Restructuring Nigeria For Mutual Cohabitation: Agenda For May 29, 2023- By Obasi Igwe

RESTRUCTURING NIGERIA
FOR
MUTUAL COHABITATION
– Agenda for May 29, 2023.

I. CHOICE BETWEEN NATION-BUILDING and CONTINUED REIGN OF TERROR.
After President Buhari, Nigeria has a choice: to finally start a process of genuine nation-building, or to somehow continue with efforts to “normalise” and impose the Fulani caliphate upon Nigeria through the application of brute force, guile, deception and outright lies, by them called taquiyya.
This week the SOKAPU cried that their peoples have lost faith in Nigerian leadership; as in the South, indigenous Northerners are being slaughtered and expelled from their homes by Fulani terrorists, and the leader of the country, who happens to be Fulani, does almost nothing, except “investigating” whether it is the “Chinese” that are sponsoring terrorism in Nigeria, maybe to divert attention from the killings by his people, or in slavish solidarity with the long-awaited Western imperialist global war against the more helpful Chinese, or in anger that the Chinese refused to throw away their hard-earned $22B as a latest loan to a corrupt and inept regime to squander with its acolytes. The killings, sufferings and lamentations are nationwide, and no group is exempt; for them it is now or never.
Buhari Legacy. President Buhari and his Cabal for eight years took Nigeria for a ride through their hobbesian state of nature, a euphemism for life in a caliphate system of impunity, bloodshed, exclusive rights and privileges, and his violent tour of duty will end in less than 40 days, barring any last-minute final touches. His behavior has been no different from that of a man on a jihadist mission, possessing a self-imagned divine authority on how an honest society should not happen. Progressive Nigerians, whether Fulani, Hausa, Igbo, Kanuri, Yoruba; Middle Belt, Northern or Southern, may now be preparing to reverse the enormous barbarism and damage deliberately inflicted on the country and peoples, in favour of a rebuilding process upon civilized foundations.
Buhari and his men dumped nation-building and with orchestrated wars and accompanying deceits wrecked a nation of hope just for the sake not even of the Fulani as a whole, but a tiny extended family faction within it. If caliphates thrive on blood and malign disorder and therefore never a way for civilized society, the Nigerian variant since 1800 surpasses them all. But, for the devotees, the brutal primitive concoction is the best human condition, a great idea of 5,000 BC whose time has returned in the 21st century AD, and should be spread across a country of rational human beings. For Nigeria to develop in peace and stability, the modern democratic secular state of equal laws and equal applications is the only way, and this demands the abolition of all survivals of primitivism, above all the caliphate/emirate system and their relentless ethnic-cleansing and suppression of the Hausa and other tribes, and also an end to its obnoxious sharia and other inhumane paraphernalia, none of which by the way, has a place in any modern Constitutions. We continually insist that for “ease of doing business,” doing marriage, ensuring security and peaceful development, and being at par with the civilized world, Nigeria should be governed under one Common Law legal system. The people are already under a common oil wealth, same distributable pool, same roads, same aviation, same sports, common political parties, etc., and can equally afford to be under a common judicial order.
Whereas Buhari was welcomed on the promise of (progressive) change, deception in dealings with the “enemy,” the taquiyya, has been the primary modus operandi of his rule. At every occasion, citizens who turned out to be the known enemies of his government, had to be lied to and misled, and their collective trust in democracy, good governance and justice betrayed. Examples:
He promised “free, fair and credible” elections, and later on added “acceptable,” a subsequent precondition nullifying the original condition, and in the event got what he wanted – and praising himself for the “achievement.” We now know that even if an election was free, fair and credible, it”ll go nowhere if not “acceptable” by him and his cabal. He promised security, multiplied the insecurity, and insisted that that was improved security. He pretended to an “ease of doing business” declaratory policy, but permitted or condoned Fulani terrorists in farms and highways to implement an action policy of obstructing business everywhere. He promised more and cheaper food, made food scarcer and costlier, but insisted that the starving masses were feeding well, because that was the situation globally. He promised protecting Nigerian territorial integrity and compromised the same integrity by unlawfully letting the borders loose for the free entry of alien soldiers he called “Libyans,” who joined in the havoc occurring nationwide. He promised justice and fairness, but has turned out to be the most unjust and unfair ruler Nigeria has ever got, maybe except for the caliphate. What of his oath to abide by the Constitution, laws and due process, did this apply to Onoghen, states’ anti-open grazing laws, “people I can trust,” court orders, etc? He promised or swore to national unity, but he is the one to confirm which of his vindictive and divisive policies has united anybody. On and on and on.
Legitimacy or popular approval meant nothing as endless falsehoods and machtpolitik assumed centre-stage. Everything, however minor in nature, must be approached with a war psychosis and therefore built on the decoys and denials of battles, even regardless of facts already in the public domain and accessible to the generality.
Till today no average Nigerian may claim he knows convincingly who the “unknown gunmen” are, who the “bandits,” “insurgents,” “kidnappers,” “Libyan” invaders, “Boko Haram,” ISWAP, are; who those genuinely fighting or not fighting them, sponsoring or not sponsoring them are. Etc., etc. But, the federal authorities continue to imagine that their own fabricated definitions and whitewashings should be adopted by a hugely enlightened Nigerian populace. One of them being that their dear Boko Haram has been “degraded,” an almost meaningless word that can stand for anything, including defeated or reduced levels of atrocity.
How did Buhari “degrade” the Boko Haram? After or while murdering and/or destroying millions of lives, the Boko Haram became forgiven, “rehabilitated,” started receiving salaries, absorbed into the army – in effect became officially privy to Nigerian military-security “secrets,” and equally officially became part of the decision-makers on Nigeria’s future, so, achieving on a platter of gold that which they had been fighting for for years. In effect, the “degraded” Boko Haram was actually by Buhari upgraded, while it was Nigeria that in reality became degraded. Vintage Buhari, vintage taquiyya – in everything. The Boko Haram, or those of them that are part of the army, have joined to be in charge of Nigeria, consistent with Buhari’s widely advertised promise that fighting Boko Haram was fighting “the North,” “the North” here being the Fulani caliphate.
Barging into office by supposedly democratic means but running or ruining the country almost entirely with violent impunity; and from time to time paying lip service to the secular state, but acting as if there is a debt anyone owes to a man called Othman dan Fodio, people watch in bewilderment as the country is wrecked in eight years of narrow, dubious and primitive proceedings. “I’m for everybody, I’m for nobody,” have all been proven to be foundational lies and deceit from a man who came for nobody, except the single somebody – the caliphate Fulani – for whom he has been roaring the waves, and in plain sight acting it in the market square.
President Buhari, for his own divide-and-rule purposes, has put almost every Nigerian ethnic nationality at loggerheads with others in different ways; the country has never been so politically corrupted and divided. Yet, even if the caliphatists hate other citizens, as certainly they do and fight everywhere to make slaves of, no civilized man hates anyone, including peaceful Fulani, who themselves are certainly aware that no one considers them a threat in any manner and, in effect, not profiling them for any “hatred.” It is the present regime that hates the Fulani for, by promoting the designs of the endlessly warring caliphate faction that views everything from ethno-religious prisms, and scheming to unlawfully empty their various African wandering bands into Nigeria to bolster their political demographics, and since the 19th century known to be the principal authors of the Nigerian disaster, Buhari exposed the Fulani to the less enlightened as a collective enemy of progress, when it is only the caliphatists among them that are such. So far, this possible misrepresentation of the Fulani remains one of his greatest achievements after some eight years of unrelenting misrule.
Obasanjo called the Buhari primitive machinations fulanization and islamization, and warned against them; Danjuma and countless millions had condemned the unconstitutional ethnic reconfiguration of Nigeria by Buhari, especially concerning the army and other military-security services “colluding” or aiding and abetting the unlawful mass slaughter and ethnic-cleansing of indigenous peoples under various “security” and “territorial integrity” pretexts to unlawfully import and resettle his Fulani kinsmen on other people’s lands. The army and police supposed to be friends and protectors of the people, and probably willing to do so, have by President Buhari and his ethnic cabal been almost transformed into a practical Ton-ton Macoute against the same people.
