- Living Members of ‘Action Group’ Behind Call For Restructuring
- Says Restructuring Means Selfishness
By ‘Dotun Akintomide
Political Adviser to former President Shehu Shagari, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai has blamed the quit notice issued to Igbos residing in the north on the alleged complicity by leaders in the southeast over the Biafra secession agitation by the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu for the southeast region to break away from Nigeria, The New Diplomat reports.
Yakasai while speaking on a national radio program on Tuesday morning specifically mentioned frontline diplomat and erstwhile secretary-General of the British Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku; Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu; and the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Charles Soludo amongst southeast leaders whose solidarity visit to Nnamdi Kanu led to the October 1st ultimatum given to Igbos in the north by a coalition of Arewa youths who converged on Kaduna on June 9.
According to Yakasai, “The agitation became serious when a group of elders from southeast went as a team to go and pay a solidarity visit to Nnamdi Kanu while in prison. People like my good friend, Emeka Anyaoku who’s over 80 (year-old) and who was (at a time) the second in power to the United Nations Secretary-General in term of world politics and the Secretary-General of the British Commonwealth, the largest international organization next to the UN and he went to the prison on a solidarity visit to Nnamdi Kanu.
“And a former CBN Governor, Soludo would also join him? And even our own Ekweremadu who was elected as the Deputy Senate President by the whole people of Nigeria.”
He continued: “When people like these go on a solidarity visit to Nnamdi Kanu, what does that solidarity visit mean? Meaning they are for the Biafra secession? When you talk of Biafra in Nigeria, it only means secession.”
Although Senator Ekweremadu has distanced himself from the said solidarity visit to the IPOB leader, but Yakassai said “silence means consent” on the part of Chief Anyaoku and Prof. Soludo.
Commenting further, the elder statesman said southeast leaders came a bit too late in disassociating themselves from the call for secession by Nnamdi Kanu. “If the elders had come out early to say the abusive language he was using and how he was going about the agitation was wrong, people would have listened to them.”
On the deafening call for the nation’s restructuring among Nigerians, Yakasai, the founding member of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) opined that restructuring means selfishness, saying the members of the Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s old ‘Action Group’ (AG) who are still alive are the ones behind the call for the nation’s restructuring.
His words: “The remaining Action Group members in our society are the ones calling for restructuring, because in the first republic they wanted to rule Nigeria as the most educated set of people in Nigeria. And when we talk of Action Group, we are not talking of the Yorubas alone.”
He pointed out that people from the South-South and Southeast were only cajoled into the agitation for restructuring and that the agitation never originated from them.
“In democracy, everybody has his (/her) rights. I still believe in the way we are going as a country, except that I don’t support the presidential system of government because the power vested in the President is too much and rather than unite the country, it’s tearing the country apart whereby everybody is busy talking about the President.
“I will love a situation whereby the presidential powers would be reduced like in the French system,” he added.
He maintained that the elites are the ones behind the call for restructuring “so as to do away with the existing 36 states and create a new and more convenient arrangement for themselves, so that they can rule. It’s never in the interest of Nigeria.”
