Lagos — Former Chief of Army Staff and a leader of the defunct National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), Gen. Alani Akinrinade, has declared that Nigeria is built on a defective foundation and challenged all patriotic minds to summon enough courage to pull it down, with the determination to build a new one.

This came as eminent Nigerians, yesterday, at the launch of a book titled: "Nigeria: Africa's Failed Asset?" authored by an elder statesman and legal practitioner, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi,

charged President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua to put adequate machinery in place that will ensure that the integrity of the 2011 general election is not eroded.

Akinrinade, who spoke on Nigeria's foundation while presenting a paper on the state of the Nigerian nation in Lagos, said it had become imperative to look for appropriate blocks to build a new Nigeria, if the future generations will be saved from damning consequences.

"This Nigeria is built on defective foundation, with defective blocks. Whilst we still have the time, let us not be dumb and timid enough, not to pull it down, build a new foundation and raise it with appropriate blocks to avoid the damnation of the coming generations," Akinrinade said.

Lamenting the woeful state of the country, Akinrinade said Nigeria had been broken into heterogeneous entities, which according to him, are not viable, regretting that there are yet clamours for more dismemberment, whose output he described as unproductive legislatures with unprecedented corruption.

"We have dismantled our country into unviable and inhomogeneous enclaves and I know of the clamour everywhere for more dismemberment, creating endless bureaucracies, non-productive entities called legislatures, gulping the major part of our patrimony for no returns, except heart-aches from reports of unflattering frivolities and unprecedented corruption," he added.

He argued that it would be misplaced to expect a government which cannot define the revenue profile of the country to carry out the restructuring exercise which Nigeria urgently needs.

"But why will a government that is incapable of showing us clearly its template for revenue profile as it will affect all citizens after a miserable '10 per cent of what?' 'Allocation to oil bearing communities'-also undefined - be expected to understand the intricacies of a subject of the magnitude of restructuring."

Apparently comparing the prevalent degeneration in Nigeria with what used to obtain in Ghana, the retired general recalled his indignation for the former President of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings, when he killed army officers in the country about 30 years ago, before he eventually transformed into a civilian president.

He however, said instead of his anger against Rawlings at the time, he now had greater understanding of what provoked Rawlings to undertake such a tragic adventure.