Except ritual denials of complicity, all appeals for moderation, appeals to treat other Nigerians as human beings have fallen on deaf ears. Right now, less than 40 days to the Mahdi’s exit, killing orgies continue in Benue, Southern Kaduna and other states by Fulani hordes to expel indigenes and seize their territories, and as usual the Buhari army is doing almost nothing except to arrive only after the fait accompli, as if to oversee the people’s cruel expulsions from their communities.
Less than six Weeks to go, there is no pause in the methods of a federal government implementing its ethnic agenda, as more and more atrocities are either being directly committed or connived at, more peoples killed, more policies and actions taken that bespeak of the same disastrous object. Nigeria has been under an evil spell, woven from the deepest recesses of darkness. They pay lip service to legality, but with utmost impunity steadfastly sign the country into an ethnic fiefdom of sundry imaginations.
Kanuri Factor in the Buhari Strategy. Another big eight-year deceit and insult, this time to the Kanuri is to pretend to use Islam to inveigle them into an alliance with the dangerous caliphatic design, a case of a pupil turning a headmaster to his teacher. A caliphate-Kanuri alliance would be one of the most awkward and regrettable things in Nigerian history. The peaceful and civilized Islam introduced by the Kanuri preceded the violent ethnic Islam, a mixture of tribal gods and pretended Allah worship, imposed by dan Fodio. The Kanuri subsequently resisted that primitive caliphate for its civilizational inferiority. So, how would the same Kanuri be expected to abandon their enlightened preordination, and in a 180° about-turn subject themselves to later-day theological inferiors just in order to humour some people’s ethnic ambitions disguised as a religious “unity” against “unbelievers”? Must the great Kanuri behold a suicide and knowingly snatch it, allowing themselves to be lured into the completion of a jihad against other Nigerians, when they had previously opposed it against themselves, knowing full well that after being used, the same caliphate “allies” would excavate unsettled animosities with the Kanuri, and new attentions redirected eastwards to teach the recalcitrant Kanem Bornu, proud offspring of the Mais, their own lesson? In a struggle between opposites, one will swallow the other. Caliphate or Kanuri? Therefore, if Islam is to unite any parts of Nigeria, the Sarkin Musulumi, if there has to be such an office, has to revert to the Kanuri that introduced Islam in the first place, and a more enlightened, civilized, and peaceful one for that matter to Nigeria, almost a millennium before dan Fodio’s violent extended family architecture that keep destroying millions of lives. No honest moslem would be against the Kanuri resuming their leadership of the moslem umma in Nigeria, nay, the central Soudan!
The Kanuri should therefore resist the snare, because for the caliphate maximalists everything is always a zero-sum game and therefore all or nothing. One wise man had counselled, “there’s enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” For the maximalist Buhari and his greedy Cabal, a practical Abuja-based delegated authority subject to the superior orders of a Sokoto-located plenipotentiary, it is all or nothing for the Fulani, and no tiny spec of gravel will be left unturned, even ignoring the Kanuri when necessary to achieve this end. President Buhari seems to be completing a task he thought that dan Fodio and others couldn’t, and maybe considers the enlightened and humane Shagari and Yar’Adua amusing or intolerable Fulani irritants.
The consequence is that since the last eight years hardly might any Nigerian precisely define what type of government President Buhari and his Cabal have been running: is it civil-military rule, military-civil rule, officially organized reign of terror, unconstitutional democracy, fascism, tyranny, state-sponsored terrorism, “war against insurgency,” “war against terrorism,” “war against the ‘bandits’,” war against peace and harmony, war against unity, organized impunity, government-caliphate condominium, a return to colonialism, a mixture of all of them, or what other contraption? Probably no one has a perfect lexicon, except the common denominator that many innocent Nigerians have perished, many still held captive, and others simply unaccounted for.
So much money has been stolen, terrible amounts borrowed for no corresponding results, and people are poorer, hungrier, more divided and mutually antagonistic! Legitimate businesses employing millions of youths have almost completely been destroyed in a deliberate policy to punish some sections of the country, with a propaganda called “ease of doing business” disguising an actual “ease of destroying business” policy. In today’s Nigeria human lives don’t matter any longer. The state is killing her citizens; non-state actors, many of them allegedly aided and condoned by the state itself are killing; aboriginal communities are being ethnically cleansed, individuals are kidnapping, robbing, ritualizing and killing; and everybody, except those surrounded with weapons, is afraid down to the village and individual levels.
Because “elections” were to be held and Buhari had to leave office “peacefully,” there appeared with some automaticity to be a noticeable “election-time” temporary lull in kidnappings – which “truce” was once again a clear empirical and logical proof that all these years something was being officially coordinated from somewhere by some people, and that the whole notion of “wars against insecurity” had been a mighty hoax through which to smuggle in other designs.
Outside Nigeria, the intensified bloodshed in Ethiopia and Sudan, and the “suspended” ones in Burundi, CAR, Haiti, Rwanda and Yemen, are part consequence of a purportedly “national” army being dominated by an ethno-religious or other faction acting in the interests of domestic and external imperialism, and invariably obstructing a popularly constituted authority serving the entire citizenry. Those sectional armies ritually proclaim their “political neutrality,” when they are in fact a private army of the reactionary malign forces behind them and oppressing the people. In virtually all those countries, the armies are implicated in the mass murder of their civilian populations.
Back to Nigeria. As a military ruler and chairman of a PTF, General Buhari in the allocation of resources showed himself an undisguised sectionalist, and never hid his ethno-religious bigotry to anyone. He thereafter would stoutly be defending the Boko Haram, and despite the attempted repackaging as a born-again “democrat” for his later-day presidency, from day one he never ever concealed his utmost disdain for legality and due process, or his revanchist dispositions against those who probably in accordance with his selective history and thwarted logic had in the past offended him or the righteous causes he stood for. Because his enemies were very many (the Igbo over anything imaginable; the Yoruba maybe over occasional tendencies towards a Yoruba nation self-determination; the Southern Kaduna and Middle Belt over land and resettlement territories for the sahelian and other imported Fulani; the Niger Delta over ports, oils, and green grasses; the Hausa over final land confiscations and completion of the jihad; and everybody else over “water resources,” RUGAs, cattle routes, grazing areas, anti anti-open grazing laws, anything uncivilized and bloody, etc), there had to be individual policy approaches within a general paradigm of orchestrated conflicts.
Out of a population of at least 100 million, it took him almost half a year to carefully scrutinize and constitute a cabinet of the “people I can trust” to implement these horrendous designs, which were impossible to achieve except by a systematically reorganized army capable of waging a simultaneous war against everybody, each tribe or group according to what constituted their misbehaviour or the nature of their resistance against the violent and extremist ethno-religious policies conducted at sword’s egde.
He taught every section of Nigeria in the “language” they would understand, to teach which the army, other military-security services, DSS/SSS, NNPC, EFCC, INEC, NDLEA, Ports, Police, Customs, NINs, NCC, Judiciary, Legislature, PVCs, related ministries, practically everything, except where tactical concessions had to be made to a few others, had to come under central Fulani command and control – “on merit” – a new “merit” system outside of WASC, JAMB, etc., but on entitlements and selections decided in secret.
Beware Sudan and Ethiopia. If Buhari makes the military-security services look tribal, what is the guarantee that under a non pro-caliphate Commander-in-Chief they won’t imagine they’re still under the prior system of sectional hatred and impunity, and that resisting restructuring and redeployments in line with federal character principles amounts to “defending the constitutional order”? That is one scenario that President Buhari is leaving behind, and he must be a very fulfilled man indeed! A horrible template that now constitutes the proud legacy that he would transfer to the next President on that May 29th day of unrestrained anticipations.

