The former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Chukwuma Soludo recently took a swipe on the ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC): “The APC promised us that they were going to restructure Nigeria; before the elections, they said the current structure was not working, they said that Nigeria was becoming a failed state; but now, they are in power and they are not getting it done. Unless we citizens rise up and tell the government ‘deliver on what you promised’, they will not get it done.”

“Nigeria is not working in anybody’s interest except that of the privileged few and because of this, there is an obsession with unnecessary distractions, like which part of the country produces the President. You can have the President, the Vice President and all the ministers from one village and the life of the ordinary people from that village will not move from point A to point B.”

“The North has ruled the country for several years, but poverty, to a very large extent, is a northern problem. In the last dispensation, we had Jonathan as President, the Finance ministry and almost all the financial institutions of government were headed by Igbos then, but we still don’t have any motorable federal road in Igboland.”

“Change is a struggle; change is never given by a benevolent elite; no change is given by the government, the people always had to ask for change. Nigeria has been waiting for a benevolent leader since 1960 but he has not come. You will get the type of leader that the people demand.”

“The change we think we need will never be given to us; we have to demand it; we have to agitate for it, and it is the sustained agitation that will bring about the change. Citizens should get involved and stop complaining.”