By Amos Tauna
Chairman, Northern Committee on Restructuring and Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal has called on Nigerians to give peace a chance in spite of agitators calling for the restructuring of the country.
He assured that the northern region remains committed to the unity of the country while reaffirming the position of the North on burning national issue bothering on restructuring.
The governor, who stated this shortly after the inaugural meeting of the committee in Kaduna, northwest Nigeria, appealed to agitators across the country to be calm, saying that even if the country goes to war, people would still have to come back to discuss their issues, hence the need to stop beating war drum.
According to him, “We agreed that a technical committee be set up to work on the previous documents, conferences and position papers and then come back to us within three weeks.
“Thereafter, every state will conduct public hearing and we will be meeting on 24th October 2017 by the grace of God to review all that. So by the end of October, God willing, we shall be able to get back to a larger body of the northern governors forum and northern traditional leaders and Council.
“All the issues that are going to be brought up by a technical committee that has been constituted by this body will be critically looked into so that we can subject them to a very robust database debase across the North and the outcome of that will be presented to northern governors and traditional rulers.”
On agitations, he said, “There is a process going on in the country for engagement and I am sure the federal government is willing to listen to all these agitations at the end of the day.
“And don’t forget that, even if you embark on a war at this stage, don’t get result through war, you will always come back to the round table and discuss the issues. So I want to call on all Nigerians to give peace a chance.”
In a remark, Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, said, “I believe in the conversation. We have just looked into three main items that stood out clearly.
“The first is that we have heard our commitment to the unity of the country and we are going to have a regional conversation to express the pressing issue that have been raised.
“The second point is that, we have to look into constitutional reform of Federal Republic of Nigeria. This is important because it will help us to answer questions like what exactly is the division of power of state, what exactly should be the role of local government and whether there should be an opportunity for different states to discuss issues around fiscal responsibility, sharing revenue and all that can be discussed.
“And not just sharing of revenue, but whether the entire revenue of the government should be used for payment of salaries, constitution amendment on issue of National minimum wage,” he said.
“With this development, the North is yet to come up with its own position as regarding the issue of restructuring that is already heighten tension among political and social classes of the country,” he observed.