Federalism Can Solve Nigeria’s Insecurity Problems — Idongesit Nkanga

An ex-military administrator of Akwa Ibom State, Air Commodore Idongesit Nkanga has said federalism is the only solution to the insecurity problems in Nigeria.

Idongesit, who reacted to the sad security situation in Nigeria, begged Nigerian leaders, especially the Niger Delta region to unite to know what they can do to improve the safety and welfare of every Nigerian, regardless of party affiliation.

According to him, running away from federalism is pure ignorance because it is the only thing that can save Nigeria and the citizens have to be bold enough to embrace it.

He added that our foundation is not right and nothing is working as at now, which is why we must be as united as much as possible to confront our challenges.

His words, “I have been saying that when the foundation is not right, nothing works. The economy has crashed, security has crashed, so, if you look at Nigeria as APC, PDP, or APGA, you will get it wrong, because it is about the foundation.

“It is the welfare of the people, the security of the people that is important. This has been said in 1956 by our founding fathers that because of the multiplicity of our ethnic and religious groups, the best form of government for this country is Federalism.

“So those of us that are running away from federalism today, it is just ignorance. things that were discussed and agreed. I think Nigerians should be bold enough to come out and save this society, let the people stand up for their country”

” When the military came in, their main concern was the unity of this country and they paid attention to that, that is why you hear of NYSC, you hear of Federal institutions in all parts of the country. They also paid attention to some infrastructure.

” Of course there is still some infrastructure that was put together by the military, but they couldn’t have given you democracy because they didn’t have it. It is for you the politicians, now to come out and give this country true democracy. Not just to continue blowing sirens as the military did.

“But if PDP is in power today you must see some politicians there, and if APC takes over tomorrow before you say “Jack Robinson’ they have moved to the APC. They are just looking for something to eat, that will not take the next generation to where we are heading to”

” So they (South West) are not doing anything completely new, it was part of the recommendations of that National conference. And it is a wake-up call for a government that you can suppress it, (the recommendations) but it is only for a while.

“It is just like restructuring, you can continue to suppress restructuring, but one day Nigeria will restructure itself. It was over 600 well-written recommendations, but they threw them away.

“Even they have been picking some of the recommendations bit by bit. That is what is happening, that is why sometimes you hear about ranching. Those are the things that were discussed and agreed at the 2014 National Conference.

“But they have not been able to come out to say let us look at it realistically to see which ones we can implement and which ones that we don’t have to implement, and in the night they will go and pick one. I don’t know why we are living in denial.”