APGA Chairman Advocates Regionalism

The National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh, has called for a return to regionalism to achieve the required balance of power in the country.

Receiving officials of the U.S. Consulate General, Lagos, in his residence in Enugu, Umeh said certain parts of the country had been grossly cheated in the scheme of things, particularly since the end of the civil war.

He said the current 36-state structure did not elicit the trust of the people because it was foisted on them by the military.

He said the people trusted the post-independence regional governments because they worked for them through the provision of infrastructure and people-oriented programmes.

The chairman said a return to the regional structure would ensure a return to competitive development based on comparative advantage instead of the current rush for federal allocations.

Umeh said the only way the current state structure could ameliorate the situation was for the National Assembly to create one additional state and 40 additional local governments in the south east without creating more in other zones.

“Our democracy has been epileptic because of military interventions. The democracy we have now is not of the people because the constitution was drafted and foisted on the people by a military government that had interest in self-succession.