- Says you need not be a prophet to know it’s restructure or breakup
- Warns: we must restructure, and do it soon
The General Overseer of the Redeemed Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has called for restructuring of Nigeria into what he called the United States of Nigeria, USN, saying that failure of Nigeria to restructure will lead to her her breakup.
Adeboye made the call at a 60th Independence Day Celebration Symposium titled “Where will Nigeria be in 2060?” which was co-organized by the Redeemed Christian Church of God and the Nehemiah Leadership Institute.
In the televised symposium monitored by TCI Magazine, Pastor Adeboye said:
“Your Excellencies, your Royal Majesties, my brothers and sisters. I want to thank the almighty God for a day like this. I want to thank the organizers for asking me to come and pray for you and pray for Nigeria.
“…I am sure you all know I am not a politician. I don’t belong to any political party…when we talk about Nigeria in 2060, the question a mathematician would want to ask is if there will be Nigeria in the year 2060. In other words, you are talking about what you are not 100 percent sure that it will be there by that time you are talking about.
“Before we can begin to talk about Nigeria of 2060, we will need to address the problems that we have right now. If these problems are not solved, then this will be just an academic exercise…
“…when I was on a long flight, I think from London to Singapore, a journey of about 13 hours or more…then I was thinking about Nigeria, and I had this thought within myself, which I think I should just share with you… I just (said to myself): ‘why can’t we have a system of government that is 100 percent Nigeria, that is unique to us? For example, we started off with the British system of government. Somewhere along the line we moved over to the American system of government.
“…why can’t we have a combination of both and see if it will help us solve our problems?… I believe we need to look at the problem of Nigeria in a different manner. Some people think that all our problems will be over if Nigeria breaks up. I think that is trying to solve the problem of Nigeria as if it is a simple equation problem. The problem of Nigeria will require a bit of simultaneous equation.
“I was thinking: why can’t we, for example, have a system of government that will create a kind of what I will call United States of Nigeria? And let me explain: we all know that we must restructure. I mean, it is either we restructure or we break. I mean you don’t have to be a prophet to know about that. That is certain to come: restructure or breakup.
“Now we don’t want to break up. God forbids. In restructuring, why don’t we have, like I said, a Nigerian kind of democracy? At the federal level, for example, why can’t we have a President and a Prime Minister?
“If we have a President and a Prime Minister, and we share responsibilities between these two, so that one is not an appendage of the other. For example, if the president controls the army, the Prime Minister controls the police; if the President controls oil, mining (for instance), and Prime Minister controls finance and Inland Revenue, taxes and customs, etc., you just divide responsibilities between the two.
“And then you come to the state level. And at the state level you have the Governor and then you have the Premier. And again, you distribute responsibilities between these people in such a manner that one cannot really go all alone without the other.
“May be…this is just a mathematical suggestion… maybe, we might begin to tackle the problem. And if we are going to adopt this model…and then we will need urgently to reinstall what we used to call the House of Chiefs. I have a feeling that one of our major problems is that we have pushed the traditional rulers to the background. And I believe that’s a great error, particularly for a country like Nigeria.
“You see, I find it very ridiculous that one would ask a traditional ruler to inform the chairman of his local government before he travels. Go to any town in Nigeria, everybody in the town knows who is the paramount ruler, and they respect them. Many of them don’t even know the name of their local government chairman.
“The traditional rulers are the actual landlords; they control the respect of their people. Their people would listen to them much more than they would listen to the politicians. (It’s) just like they have the House of Lords in Britain, why can’t we have the House of Chiefs? We might expand it and include in that House of Chiefs, as they do in Britain, include some religious leaders – bishops (I am not a bishop. I am a Pastor. So, don’t think I am including myself) bishops, chief Imams, etc. These are people who can shape the opinions of the people.
“…maybe it will help us to get Nigeria going. And then, without any doubt, we must restructure, and do it as soon as possible. A United States of Nigeria is likely to survive much more than our present structure.”
