A former governor of Ogun State and APC Chieftain, Prof Olusegun Osoba, has stated that Nigeria does not need restructuring but a struggle by the people to free themselves from the hold of the corrupt ruling elite.

The member of the 1976 Constitution Drafting Committee who described the campaign for restructuring as a blatant lie, stated that the body language of those leading the campaign shows they were either advocating the creation of more states or resource control.

Osoba who stated that Nigeria needs a struggle not restructuring while speaking on Tuesday during the public presentation of the Minority Report & Draft Constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1976, which he co-authored with the late Dr Bala Usman, added that those advocating the creation of more states want to gain access to the treasury and steal money with impunity while the advocates of resource control are doing so for their self-interest. He further disclosed that in spite of an additional 13 per cent federal allocation, the oil-producing states were not faring well because the leaders of the region had been diverting the money.

He said, “The minimum agenda for change cannot be brought about automatically; it cannot be wished into existence; the people have to struggle. The classes of people that are short-changed by the present regime have to find a way of developing a common strategy and it can only be done, if the truth must be said, by overthrowing the existing order. There is no other way.

“In fact, all the nations of the world today who stand tall and proud have, at one point or the other in their history, undergone a revolutionary transformation and they have removed the hands of looters from their treasury and put themselves in the hands of reliable and working honest people.

“So, there is no ambiguity about it, a continuous struggle is the only solution to our problems, not restructuring.”