- Orji Uzor Kalu said Nigeria needed to be restructured
- The former governor said this would not affect the unity of the country
- He said IPOB has no right to stop election in Anambra state
Former governor of Abia state, Orji Uzor Kalu, has explained that the call to restructure the country is not to tear the country’s unity apart insisting that no one can negotiate the unity of Nigeria.
The Sun reports that the former governor said this in Abia state recently where he delivered lectures at the 2017 Nigerian Bar Association, Aba Law Week.
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He explained that restructuring will not lead to division as some people have posited.
He said: "When we talk about restructuring, we don’t mean dividing the country, we are thinking of restructuring some social, political and local indices of the structure called Nigeria. This is because the 36 states are fairly looking as if they are not viable. And if they are not viable, what do you do? Is for you to either go back to regions or leave the six regions and go for eight to 10 regions and make them points of administration of the nation. So, I believe that when we say restructure, people who think we are questioning the unity of the country are not getting it. This country’s unity is not negotiable by any part; nobody can negotiate the unity of this country.
On the threat issued by the indigenous People Of Biafra that no election will hold in Anambra state if a day for referendum is not set, Kalu said it will be unfair to describe their agitation as un constitutional but insisted they have no right to disrupt electoral processes.
He said: “It will not be fair for IPOB to say that, it is unconstitutional. They have the right to agitate for Biafra, but have no right of disrupting people’s process of registration or electing their leaders. IPOB people have every right to agitate, after all, we have free speech in the country, everybody has right to agitate for what he feels is right for him, but that should follow due process.
“You know, I went to prison to see Nnamdi Kanu when he was there and I spoke with him. I also almost at the same time visited his parents at their Afara Ukwu, Umuahia country home and I also spoke with them. That does not mean I’m in support of what he is doing as some people many tend to believe. At the same time, I’m not against his agitation, he has that right, but like I said earlier, it must follow due process. I wish they will understand where the world is going; none of the world powers supports the division of Nigeria.
“What I think we should do as a people is to come forcefully and demand for our rights, right of being president of this country, right of having equality, right of social justice and right of being treated with the same law; these are what we should be asking for.”
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On the threat issued to Igbos by Arewa youths, he said: "I have spoken on this several times, I think that is not the right thing to do; you cannot ask a Nigerian citizen to leave from where he or she is living and I also believe that people who gave that order are not serious , so, people like us cannot lose sleep over that because the unity the country is non negotiable.”
NAIJ.com had earlier reported that the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) rejected the call to implement the 2014 National Conference report describing it as undemocratic.
According to New Telegraph, this decision was reached after the National Executive Council meeting of the apex northern group on Wednesday, July 12.
In a communique released after the meeting, the group explained that to the federal government that its reason for rejecting the confab report was in the interest of the country.
It said: "The opposition of the North to the implementation of the recommendations in report of 2014 National Conference is not so much because of any legal consideration as to its legitimacy, but also because the selection of the conference delegates was skewed against the North in number considering its population.
Watch a NAIJ.com TV video below of Osinbajo addressing the issue of Biafra:
