Legal Icon, Akeem Agbaje Calls for Restructuring • It’s The Best Alternative to Self Determination – He Reiterates
Legal Icon, Akeem Agbaje Calls for Restructuring • It’s The Best Alternative to Self Determination – He Reiterates.
By Kazeem Awojoodu, Ibadan.
The Legal Luminary, Barrister Akeem Agbaje has described restructuring as the best alternative to self determination. Agbaje stated this on Saturday, while addressing pressmen in his office, in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo-State, SW Independent News reported.
As quoted by the newspaper, the 2023 Gubernatorial Hopeful, on the platform of the All Progressives Congress(APC), Barrister Agbaje suggested restructuring, equality and fair system of operation of government as way out of self determination struggles, prevalent in the country.
The Scion of Agbaje Salami, Barrister Akeem, further stressed the need for restructuring of the Federal Government System and its composition, noted that, it is the only solution to solve all the issues of self agitation struggles as being clamouring for by some Individuals and groups within the country.
His words: “My own understanding of the agitation for self determination is about restructuring, that is what I believe is the bottom line of the struggle, everybody knows that we are stronger as a united Nigeria.
“If you look at it from the angle of this issue of VAT, you will realize that majority of the VAT we are talking about comes from Lagos State and it is not only the Yoruba people that are residents of Lagos state, and not only Yoruba people that are operating in that economy that provides the majority of that VAT for the Country and we are able to do so because of our diversities.
“Also in Rivers State, we have a very large South Westerners’ population there. If all the Igbos are saying that they are no longer going with Nigeria as a Country what happens to all the properties of the Igbos in Lagos state and other part of South West region?.
We all have investments in different parts of the country. I’m so sure that all of us will love to stay together but with a fair system. A system that does not confer all the advantages on any particular ethnic group, so, I can tell you that the issue is more of restructuring than the break away or independence of each unit.
Agbaje, also reiterated the issue of VAT by saying that, “it is a very positive development for our democracy. It is also a test of federal structure, and it is a very welcome development.
He maintained that “to put things straight, the power of the center of the federating units is specified with the constitution and ordinarily we have what we call the exclusive list, the residual list and the concurrent list. The constitution only provide expressly for the exclusive and the concurrent list so anything that is not in the any of these is automatically in the residual list.
