The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has fired back at those criticising him for recently shrugging off the calls for the restructuring of Nigeria.
Osinbajo, in a statement yesterday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Laolu Akande, described the calls for restructuring as superficial arguments and political rhetoric.
Laolu said he made the clarifications in Abuja and while speaking to a radio programme on Orange FM in Akure, Ondo State amidst some media reports that his boss opposed the restructuring.
Akande said the ongoing anti-corruption war as well as the federal government’s efforts towards ensuring effective governance at all levels are “far more important than some of the political rhetorics and superficial arguments around restructuring so far.”
He also cautioned that the issue of restructuring should run deeper than “some of the superficial and surface value focus”, saying the present administration would “not be stuck in an elitist political rhetoric that does not deepen the issues.”
Pan-Yoruba socio-political group Afenifere had on Monday blasted Osinbajo over his comment at the weekend that restructuring Nigeria would neither be helpful nor make any difference.
The group, in a statement by its spokesman, Yinka Odumakin, had said: “We’d like to respectfully admonish him (Osinbajo) to be sure-footed on the subject before he speaks next time. He missed the entire debate by engaging in the reductionist argument narrowing the whole issue to taking more money from the federal government to the states.”
But yesterday, Osinbajo’s spokesman quoted him as calling for a deeper understanding of the restructuring debate, saying “different interests are taking different approaches which at times confuse the debate and reduce it to mere political rhetoric.” (Daily Trust)
