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Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, yesterday, assured Nigerians that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration would revisit the report of the 2014 National Conference to implement some of the confab recommendations. Speaking yesterday during telephone interview on ‘Journalists Hang Out’ programme at Television Continental (TVC), Osinbajo said there were some issues in the confab report that he personally agreed with, which Federal Government can implement with or without legislation.
It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari, few weeks ago, said that the report of the National Conference will be sent to the archives. But the Vice President, yesterday, revived hope of many Nigerians, saying that there were issues in the report that can be quickly implemented.
His words: “I have read the (confab) report. There are several issues there that can be quickly implemented and there are issues that cannot be implemented without law and legislation. There are several issues in the con-fab report that require legislation.
“There are wide varieties of issues including so many issues that we are already familiar with; so many issues that we agree with or we may not agree with. I believe that there are many issues in the confab report that I personally agreed with, which I believe we can implement as a central government with or without requirement of legislation.
“I think it is a matter of looking at it one by one; is it something that we can do or we cannot do? State police is one of the issues and there are other issues we strongly believe in. But when people say government should implement 2014 confab report, they made it sound as if there are only three issues in the report.
There are many issues in the confab report and whatever we find that we can do, we will do it. Whatever needs legislation, we will push it.” The Vice President, while speaking on the agitation for restructuring of Nigeria, said he was in support of resource control and state police but against regionalism, which some Nigerians are clamouring for. “I think that the whole idea of restructuring Nigeria is a major concept. There are many issues surrounding it. For example, I have always been a strong believer in fiscal federalism. That is to say the state must have more resources. I actually went to the Supreme Court as Attorney- General of Lagos State on issue of fiscal federalism.
As a matter of fact, part of the thing we said at that point was that we were trying to restructure Nigeria federalism by court action. “We went to court several times on issues like whether state has a right to certain degree of autonomy. We fully supported that and said to create right for autonomy; it could even be extended to their resources.
VAT for example must be a state matter. I strongly believe that we must have state police. “Dividing Nigeria, going back to the region and all those kind of things; I do not believe in it. I don’t think we need to back to region. If there are people who believe that we must restructure ourselves within ethnic lines, I don’t think that is right way to go,” he said.