Caliphate System Inconsistent With Peace and Democracy.
People yearn for a better Nigeria, but this cannot happen with the caliphate system, chief enemy of freedom and equality, peace and democracy, in place. Caliphates are an organized primitivism with some pretences to divine rights for the subjugation of peoples on behalf of family or other cliques, which in a multiethnic society the operators seek to “normalize” by corrupting the legitimate institutions of a fragile state. Caliphates are constructed to have their fiefdoms as a mass of people without any previous identities or civilizations except as slaves of the caliphate. If given their way in Nigeria, the Benin, Igbo, Kanuri, Kwararafa, NOK, Yoruba, etc peoples and civilizations would disappear, leaving only the caliphate system and their assimilated slaves down to the coast – and they have never hidden this ambition. They have done it to the Hausa, and game-on is to extend it nationwide, and bloodshed, guile, deception, outright lies, are the tried and tested methodologies! This is why no single caliphatist welcomes the idea either of restructuring, democracy, true federalism – worse, secession, or of peace and stability, each of which diminishes the caliphate, except by destructuring and corrupting the processes in such a way that they lose their actual meanings. Hence, to have peace, freedom and democracy in any society is to obstruct the march of caliphatism that thrives on violence.
Problem is: who, except the most mentally inept in Nigeria yearns to be directly or indirectly ruled by a caliphate, where ascription trumps hard work, hereditary entitlement competitive merit, and violent subjugation free democratic choice? Where the “body language” of primitive man is a mandatory directive to more enlightened peoples, decrees supersede statutes, absolutism debate, impunity legality, and where treacherous slavish submission to external imperialist teleguidance instead of patriotic self-confidence determines policy?
Not a single civilized man does, and most Nigerians don’t; hence the unprecedented brutalities since mid-2015 to impose its tenets by force on everybody in an organized reign of terror and fear, inventing or excavating all manner of pretexts to simultaneously orchestrate different “wars” across the country, all being a decoyed means towards a predetermined rendezvous into a tribal circle of darkness.
Seizing and ceding all military-security formations to the “people I can trust” to subject or intimidate everyone into perpetual submission, and employing every available subterfuge to that end is no more news. Nigerians have suffered beyond limits and been pushed to the wall, and restructuring is now the only rational means of keeping the country peacefully together, to enable all sub-units restore their civilizations, and run their lives in a civilized manner within a One Nigeria true federalism. If impossible to change their ways, those who prefer caliphatism to a secular state may have to be allowed to restrict the enjoyment of their preferred traditions of modern slavery to themselves only.

