The Presidency has warned Nigerians asking President Muhammadu Buhari to take certain actions in order to avoid the country’s break up.
The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, Enoch Adeboye had over the weekend said it was time Nigeria was restructured or allowed to break up.
The view expressed by the cleric has been a recurring one, as many other Nigerians had made similar submissions prior.
But apparently responding to those views in a statement on Sunday, the Senior Special Assistant to the president on media and publicity, Garba Shehu, said Buhari will not be moved by “the recurring threats to the corporate existence of the country with factions giving specific timelines for the President to do one thing or another or else, in their language, ‘the nation will break up’.”
Shehu’s statement read in detail, “This is to warn that such unpatriotic outbursts are both unhelpful and unwarranted as this government will not succumb to threats and take any decision out of pressure at a time when the nation’s full attention is needed to deal with the security challenges facing it at a time of the Covid-19 health crisis.
“Repeat: this administration will not take any decision against the interests of 200 million Nigerians, who are the President’s first responsibility under the constitution, out of fear or threats especially in this hour of a health crisis.
“The President as an elected leader under this constitution will continue to work with patriotic Nigerians, through and in line with the Parliamentary processes to finding solutions to structural and other impediments to the growth and wellbeing of the nation and its people.”
It was reported on Saturday that Pastor Adeboye said the country may break up if it is not restructured.
He said Nigeria should continue to attempt different forms of government until it finds one that works for it.
“Why can’t we have a system of government that is 100 per cent Nigerian, unique to us? For example, we started on with the British system of government, somewhere along the line, we moved over to the American system of government,” the cleric said.
“Can’t we have a combination of both and see whether it could help us solve our problems because in mathematics if you want to solve a problem, you try what we call real analysis, then if it doesn’t work, then you move on to complex analysis and see whether that will help you.
“If that fails, you move on to vector analysis and so on. I believe that we might want to look at the problems of Nigeria in a slightly different manner. Some people feel that all our problems will be over if Nigeria should break up.
“Why can’t we have a system of government that will create what I will call the United States of Nigeria? Let me explain. We all know that we must restructure. It is either we restructure or we break, you don’t have to be a prophet to know that one. That is certain – restructure or we break up.
“Now, we don’t want to break up, God forbid. In restructuring, why don’t we have a Nigerian kind of democracy? At the federal level, why don’t we have a president and a prime minister?”
Adeboye also said the place of traditional rulers should not be expunged from society.
“Go to any town in Nigeria, everybody in the town knows the paramount ruler in the town and they respect him (but) many of them don’t even know the name of the chairman of their local government,” he said.
“The traditional rulers are the actual landlords, they control the respect of their people. Their people will listen to them much more, I am sorry to say, than they will listen to some politicians.”
