In opposing President Buhari’s New Year message, Chief Edwin Clark, leader of the Niger Delta peoples, was quoted as saying that “The people of the South-South are the most affected. 87 per cent of our revenue comes from the South-South. Nigerians believe in restructuring. I was very much disappointed that the President said he does not want restructuring. “Northerners are talking of restructuring; you have heard the Sultan of Sokoto, Balarabe Musa all of them are part of majority of Nigerians talking about restructuring. El-Rufai heads APC committee on restructuring. Even the northerners have not rejected restructuring. “The National Assembly has no choice but must follow the people, what the people are saying if majority of Nigerians say they want restructuring, the National Assembly has no choice”.

Edwin Clark should know, having been in the leadership of the Niger Delta since the First Republic. Niger Delta “militants”, in pursuit of Restructuring, have carried out attacks on Nigeria’s oil installations which Chief Clark says produces 87% of Nigeria’s revenue. It was also Niger Delta’s insistence on “Resource Control” which truncated Obasanjo’s plan to ram through his own version of “Restructuring” which some have claimed was a back-door towards elongating his tenure.

The Niger Delta “militants” attacks against oil installations became reduced to security issues, and the Nigerian State relied on the security apparatus to try to neutralize these efforts ultimately ending up with an amnesty to the “militants”. This can also be likened to current Fulani herdsmen terrorism in Nigeria, where the president has recently decided to take some form of action against them and touting “national security”. The difference between the Niger Delta agitators and Fulani herdsmen is that the run up to 2019 will become clearly linked to issues of internal security upon which the current president will stake his claim even though the Fulani herdsmen issue is clearly political. But these herdsmen have an advantage in that they are ensconced within a political paradigm already anchored on control of the Center while the Niger Delta, during their “militancy” had no such context.

The more reason why Chief Edwin Clark and the Niger Delta, especially with such groups like the Ijaw National Congress, the Ijaw Youth Congress, Lower Niger Congress, Chikoko Movement and others, should also flow with the proposition to Asiwaju Tinubu, of course, within their own context, which implies having someone of their own choosing, from the Niger Delta, to also run for the office of the President, again with Constitutional Re-Formation of Nigeria as the sole electoral Agenda and their quest for Restructuring and Resource Control will be in the hands of the Peoples of the Niger Delta.

Similarly, for the Igbo, they should get off their high horse of describing themselves as the sole “nation builders”, cease their perpetual permutations on the centralized Presidency, and follow the Niger Delta and the West to have their own candidate run for the office of the President also with Constitutional Re-Formation of Nigeria as their sole electoral Agenda thus putting all of their expectations in the hands of Igbo people, more-so when groups like Ohanaeze, T.I.N, Igbo Ekwunie, Nzuka Umunna, with its “handshake across the Niger” and all of the sundry Biafra groups, have expressed disenchantment with Nigeria’s current structure and with the deputy Senate President, an Igbo, Ike Ekweremadu in the forefront of advocating True Federalism, with his description of Nigeria’s federalism as “feeding Bottle federalism”. He even recently advocated the necessity to return “to the original dream of true federalism which was a product of negotiation, compromise and accommodation.” Continuing, Ike Ekweremadu says “Sadly, the rain started beating us from that fateful January coup, especially following the violation of the covenant of our fathers by the promulgation of Unitary Decree, 1966. Although the July 1966 counter-coup was, among other things, predicated on the need to correct General Aguyi Ironsi’s misadventure, subsequent regimes after him have steadily and deliberately corrupted the architectural design and undone all the foundations laid by the founding fathers. For more than half a century, we have done every imaginable violence to the Federal principles and the results have been disastrous…In simple terms, therefore, the quest for restructuring is a quest for a return to the old covenant, the original foundation and master plan agreed on and laid down by our fathers”.

And now especially for the Igbo having been given the runaround and exposing their serious lack of strategic initiative through the Nnamidi Kanu-led gambit, the Igbo should transcend the political limitations imposed on themselves by the Igbo themselves and flow with the proposition, to wit, they should select, from among themselves, someone to run for the office of the President of Nigeria with Constitutional Reformation of Nigeria as the sole Manifesto. There is no better foundation for a handshake across the Niger than when all the hands pursue Restructuring via making it an electoral issue as being canvassed.