II. SECESSION NOT AN OPTION IN HELL.
Why are large sections of Nigeria, North, South, East, West, Middle Belt, so variously oppressed, some more than others, yet seemingly opposed to a break-up, and would coalesce to fight a secession? No political good is as precious as freedom, but that is where it ends. So, it’s not so much as a universal aversion to self-determination as it is about fear of the consequences on all groups.
For the Igbo they tried before and yet to recover from the genocide that consumed more than 3 million Igbo/Eastern lives; they have additionally lost more lives in the unwarranted orchestrations of the last eight years in a contrived “war” against a non-existing “insurgency,” and do not need to lose more.
For the Yoruba there appears to be a similar yearning for freedom, but given no consensus on how best to achieve it, and not desiring a war on Yoruba soil, appear mostly settled for the “next best thing:” true federalism, itself impossible without a hard fight. Certainly, there is no way of imagining a true Yoruba nation performing worse when freed from the hate-filled entanglements of today’s primitive governance.
For the more dominant Fulani – the caliphatists – as distinct from the secular/modernist, its a clear life and death struggle; their wandering ancestors had decreed Nigeria their final destination and “estate” down to the sea, and other Northerners as “footstools,” and they are not abandoning that glorious Canaan for anybody’s self-determination. They always appear ready to betray anything Nigerian or black African to external interests to achieve their caliphatic tribal goals.
For the Middle Belt and other “minorities” either already subjugated by the caliphate or threatened to be so, the Igbo, Yoruba, or the South seceding would amount to abandoning them in the lurch to the rampaging Fulani jihad and genocidal ethnic-cleansing in perpetuity. Southerners are their political buffer between this horrendous prospect and the struggles for survival, and would therefore fight to the last man even with the caliphate to keep everyone in Nigeria to either share in the suffering or combine to achieve deliverance. Some Southern “minorities” are of the same disposition in a bit of different manner, although attitudes seem to be changing between what it means to live with either the Igbo or Yoruba, compared to life with caliphatic Fulani.
Then, the common denominator: almost all the (oil, etc) wealth used for developing Nigeria comes from the East, which includes parts of Igbo land; billionaires have been created, tycoons, magnets and moguls are everywhere; so, how could anyone let the people blessed with such nature’s bounties escape from the stranglehold of others! Therefore, except something extraordinary takes place, Nigerian “unity” is here with everybody, each group for different agonizing reasons.
Then, we remember those in Zik of Africa’s pan-African mold, albeit a much diminishing minority that still believe in the prospect of a mighty black African power of equal dignity with other great nations, and a decisive voice in global affairs. And, a united Nigeria would play that key role.

