Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka yesterday called for restructuring as a way to ensure self-sufficiency and sustainable development.
He noted that past leaders recognised the importance of restructuring but failed to implement it.
Soyinka was the guest speaker at The Punch 50th Anniversary Lecture held at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Wednesday said his administration was laying a solid foundation to foster proper federalism.
Speaking during a visit to Afenifere leader Chief Reuben Fasoranti in Akure, the Ondo State capital, he said the right foundation would involve successful economic reforms to support a restructured country.
Soyinka stressed that the call for restructuring has been persistent but with no action.
He said: “Certain facts, however, implicitly admit that the word has a number of common, pragmatic implications for both governance and the governed, that indisputable commonality being as follows: the present contraption is not working – neither economically, developmentally, or even as a material expression of any functional social philosophy.
“Another is that those who come in power have indulged in pretend exercises in that direction, engaging the populace in totally phoney exercises – obviously just to ‘pacify the natives’. It is surely time that this demand be taken seriously, and addressed head-on.”
Soyinka argued that there is no shortage of reasoned and implementable propositions in past conference papers.
