By Naomi Sharang
Yabagi Sani, Presidential Candidate of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), says the issue of restructuring has long been addressed in Nigeria, describing the current clamour for restructuring as political.
Sani, also the National Chairman, Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC), said this when he appeared at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja.
“The issue of restructuring has long been settled, what we are having as call for restructuring is political, the Nigerian system is made in such a way that issues like that are addressed without causing dislocations or problems to the system.
“We have the National Assembly, we have organs like Revenue and Mobilisation Commission which is responsible for fixing salaries and sharing of nation’s resources and to monitor the way they are being utilise.
“Nigeria is not a country without a Constitution.
“Restructuring is an already settled issue in Nigeria, these are issues that have either been settled through the constitution or conventions like the creation of the six geopolitical zones and others,” he said.
Sani added: “The creation of six geopolitical zones for instance is not in the Constitution but it is to address certain political realignment.
“When you go to the constitution we have issues on exclusive and concurrent lists, if the legislation feels that some issues be taken from the exclusive list to the concurrent list and that it why I said that the issue of restructuring has long been settled.
“Your National Assembly members are just there to make that, you have elected representatives from all over the country in the two Chambers of the National Assembly as Senators and as members of House of Representatives.
“The lawmakers have just two functions- to make laws and to embark on oversight to ensure that the laws are working.
“The essence of oversight is to find out if these laws are working if they are not, then they have to rejig them and that is why I said restructuring is already impeded in our constitution.”
He said the same thing could be applied to the current Naira redesign policy which had generally heated debates in the country.
“Look at the problem we are facing today about naira re-design, a well intentioned policy that is supposed to be applauded by all Nigerians. In fact it is stated in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) establishment act that it must change Nigeria’s currency every 10 years.
“But because the policy wasn’t well thought out or given necessary analysis in term of social implications it is rather causing untold hardship on Nigerians. This is what we are talking about,” he said.(NAN)
