A Yoruba socio-cultural organization , Afenifere during the weekend renewed calls for proper federal structure where all the federating units can develop at their own pace through dint of hard work .
The group also called for urgent review of the current constitution and removal of mines and other mineral resources from the exclusive list to residual list so that every section in Nigeria can mine and produce their own resources for overall development.
Speaking at the 4th international retreat of the Zionists International Club held at the Premier Hotel, Ibadan at the weekend, the General Secretary of Afenifere, Mr Yinka Odumakin lamented the rot in all section in the country , and the failure of the leadership to address the myriads of problems facing the country.
Odumakin who was the guest speaker at the three day retreat said no amount of effort no matter how sincere , proper restructuring remained the only way forward .
Speaking on the theme "Integrity in Leadership and the Challenge of National Development " , Odumakin described the current state of Nigerian state as very precarious and called for urgent action to save the country from imminent collapse .
He said " I think Nigerians should take more interest on who rules them . We have for a long time shown as if leadership does not matter. Leadership is the only job in Nigeria today that there is no background check. We don’t even know where the leaders are coming from . We allow all kinds of people. If you want to employ a driver today , the scrutiny you do for that kind of driver , you don’t do for a leader.
" We must begin to check our leaders to ensure that the best get to the top. We don’t allow the half-knots to continue to rule over us. But, added to that is that we need a proper structure in this country . We cannot continue to run this country the way it is being run .
" We must allow proper federal structure where we allow the regions to develop at their own pace and encourage competition to foster development and progress. And we must get back to work . Productivity is the key. We cannot be sharing money at the end of every month . We must get back to work and we cannot get back to work until we change the constitution . We must remove mines and other mineral resources from exclusive list to residual list so that every section in Nigeria can mine and produce their resources. If we don’t do that we are not going anywhere."
On the church, Odumakin criticised the church for failure to discharge its role to the people.
He said the church has not risen to exert its position due to love of mundane things of the world, adding that though the church ought to be the light of the world but sadly Nigerian church has failed to shine its light on darkness.
That is why I said that the church is sleeping . And that is because the church has itself into excessive materialism and its not attending to the needs of the people in terms of shinning the light to illuminate the country", he stated.
