Arewa Consultative Forum leader Yakasai says restructuring is Yoruba and Igbo bias against Nigeria's Hausas

AREWA Consultative Forum (ACF) board of trustees member Alhaji Tanko Yakasai has turned up the political temperature in the country with the provocative statement that the current agitation for restructuring was borne out of the Yorubas and Igbos have for the Hausa.

Over the last three years, there have been deafening calls for the restructuring of Nigeria to enable her component parts develop their economies and end the dependence on crude oil. After the National Conference of 2014 recommended restructuring in its report, numerous socio-cultural groups have asked the government to initiate a programme and under pressure, President Muhammadu Buhari has said he is not opposed to the principle of it.

However, with elections due in February, the current administration is not going to be able to initiate the programme this side of the polls. Adding fuel to an already tense situation, Alhaji Yakasai, the former national coordinator of the Northern Patriotic Front, said restructuring was a Yoruba agenda promoted by uninformed Igbo people in order to destabilise the country.

Making the comments at a public lecture organised by Africa Research and Development Agency in Kano, Alhaji Yakasai said the agitation was another attempt to foment trouble in the country. A former Kano State commissioner, Alhaji Yakasai has been a fierce critic of President Buhari and has even predicted that his All Progressives Congress (APC), will lose the 2019 elections.

Alhaji Yakasai said: “Restructuring, as many other problematic concepts was conceived by Afenifere, an offshoot of Action Group, to destabilise the country. It is upon those who are agitating for restructuring to tell Nigerians the real meaning of restructuring. For example, how will Nigeria look like after restructuring? What is your fate?

“If restructuring means constitutional amendments, there is laid down procedure for constitutional amendment because constitutional amendment is being conducted through elected representatives and the north by virtue of its population has higher number of representatives, that is why they are afraid to call for constitutional amendment. Some people are advocating we should adopt the 1962 constitution but to the best of my knowledge, the 1962 constitution recognised four regions. Now we have six geo-political regions but they failed to explain which regions should be retained or merged.”

He added that the Niger Delta has petroleum resources and northern Nigeria has human resources but they both lag behind the West and the East in terms of education and the economy. Claiming he is not biased against other ethnic groups, Alhaji Yakasai said that in 2015, he supported President Goodluck Jonathan against President Buhari, even though he had never met him.

Alhaji Yakasai stressed: “If the Igbo, who lost their wealth during the Nigerian civil war emerged prosperous and presently own 70% of Lagos industries, the north has no cause to fear any threat from other parts of the country. During the civil war, regional governments took over landed properties belonging to Igbos in their respective regions but in Kano and entire northern parts, the landed properties were handed over to the Igbos after the civil war.

“In Kano, a committee was constituted under the leadership of Dr Uba Adamu who renovated Igbo properties vandalised during the civil war and returned them to Igbos after the war but their properties in Port Harcourt were not given to them till date.  Igbo and Yoruba have common enmity against Hausa, so there is need to establish s relationship with the southern minorities because we share a similar fate."