtual selfishness of our collective elites. We are all guilty for the present ravaged state of our troubled nation. The ogre created by the selfishness of the few has come to haunt us all.
“But beyond the harsh confines of ethnic divisions, beyond the savageries of partisan furore, we are yet confronted by the murderous furies of bandits and faceless herdsmen who continuously subject every inch of this nation to a vast killing fields where none can claim a refuge of undisturbed safety and guaranteed protective cordon.
“Now, both the rich and the poor are easy targets. The dividing lines are now blurred, indistinguishable, flung upon the whims and the reckless inflictions of murderous bandits who negotiate with no one except when the price is right.”
Noting that the country must return to the path of fairness and promotion of equity, adding that the fight against corruption has been politicised, George said that the anti graft agencies have been given skewed template in the discharge of its duties.
“We must return to the path of balanced ingredients of democratic purity where the logical essence of checks and balances prevail among the tripodal branches of the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary.
“Justice must prevail over partiality, inequity and unfairness. The enlightened society can only be established when everyone, regardless of tribe and tongue, is treated fairly in the Nigerian commonwealth. This is my position. This is where I stand. I thank you all for listening,” he said.