TheCable

The Yoruba Leadership and Peace Initiative (TYLPI), a non-governmental organisation, says efforts should be focused on restructuring the country, not on the 2023 general election.

There have been secession agitations, while some persons have called for Nigeria to be restructured to allow for regional governments.

On Tuesday, governors of 17 southern states after a meeting in Asaba, Delta state, issued a communique demanding that “urgent and bold steps be taken to restructure the Nigerian federation”.

Reacting to the position of the governors in a statement issued on Friday and signed by Tunde Ipinmisho, director of publicity and media affairs, TYLPI said it will be hurtful to the nation’s strategic interest to go ahead with the election without addressing the fundamental structural problems in the polity.

The group said not restructuring the country “has given rise to mass discontent, economic difficulties, social instability and crippling insecurity”.

TYLPI also noted that Nigeria’s survival and prosperity depends on the urgent restructuring of the country, which the group said will give the citizens a sense of belonging as well as create the right atmosphere for sustainable development.

“TYLPI, a think tank of Yoruba professionals, intellectuals and entrepreneurs, said it was pleased that the idea of restructuring was gaining the required traction, noting that the Executive and Legislative arms of government, through statements by the Minister of Information and the upcoming sensitisation on restructuring by the Senate Committee on Constitutional Reforms, respectively, indicated that restructuring had gone mainstream,” the statement reads.

The group commended the southern governors for their “brave and timely initiative”, and urged the federal government and governors in the northern states to support the restructuring agenda.

TYLPI said the governors have spoken the mind of the people through the communique, adding that it is a way of moving the country forward.