Can the North veto restructuring?

The position adopted by the north against restructuring is increasingly amounting to an exercise of a senseless unconstitutional veto power, since it appears to be impeding the welcome shake-up approved and loved by four out of the six regions that should form the federating units of Nigeria. Is this acceptable in a democracy? Will it be tolerated? Can that northern minority veto the wishes of a larger Nigerian majority? No.

We say no because it is blatantly undemocratic. It is an added imbalance in the structure that has for ever dogged the bumpy path of the country. Normally the majority should have its way. Now that the majority agrees to re-structure, that must be done. If not, the consequences are certainly huge and grave.

The obvious things the federal government will expect from it are protests. The masses will refuse to cooperate and any clash resulting from it will end in people being killed. Is that what the north wants? 

In our candid opinion, the north should yield quickly to the pressure from the majority to have the country re-organized, aimed at making it just and equitable. This will close the gap of disunity that has kept expanding since the creation of the country. It will calm nerves and heal wounded feelings. We don't even see the point of the north in opposing re-structuring, which appears to be the only way out of our quagmire.

All Nigeria can rely upon to refuse the majority wish for restructuring is that the north is in power, so to say, and will direct when, where and how force is used. This clearly defines the absurdities, autocracy and dictatorship in their most contemptible form. 

If the Nigerian democracy has ever been tested, this brawl over re-structuring is the severest. The majority opinion must hold sway. The country must be re-structured for the country to be associated with anything called development, progress or democracy in future. And this is an issue on which the survival or the demise of the country will depend. This is our prophetic position.

(c) Christian Voice Newspaper