The youth wing of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, known as the Peoples Democratic Party Youth Frontier has said that the Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai Restructuring Committee is a mere campaign strategy for Buhari’s second term and that the recommendations of the committee are a fraud.
In a statement issued yesterday in Abuja, by its National Coordinator, Usman Okai Austin, the PDPNYF, said it was amazing how the same man who openly campaigned against restructuring; describing those championing it as mere political opportunists can now make a u-turn with his clueless committee to endorse an agenda he initially kicked against.
PDPNYF further said “We wonder what has changed the same El-Rufai who described calls for the restructuring of Nigeria as political opportunism and irresponsibility while speaking on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily? Could this volte face be an indicator that his party is fast loosing ground?
PDP National Youth Frontier described the purported document submitted by Kaduna state government as only fit for a trash can and should as a matter of national importance be shredded and discarded accordingly because it is mischievous, self serving and riddled with so much inconsistencies.
More so the group described the APC Government as a disaster, and insisting that President Mohammed Buhari has nothing to offer as it urged him to prepare his exit as Nigerians are ready to kick him out through ballot boxes.
Meanwhile, former Governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Mimiko, yesterday in Ibadan expressed doubts about the report of the All Progressives Congress committee on restructuring, which recommended some of the agitations presented by those clamouring for restructuring of the country.
He expressed doubts about the ruling party’s promise to restructure the country, saying that APC had promised what it never intends to do.
Mimiko spoke during the 2018 Yoruba Youth Assembly Lecture themed, ‘National development, restructuring and Yoruba.’
The former governor held that although the report seemed to endorse resource control principle, it has brought back the sensitive and controversial onshore/offshore dichotomy issue.
He also hinged his doubt on what he described as “the inconsistency” between President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech which did not support restructuring and the committee recommendations which he noted was barely made to respond to public outcry against the current system.
He said, “Rather than waste useful time tinkering with the process, the appropriate thing to do is a wholesale review of the nature of the structure, such that it is reconfigured to be able to deliver on APC mandate.
“President’s political party, APC, came out very quickly to attempt a reformulation of the President’s proposition. [This] is needless, as it is doubtful if the party is in a position to veto the president of the nation.
“That President Buhari made his statement in spite of the bold and unequivocal commitment of the APC manifesto to restructuring is also indicative of the questionable pattern in which the party swept its way into office some three years ago.
“APC can, in the circumstances, safely be accused of promising what it never intended to do.
“With its control of the legislative house at the federal and state levels, the APC has capacity to actualise its restructuring agenda before the next election in 2019. Then and only then, to my mind, can the nation believe that the born again restructuring mantra is not another vote-catching gimmick.”
The former governor called on the ruling APC to align its position, instead of making what he called “disjointed statements” that only “expressed different positions,” stressing that he has no confidence in the party’s commitment to restructuring.