III. ORGANIC RESTRUCTURING.
Of the many forms of political engineering, the investing of geo-cultural units with corresponding levels of political authority, or using geo-cultural parametres to determine administrative units, otherwise called organic restructuring, proceeds from the principle that the natural environment and culture had substantially structured all places, and that for an effective and harmonious organization of political society, the basic task of honest nation-building is to simply convert the natural geo-cultural units into appropriate political units. In organic restructuring, geo-cultural units or groupings thereof assume appropriate political/administrative statuses. Of course, quite theoretically simple but may require a lot more organized political engineering to realize.
So, organic restructuring simply returns people to the geo-civilizational structures, ways of life and history they were freely used to before violent alien intrusions. Restructuring helps peoples overcome the harmful destructurings of colonialism, whether domestic or external.
To attempt to force a change in the geo-cultural order is the reason for the endless crises in many places, including in the Southern Kaduna/Plateau highlands/Middle Belt and other parts of Nigeria in which alien groups are violently ousting indigenous groups and claiming rightful ownerships. For peace and stability in Nigeria, we cannot continue to tolerate this officially sponsored, facilitated, condoned or ignored genocide and ethnic-cleansing in the 21st century. Citizens ought to freely reside peacefully in any part of a country and be protected by civilized laws, but not by violently cleansing indigenes from their geo-cultural habitats.
Taking the foregoing into account, Nigeria should be reorganized into 5 coastal states or regions and 5 riparian states or regions, as follows:

