A former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, has stated that Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gun powder.
Obanikoro, who recently dumped the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, also called for the restructuring of the country.
Asked if he would have returned to the APC if it had not become a ruling party, Obanikoro told Independent, “Well, let me say that the politics of Nigeria would have compelled me to return. I am more committed to Lagos and Southwest now more than before in my life.
“That’s what I was talking to you about, that if you don’t leave your father’s farm to visit another farm, you will not have the proper insight to see what is outside there.
“I have seen it all in this country and I know that the union we have in Nigeria today, the marriage that we have in Nigeria today, if it is not repackaged, as envisaged by the founding fathers of the country, we are going to run into a lot of mess as nation.
“I have seen that. A new generation of Nigerians are growing up, not as Nigerians. They are growing up, seeing themselves through their ethnic nationalities. That is not the kind of nation that we want to build. So, until we reverse that trend, this country is sitting on a keg of gunpowder.
On the clamour for restructuring, he added, “I think we should do it. As far as I am concerned, whether you are saying rearrangement, redesigning, restructuring, it is all about true federalism.
“Every federating unit should have the autonomy to do certain things without being inhibited by the Federal Government. I think the present arrangement that we have is negatively affecting the progress of Nigeria.
“We are probably the only democracy in the world that got our constitution from the military. I stand to be corrected. I don’t know of any democracy operating a military constitution. And that is what we have in Nigeria today.
“We must take a very hard look on the constitution and do that which the coming generation will remember us as a generation that saved Nigeria.”
