The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has urged President Bola Tinubu to follow in Togo’s footsteps and begin the process of restructuring the country from its current federal system to the parliamentary system.
The organisation also lamented the worsening insecurity in the country, calling on the federal and state governments as well as the National Assembly to speed up the issues of state police creation.
Afenifere’s leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, made the call in a statement on Wednesday issued at the end of the organisation’s monthly meeting, which held on Tuesday at Adebanjo’s Isanya-Ogbo country home in the Odogbolu Local Government Area of Ogun State.
On Monday, 89 Togolese lawmakers voted in favour of a new constitution, moving the country from the presidential to the parliamentary system and giving the parliament power to elect the President of the small West African country.
The president will be chosen “without debate” by lawmakers “for a single six-year term,” and not by the public, according to the new law.
In its statement on Wednesday, Afenifere urged Tinubu to take a cue from Togo and save the country.
The call by Afenifere comes at a time when 60 members of the House of Representatives are pushing a bill to return the country from the presidential to the parliamentary system.
According to the lawmakers, the presidential system of government is too expensive for Nigeria.
The Afenifere leader, Adebanjo, in a statement signed by the organisation’s National Publicity Secretary, Mogaji Gboyega Adejumo, said President Tinubu would find “a good dose of inspiration from the recent constitutional changes in Togo when its crop of dedicated lawmakers jettisoned the expensive and corruption filled presidential system to parliamentary system of government.”
Adebanjo said, “Afenifere learnt with satisfaction that the Togolese lawmakers have adopted a new constitution, transitioning the country from the expensive and corruption-filled presidential system to the parliamentary system.
“This change empowers the parliamentarians to elect among themselves, the President, the archetypal shift, much in the kind that the Afénifére restructuring plan entails.
“Under this new provision, the President is selected by legislators for a six-year single term, a fundamental departure from hitherto expensive, thuggery-filled, bribery-filled, violence-filed presidential elections.
“The Afẹ́nifẹ́re General Assembly welcomes this reason-filled constitutional shift in Togo and tenders this humane and human development as the impetus needed to spur our legislators into fast-tracking the processes needed toward the restructuring of the Nigerian polity by institutionalising a new path geared to sustain, promote, unite and solidify the unity, peace and progress in our own country.”
Afenifere also urged Tinubu to take urgent steps to stem the tide of worsening food insecurity in the country by going after “those deliberately, willfully killing farmers and destroying farm produce, crops and groceries across the country.”
According to the statement, the Tuesday meeting was attended by the Afenifere’s Deputy Leader, Ọba Ọládipọ̀ Ọláìtán; Deputy Secretary General, Mr Aládé Rotimi-John; Senator Femi Okurounmu, Senator Shefiu Kaka and Mr Tola Mobolurin.
Also in attendance were Pastor Adebayo Adenekan, Chief Mrs Bola Doherty, Chief Olutunde Onakoya, Prince Adesina Baṣọ̀run, Rev Oyegoke Omigbodun, Erelu Dewale Bolarinwa, Mrs Toyin Falade, Chief Segun Ojo, among others.
