..calls for formation of a govt beyond partisan consideration
.. believes confederacy better option than ‘winner takes all’ attitude in the presidential system
.. Says Tinubu has what it takes to remould Nigeria and build bridges
By Segun Fatuase
Pro National Conference (PRONACO) Convener and top notcher of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bisi Adegbuyi has said that neither of the three leading presidential candidates for next year’s election can restore unity to the country and move it forward.
Speaking in an interactive session with a select group of Editors, the lawyer said since the three leading candidates represent the three major ethnic groups in the country, any of them that won should consider the formation of a broad based government to weld the country together and avoid its collapse.
According to him, such a government formed on a non partisan basis after next year’s election will rally all those he described as ‘owners of Nigeria’ to renegotiate the country and rebuild it for greatness.
The former Post Master- General of the country is of the belief that the mismanagement of the country’s diversity in the last seven years calls for a broad based government with the backing of elder statesmen to pull the nation from the brink.
“We must take steps by involving elder statesmen in the country to reinvent its wheel and arrive at a consensus of how we want the country to move forward on the basis of equity and natural justice.
He gave an example of the United States where both the Republicans and Democrats came together during its period of crisis like the September 11 bombing of the United States and evolved a solution to tackling terrorism to save the country for all irrespective of parties.
Adegbuyi a staunch supporter of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, presidential candidate of the APC, said he remains the only person who can build bridges and bring all together for the rebuilding of Nigeria.
He is of the opinion that the country needs statesmen who can ride above partisan interests like in the United States and Britain to solve the grossly mismanaged diversity of the country adding that “leaving the incoming government to whims of the winner cannot resolve the knotty problems which solution requires statesmen who can rise above personal interests.
“The problem we have today is that those in the forefront are after election and not statesmen who focus on future of the country” he declared.
‘Statesmen think about the future of the country while politicians think about elections’, he added.
Adegbuyi is of the firm belief that former vice president Atiku Abubakar should have behaved as a statesman and allowed the PDP to field an Igbo man as its candidate adding,”if he had done that he would have earned the salute and respect of Nigerians across the board as somebody who wanted to build the state and preserve the unity of the country “.
As for him the political parties has to close ranks to get Nigeria out of the situation, to work around a bi-partisan consideration especially since the three leading candidates represent different ethnic tendencies such that none of them alone has what it takes to move Nigeria forward.
He wonders why Nigerians are expecting President Muhammadu Buhari to implement the report of the 2014 National Conference when he has declared that he didn’t believe in the conference.
He however, is of the opinion that the new government should out together a body that will study the 1994, 2005 PRONACO conference recommendations, the 2006 National Conference convened by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the report of the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s constitutional conference report to arrive at a workable document after due consultations among the different stakeholders in the country and produce a constitution which will be a hybrid of the French and American constitutions .