Former Governor of Osun State and Nigeria’s Minister of Interior from 2019 to 2023, Rauf Aregbesola, has called for a change in the country’s leadership system.
Aregbesola called for a parliamentary system of governance, stating that the country cannot survive an executive presidential system.
It has been reported that the former minister made this remark at the ongoing National Dialogue on the constitutional future of Nigeria in Honour of a renowned constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze, organised by the Patriots (A Pan Nigerian Group of Eminent National Leaders of Thought) with the theme, “Lawful Procedures for Actualising a People’s Constitution for Nigeria.”
Recall that Aregbesola served as a commissioner for eight years in Lagos State before he became the governor of Osun State for eight years and subsequently a minister under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
“Can Nigeria survive executive presidential representation? The answer is no,” Aregbesola said.
“In seeking appropriate democratic representation let’s look at production as a basis of representation. We don’t have the best form of representation. People are engaged more in production. Productive acts and those engaged in production should be given opportunity to elect their best,” the former minister added.
Meanwhile, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has stated that he is not interested in any form of friendship with the Senator representing the FCT, Ireti Kingibe.
Wike insisted that he would not be coerced into becoming her friend and accused her of blackmailing him instead of communicating her problems through the right channels.
Speaking with selected newsmen in Abuja on Friday, Wike urged the senator to focus on her oversight functions.
The minister claimed that the lawmaker was aggrieved because the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, snubbed her for the position of the Senate Committee on FCT.
He said: “I don’t want to be personal…she’s the Senator for FCT. She went around saying ‘oh, oh Wike is busy scraping roads…I should leave the roads till when the potholes come?
Somebody wants to be your friend, and you say, ‘I don’t want to be your friend. Is it by force?’ The problem is that she wanted to be Chairman of the Senate Committee on FCT, and the Senate President said, ‘I’m not giving you’.
What are you going to supervise me? You cannot supervise me. What is her interest, that I must see her? If I have a problem I’ll go and see her. I don’t have a problem. Nobody can intimidate me. Look, I was a Minister before. I became a governor of one of the most important states in Nigeria and she thinks that the only way you can bring me is to go to Channels, TVC, saying the Minister is not carrying me along.
I don’t have the back to carry. It’s not about blackmailing. Do the right thing. Do you know her problem? She ran for election with my friend Philip Aduda, and she sees me taking Philip everywhere instead of her being the Senator. Should I abandon my friend because she failed the election?”
