THE Northern Elders Forum, has expressed the region’s readiness for restructuring of the country if it will make the components part of it happy.

This position was made known by its spokesman, Professor Ango Abdullahi. He stated this in an interview with Abdullahi Hassan, a correspondent of Sun Newspaper in it Saturday edition of May 20, 2017.

“The Northern Elders Forum is prepared to engage in any discussion with any group that is supporting restructuring of Nigeria, so, this means that we are fully supporting restructuring,” the octogenarian said.

When asked if his submission does represent the interest of the North, despite the fact that there are many Northerners who are against the idea of restructuring Nigeria, the forum’s spokesman said, “Yes, I am not saying that all Northerners are supporting restructuring Nigeria, I am not claiming that all what I said was supported by all Northerners,. I am not saying that at all.”

On the agitation by mainly the South-Easterners for an independent state of Biafra, Abdullahi said, “You see, the issue of Biafra is all part of the discussion of restructuring Nigeria. Yes, if Biafra means negotiations, yes, it’s all a matter of discussion, if it means Igbo want to have a country of their own separate from Nigeria, it means a matter of discussion and we are prepared for the discussion.

“This is all I have been saying that if Nigerians are tired of staying together, they should be prepared to accept divisions instead of remaining in agony and disappointment of one another.”

On the kind of restructuring the region is agitating for at the moment, he added that, “Our concept on restructuring was based on Prof. Ben. Nwabuaze’s position on restructuring Nigeria where he said that Lord Lugard made mistake in 1914 by bringing North and South together. This is the starting point on restructuring which should include that the country should be divided between the North and South for the good of the people . You can see many people are now agitating for restructuring on belief that Lord Lugard made a mistake by conquering nations and bringing them together without consulting Nigerians who they occupied their territories. The other way you can look at the issue of restructuring is perhaps by forgiving the past mistakes by going where we were from 1914 to 1960 and go back to regionalism. Because in 1960, when we became a federation with only three regions , each region was independent with its own constitution.

“The regions were serving Nigeria better with very small states. But now, many want to eat their cake and still have it. You see I am 80 years old, and I know very well what happened in those days, when Gen. Gowon was under pressure to create more states, though he eventually created 12 states, we later moved to 19 states, to 23 and 36 states. With all these states, yet we are not happy. So, we believe that these are issues that we can discuss, by the various groups that relate with each in the country.”