BY GABRIEL ENOGHOLASE

BENIN – A member of the 2014 National Constitutional Conference, Rev. Nnimmo Bassy has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to study the recommendations of the conference as it dealt decisively on the issues that would bring peace, unity and progress among the different ethnic nationalities in the country.

He also lampooned those against the restructuring of the country, saying that they were suffering from military mentality which had run the country as a unitary structure.

Bassy, who is an environmentalist and human rights crusader, told Vanguard in an interview in Benin that it was very essential for the Bihari administration to study the recommendations of the conference not just for to dump it in the shelf to gather mucus.

He said, “The 2014 National Constitutional Conference was very clear on the need for the restructuring of the country and also made a lot of provisions for the devolution of powers to the constituent units. Unfortunately, the government now in power, the All Progressives Congress (APC) did not officially took part in the Confab and it not endorsed it.

“But it is very essential to look at the output of the Confab, its recommendations, what were the issues discussed, is not good not to learn from the output of such a a process?

” It is essential that you should study it and if you want to reject, reject it; it is not rigjht not to look at the outcome of such a process and not just put it in the shelf because a lot of resources was spent both financial and human resources. It was really representative and I do believe that we need to re-order our relationship with Nigerians,  that is very essential.

“And one  of the specific thing that needs to be done is to make it possible for the constituent units, the federating units to become more productive units and just be dependent on the centre. We need a greater level of autonomy and some other arrangements that permits natioal unity and at the same time work effectively for the proper running of the federation”

On the argument that restructuring would bring about disunity in the country, Bassey described such thinking as military mentality, insisting that such argument was very defective.

He said, ” Such argument is very defective. It is a military mentality because right from 1966 when the first coup took place, we lost a sense of direction in the sence that in military, you need a central command that makes all the decisions and the Head of State can make all the make all the appointments and the issue of centralizing the common pursue became normal including the sharing of oil revenue. You see people don’t like change ”

He added that the fact that people wants to discuss how they would live together in peace and unity was not aimed at disuniting the country.