While attempts are being made to reduce the definition of Restructuring to nothingness to take the bite off it, every Nationality in Nigeria has a duty to itself and to others to re-establish a legitimate and valid claim to their being makers of their own history. For a while, the British colonial power made all of us objects of British history; and for another while, as the Peoples of Nigeria, we became subjects of our own history through the instrumentality of the First Republic. Yet, the colonial forces aimed for the jugular of the Peoples through military intervention. All the Peoples of Nigeria must never forget that the military and therefore any security situation Nigeria finds itself is a function of the colonizing mission with the military as its local agency. Therefore, Nigeria is being forced to remain as it is. To make matters worse, all known universally acknowledged definitions of Federalism have been thrown overboard and substituted with all sorts of shenanigans passing for ruling elite thinking. It is therefore time the various Peoples to become their own subjects, for themselves and no longer objects of colonialism and its Nigerian State by making the 2019 Presidential Elections the platform for carrying it out and with Constitutional Re-Formation of Nigeria as the sole electoral Agenda albeit in its different Ethno-National contexts.

Along this line, the Chief Anthony Enahoro-led Movement for National Re-Formation’s made the issue clearer by its promotion of Lingual-Territorial entities as Nigeria’s Federating Units. The movement’s suggested number of Lingual-Territorial/Nationality Categories is 17, of which 11 will be mono-Lingual/Nationality Entities/Region:

Ibibio (2).Ijaw (3). Igbo (4). Urhobo (5). Edo (6). Yoruba (7). ( Tiv (9). Gbagyi (10). Hausa-Fulani (11). Kanuri. The other six (6) of the Regions should be multi-Nationality regions, as follows: (i) Nationalities in Cross River and Akwa Ibom states (i.e. Eket, Annang, Oron, Ibeno, Efik, Ejagbam, Korop, Boki, Bakwara, Yakurr, Yala). (ii) Nationalities in Rivers and Bayelsa states (i.e. Ikwerre, Etchei, Ekpeeye, Engeni, Ogba, Eleme, Ndoni, Ogoni, and Andoni). (iii) Nationalities in Delta State (i.e. Ika, Ndokwa, Warri, Isoko). (iv) Nationalities in West Middle Belt, i.e. Zuru, Kambari, Bariba, Bussa, Karekare, Ngizim, Angamo, Bola, Funne, etc. (v) Nationalities in Central Middle Belt, i.e.: (a) Ebira Group: Ebira, Uku, Ebira-Ugu, Ebira-Panda, Etuno-Igarra, Ebira Mozun, Bassa-Nge. (b) Igala Group (c) Upper Benue Group: Alago Eggon, Gwandara, Mada, Kakanda, Mighili, Bassa-Komu, Ninzom, Arum etc. (vi) Nationalities in East Middle Belt, i.e. (a) Plateau Group: Ngas, Berom, Afezere Taroh, Goemai, Nmavo – Jukun, Amu, Pyem, Youn etc. (b) Taraba Group: Chamba, Jukun, Kuteb, Mambila, Kona, Kunni, Kaanab, Ndoro, Abakwa, Mumuye, Yububen, etc. (c) Savanna Group: Bura, Tangale – Waja, Bachama, Manghi, Kilba, Yungu, Mwanna, Bwazza Mbula, etc.
And what if Asiwaju Tinubu objects to this proposition and refuses to go along, for whatever reasons? Asiwaju would be committing his greatest and possibly politically fatal blunder in his entire political carrier. Having come this far in his political interventions, the least he could do would be to place his massive political machine and goodwill behind any other Yoruba person willing to go the whole hog. Otherwise, 2019 would mark the capitulation of the Yoruba to absolute Fulani hegemony in Nigeria—at least for a time.

Also, if other Nationalities fail to take up the challenge as already canvassed, the least the Yoruba Nation would face would be like Catalonia, with the Legitimacy of our quest already achieved and which will further deepen the Yoruba drive towards Self-Determination.

For the Yoruba Nation, a Draft Constitution for Yorubaland, as part of the Constitutional Re-Formation process and which will serve as the 2019 Election Manifesto is already in existence. From this Draft, all the issues on Restructuring had been taken care of, as far as the Yoruba are concerned. It is the duty of each of the peoples identified by the Movement for National Re-Formation to devise its own issues.

He should hide his head in the gutters...where has been his voice since all the killings going on under his party