Ex-VP calls those opposing restructuring 'lazy'

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has described Nigerian leaders opposed to restructuring the country as lazy, saying that devolution of power is important for the development of the country.

The former presidential candidate said this while he was addressing a coalition of youth groups under the aegis of Play Forum in Abuja.

He said every region of the country deserves to control its own resources while the Federal Government focuses its attention on an exclusive list of national issues.

Atiku said, "Left for me, I will ask every part of this country to take charge of its resources while the federal government should handle defence, foreign affairs and immigration among others in the exclusive list.

"It should not be complicated to start with all the recurrent items in the constitution. The president can dialogue with the governors or the national assembly for states to take charge of the roads, hospitals, schools and such other items in the concurrent List while the federal government will continue with items on the exclusive list.

"I would not have gone to school if I were born today. My parents were so poor they couldn't afford to send me to school. I was born during the era education was free, food was free for me, I was sponsored from primary school to the university. There was even a job waiting for me before I graduated. Yet, there was no oil boom then. I am certainly not a product of oil boom Nigeria.

"So, I don't know what those who are against restructuring are afraid of. Those afraid must be lazy. We fought the civil war with the Igbo. Today, the Igbo have been completely rebuilt, but we still find mud houses in the north. Is it the fault of the easterners that the north is like that?"

The former Vice President has been one of the most vocal supporters of restructuring which has had objections from high-ranking members of his party, the All Progressives' Congress (APC).

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He is expected to contest during the 2019 presidential elections in 2019 with President Muhammadu Buhari's reelection bid still uncertain.

He has contested for the president's seat a number of times, losing to the late President Umaru Yar'Adua in the 2007 presidential elections and losing in the primaries to eventual winners President Goodluck Jonathan and President Buhari in the 2011 and 2015 presidential elections respectively.