ACF wont support structuring

The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, Sunday rejected the call for the restructuring of the country to ensure true federalism saying that what the country needed was competent leadership at all the levels of government and not doing anything that would weaken the centre. The National Publicity Secretary of ACF, Mohammed Ibrahim, made this known in a telephone interview with Vanguard. Ibrahim said “that Nigerians fought for the unity of the country” pointing out that it was “not possible for the north to support anything that would cause disunity” in Nigeria.

He however stressed that since the country was practicing democracy, everything about restructuring or amending the constitution should be channelled through the National Assembly which had the constitutional duties to bring about such changes. On a personal note, Ibrahim said that it would be practically impossible to restructure the country along the line of regionalism when it had not been possible for civilians to create even one local government council since the exit of the military from governance over 18 years ago. “It is not possible. Nobody can even amend the 1999 Constitution as it is today. This is my personal opinion but we have not been able to create a single local government since the advent of the present democratic dispensation. For anybody to create a new local government council in the country, all the 36 states must agree and this cannot be possible,” he added, pointing out that everything about restructuring along regionalism would be an exercise in futility.