5 COASTAL STATES or REGIONS:

• Eastern Region (basically all Igbo-speaking communities).
• Western Region (basically all Yoruba-speaking communities).
• Southeastern Region or AkwaCross (of the former Southeastern state of the related Annang-Efik-Efut-Ibibio-Oro-the Ekois/Ogojas, etc groups).
• Southwestern Region (of the Bini-Ijaw-Ishan-Isoko-Itsekiri-Urhobo, etc).
• Southern Region (of the Andoni-Ogoni).

5 RIPARIAN STATES or REGIONS:

• Northern Region (basically Hausa and Fulani, overlapping the River Niger around Jebba, Kainji, New Bussa).
• Northeast Region (basically Kanuri, overlapping the River Benue around Yola).
• Northwest Region (basically Baruba-Ebira-Gbagyi/Gwari-Nupe).
• Northcentral Region (basically all the groups under the old Jama’a Federation, southern Kaduna, and Plateau highlands, from around the Katab, across the Birom, Angas, Jukun, down to the Chamba.
• Middle Belt (basically Bassa, Idoma, Igala, Tiv). Whereas all the Regions in the North lap unto either the Benue or Niger Rivers, anticipating their eventual dredging and modernization for any levels of business, every Region in the South is contiguous to the coast: Yoruba through the various Lagos ports; Bini through a restored and modernized Ughoton and Gelegele channels; Ijaw through the Akassa, Burutu, Brass-Nembe, etc; Urhobo through mainly Sapele, etc; Itsekiri majorly through Warri; Igbo essentially through the Port Harcourt to Bonny and Imo River/Azumini to Opobo channels; Andoni-Ogoni through the Onne and Andoni ports; and AkwaCross through the Ibaka deep sea, Oron, Calabar, Bakassi and other ports. Interestingly both the coastal and riparian regions are naturally linked together by the Niger and Benue rivers that flow across most of them to the coast, a natural domestic and international business-friendly design long unexploited by corrupt Nigerian rulers.
  Each region shall have their own Constitution and decide on a capital city, together with initial provisions for voluntary mergers with any neighbouring one/s.

IV. ESSENCE OF ORGANIC RESTRUCTURING.
As obvious from the foregoing, the substance of organic restructuring consist in:

• Optimizing natural circumstances for progressive political engineering.
• New federating units: 10 in number.
• Military-security reorganization in line with agreed federating principles.
• Resource control, otherwise fiscal federalism.
• Mandatory national ethos: A modern democratic secular state of equal laws and equal applications.

V. CHARACTER OF NEW FEDERATING UNITS.

• Contiguity of boundaries.
• Relative economic viability.
• Linguistic and other cultural similarities.

VI. BENEFITS OF ORGANIC RESTRUCTURING.
Restructuring will:

• Restore the integrity of indigenous civilizations and their capacity for modernization;
• Significantly eliminate and resolve issues of “majority” ethnic groups “exploiting” the “minorities;”
• Establish objective poles of development and system of competitive mutual emulation favourable to speedy industrialization and wealth creation;
• Significantly reduce the units and costs of political administration: more than 72% from 36 to only 10 states or regions, enhancing their economies of scale while saving large sums for capital expenditure;
• Substantially eliminate tribalism and ethno-religious bigotry in the conduct of national affairs, and the related do-or-die struggles to snatch federal power; and also redirect energies towards regional power and development;
• Through the relative self-determination that empowered the peoples in their regions, reduce complaints of federal marginalization and corresponding agitations for secession, thereby promoting national security, peace, unity and stability;
• Also simultaneously solve the class question of power distribution between competing elites, as well as the national question of the elimination of negative contradictions, and fair distribution of power between ethnic nationalities;
• In summary, organic restructuring will establish a just, creative, objective and logical context for the rise of a democratic black African nation-state that might be a strong pillar in a future continental government as anticipated by the founding fathers of the OAU, now the AU. The world is at a very dangerous crossroads. Something may ensue over whether the world should be unipolar or multipolar. Between the best and worst-case scenarios, this might lead to a global nuclear or other catastrophe, and only properly structured societies can generate the internal cohesion and harmony needed to confront the ensuing challenges.

