RESTRUCTURING: YOU CAN’T TREAT UNEQUALS EQUALLY, EL-RUFAI TELLS IGBOS, OTHERS
RESTRUCTURING: YOU
CAN’T TREAT UNEQUALS EQUALLY, EL-RUFAI TELLS IGBOS, OTHERS
Amid agitation by leaders of the South East for the creation of an
additional state in the zone, Kaduna State governor and chairman of ruling All
Progressives Congress, APC, Committee on True Federalism, Mallam Nasir
El-Rufai, has declared that it would be a grave injustice to agitate for “equal
unequals”. According to him, even in population and resources, the
regions of the country are not uniformly endowed.
Nasir el-Rufai He, however, said though the
representatives of the agitators were few in number, “the majority must always
win.” Speaking at a town hall meeting organised by his committee to get inputs
from youths, the governor said when people talk about restructuring, most
proponents think of their zones while no one thinks of the country. He
said: “The greatest injustice is trying to make equals unequal and
unequals equal; things are not done like that. What do I mean by that? There
are those who have said that Nigeria and United States are the same. “It is
just like saying everyone who is six feet, five can play basket ball. As human
beings, we are equal but you cannot come and stand here and say we should
create nine states in each zone, Nigeria is not equal, likewise the population
and resources, you can’t do that.
“The representatives of the agitators are few
in number and so the majority must always win. The president of the country
exists, the Senate exists and there are 36 states of the federation. ‘’We the
old ones are still here, some of us are good, some are bad, like the youths but
you must learn to live with us because we are still here.
“Now, some people say because we have oil, let
us have resource control. We must think of what is in the overall
interest of Nigeria. ‘’By that I mean what works for everyone. Because what
works for one part of the county will not necessarily work for the other and so
as long as we are from one country, we must seek for what is of common good, not
the one that serves one interest group.