Dickson to Buhari: Governors are helpless… consider resolutions of APC restructuring committee

Seriake Dickson, senator representing Bayelsa west, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to consider restructuring the country.

He stated this when he featured on a programme on the Africa Independent Television (AIT) on Monday.

Citing the report submitted in 2018 by the All Progressives Congress (APC) committee on restructuring led by Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna, Dickson said the federal government can address insecurity by devolving powers to states.

“Now, we need presidential leadership to talk about the issues of constitutional reform, which is at the foundation of a lot of distortions that we now see,  because you have a system in the 1979 presidential constitution, where too much powers were given to the centre to the detriment of the so-called federating units and the local government areas,” he said.

“The president of Nigeria has enormous powers. He cannot pull back and be in a shell, and not show leadership. He has to come out to use his powers to rally the nation together to inspire the country.

“The president’s party has done a very exhaustive job in the area of restructuring — at least one component of it, a critical component of it, devolution of powers. The APC rightly set up a committee chaired by the governor of Kaduna state, with senator Adetunmbi as secretary and other members, and they did a very exhaustive work.

“They went as far as drafting legislations that can bring that to be. What we need now is the presidential leadership. The president’s party promised restructuring; the president’s party campaigned on it; the president’s party has majority in the national assembly, and the president’s party has brought a roadmap for that.

“If they devolve as proposed, you won’t have a situation where governors will be crying everyday with hands on their heads like widows, because they are helpless in the areas of protecting the citizens of their states.”

The former governor of Bayelsa also kicked against the establishment of regional security outfits, adding that the president can end insecurity by initiating an executive bill outlawing open grazing in the country.

“What the president should do by showing leadership is by drafting a legislation, an executive bill, clearly outlawing open grazing in Nigeria, instead of allowing states and regions to come up with different security outfits,” he said.