VII. HIERARCHY OF METHODS.

• Devolution of Powers.
• Constitutional Conference.
• National Conference.
• Sovereign National Conference (SNC).
• Popular Revolution.
  The strengths and weaknesses had been highlighted previously.

VIII. PREPARATORY MEASURES FOR EFFECTIVE RESTRUCTURING.
President Buhari could not and cannot restructure Nigeria. The best he did was to continue to as much as possible destructure whatever he could to favour his ethno-religious group. He never aspired to any elegant legacy, but in the next five weeks may if he so desires help lay some foundations and create a conducive atmosphere for the proper restructuring of Nigeria by his successor. These include:

• Immediate end to all officially ordered, supported or condoned killings, nationwide no matter over what.
• Immediate release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners, including the unlawfully arrested and detained Nnamdi Kanu and his colleagues. If Buhari had any respect for the judiciary most of those in jail would not be there today.
• Immediate federally organized return to their ancestral communities of all those violently sacked by Fulani terrorists.
• Expulsion from the farms, highways and wherever of the AK-47 armed Fulani and other terrorists, and after due process, their return to the sending states.
• Reshuffle of the leadership and deployment of the military-security services to reflect the constitutional requirements of federal character.

IX. WHEN TO ACT.
There is no time to wait. Following similar patterns of deceit and mockery, Buhari has derisively directed that he be forgiven, without disarming or rescinding the seeming blank check issued to his official and unofficial thugs to kill whomsoever they wished without consequences; without a word on the millions directly or indirectly either murdered by his agents or dead by his horrendous policies; missing or still unlawfully held; and with no sign of remorse over the lies, deceits, and unwarranted bloodshed with which he held Nigeria hostage for 96 endless months. As he was pleading in the Eid, mass killings were continuing in the various Southern Kaduna/Middle Belt and other areas that needed conquering, ethnic-cleansing and subduing, with no word from him. The whole hypocrisy is further demonstrated in the unrepentant attempts by his henchmen to paint him in different colours or force everyone to believe that what is black is white or the red blue. The only sensible act he may now take if he so wishes are the above steps to prepare the grounds for the restructuring of the country by his successor on rational principles.

X. BETWEEN COHABITATION, COHIBITION, and DISINTEGRATION.
Some stalwarts may wish to continue to hold the country down, preferring that it’s better to “develop” one-sidedly in their own personal, ethnic, regional, or class interests, than all-inclusively for the equal benefit of all. It’s a vindictive choice to continue to inhibit some parts while accelerating others as openly displayed in the last eight years.
Restructuring will not return the monies unlawfully expended to develop the Niger Republic, Afghanistan, or other alien climes; the trillions borrowed for either fictitious or hardly corresponding projects, or debts imposed on future generations; the trillions possibly stolen or looted to have Nigeria score high in the Corruption Index as a thieving state; or the possibly millions killed directly by guns or indirectly by other officially sponsored or condoned atrocities, poverty, hunger and diseases since mid-2015. Restructuring will not correct all the mistakes and misdeeds of the past or suddenly leapfrog the country to where it ought to have been under an eight-year civilized governance, etc.
Restructuring would, by ending the reign of terror that has torn the country apart, return peace and security across-board and, in effect, renew hope in Nigeria’s unity and survival. It would immediately secure many of the advantages already referred to above and, for once enable the peoples start to cohabit peacefully in mutual emulation and support, instead of the endless attempts to inhibit each other or sections thereof and continually expose the blacks as primitive objects of ridicule incapable of running civilized governance. The horrendous eight years have no redeeming exception, but 5 weeks might still be an opportunity long enough to lay the foundations for positive change in a new Nigeria.

• Obasi Igwe.