A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Charles Idahosa has said the ambition of Chief Obafemi Awolowo to rule Nigeria at all cost is what is responsible for Nigeria’s woes today.
Idahosa, a former Commissioner for Information in Edo State who spoke in an interview with Independent said Awolowo as the then Premier of the Western region should have focused on developing the region instead of wanting to govern Nigeria.
According to Idahosa, “The problem we are having in the country today, I put the blame on Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He was very ambitious. He didn’t need to rule the whole Nigeria but his ambition was to rule the whole country even though he knew it wasn’t possible because the Igbo and Hausa would never vote for him”.
“The old Western Region would have taken us out at that time and we would have been doing very well. Ibadan was the first place to own a television station in Africa”.
“So, what was Awolowo doing with the whole of Nigeria? He wanted to become President of a big empire and the whole of Western Region that is Edo, Delta, Oyo Ogun today is bigger than about 30 countries in the world” he said.
Also speaking on calls for the implementation of the recommemdations of the 2014 national conference, Idahosa said Nigeria doesn’t need another conference when we already have reprsentatives in the National Assembly.
“We keep making this mistake. We cannot have a National Assembly and we are still talking about a national conference. What is the job of the National Assembly members? Whatever problem we have in this country, our representative should be able to address them. Why were they elected?”
“We don’t need a national conference because every local government in this country has a representative in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The combination of these two should be able to do something. We don’t need selected people again to look at issues” he said.
-Daily Independent
