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| Former Governor of Oyo State, Adebayo Alao-Akala |
A former Governor of Oyo State and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress APC, Adebayo Alao-Akala, has kicked against agitation for Oduduwa Republic, saying that agitating for Yoruba Nation is not the solution to the challenges facing the region.
In an interview with THE PUNCH on Sunday, the former Governor said even if the Southwest breaks away from Nigeria there will still be agitations over dominance power in the region.
He said the only solution to the problems in the country is to revisit the Confab report and implement the recommendations. When that is done, all those agitating for restructuring or Self-Determination will stop.
When asked to state his position on Yoruba Nation he said; "I am for one Nigeria. I don’t know how old you were when Nigeria fought a civil war to maintain our oneness. Are we going to throw away the country just like that? God brought us together and Nigeria is not the only country with many ethnic groups."
"In the United Kingdom, there are English people, Wales, the Scots and the Irish. The same thing is there in the United States. In Ghana, there are many ethnic groups also. I was brought up in Ghana."
"There will still be agitation even if we are given Yoruba Nation today. Some people will complain that the Ijebu people are dominating us, while some will say the Egba are dominating us and things like that. So, let us remain where we are and make things work. The only thing I think we should do is to understand how best we can define our coexistence."
On 1999 constitution he said; "I said earlier that we should change our constitution if possible. That we should change to the parliamentary system of government. One thing against the constitution is that the military was in a hurry to hand over power after the death of Chief MKO Abiola and General Sani Abacha."
"They hurriedly put the constitution together. People were tired of the military and the military hurriedly put that constitution together. When Obasanjo came, he tried to correct it. He instituted a Justice Niki Tobi panel to look into it, but the report was put aside."
"That is one problem with Nigeria, you spend money on something and the recommendations will not be implemented. When Jonathan came, he organised a confab and a lot of money was spent. The report was put somewhere. That was when we could have done a lot of corrections but the report was put away."
"The constitution we are using now is even telling lies against us. The opening statement is “we the people of Nigeria” but we all know that the people did not make the constitution but the powers that be then did it. When the colonial masters wanted to hand over power to our fathers in 1960, there was a constitutional conference before that."
"They agreed on how they wanted to govern the country. If that was done then, let us talk again now. We have used the constitution for more than 20 years with little success, so let us try another one."
He continued that "We have had so many reports that we put some there to gather dust. Jonathan handed the report to President Buhari when he was leaving the office. So let us revisit the report. If the report was implemented then, all those agitating for restructuring or self-determination would not have had anything to say. They would not have been making that noise."