HIGHLIGHT – Atiku Abubakar
Former Vice President of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has insisted that the restructuring of the country’s federal system was one of the feasible means to solve the nation’s numerous challenges.
Atiku Abubakar
He explained that immediate restructuring of the country was needed for the progress of the country.
He said this while delivering a lecture on, ‘the constitutional and political framework for reconstructing Nigeria for true federalism and national integration’, on Monday at Ile-Ife, Osun State.
He spoke at the Annual Professor Ademila Popoola Public Lecture, Faculty of law of the university.
According to him, insinuations that restructuring of the country would bring about division or secession are not valid.
He explained that restructuring was possible in the country with the use of the existing geopolitical zones as federating units.
He said, “over dependence and addiction to oil money, excessive centralisation and concentration of power and resources, intense political competition, and political instability were responsible for the country’s numerous challenges thus insisted that the country’s federation should be restricted.
“There is no doubt that many of our states are not viable, and were not viable from the start, once you take away the federal government allocations from Abuja. We have to find creative ways to make them viable in a changed federal system. Collaboration among States in a region or zone will help.
“We can examine the possibility of using the existing geopolitical zones as federating units. We can also find other ways to determine the viability of states, for example by introducing a means of test such that a state that is unable to generate a certain percentage of its expenditures internally for a specified period of time will be deemed unviable and collapsed into another or a group of states. We need to start producing again and collecting taxes to run our governments in a more sustainable way with greater transparency and accountability.
“We have a unique opportunity now, with all the agitation and clamour for restructuring, to have a conversation that would lead to changes in the structure of our federation in order to make it stronger, enhance our unity and promote peace, security and better and more accountable governance.
“Ours should be a federal system that delegates to the federal government only powers and responsibilities for those matters that are better handled by a central government such as defence, foreign affairs, inter-governmental affairs, setting overall national economic policy and standards. Other powers and responsibilities should reside with the states, which will include the power to create and fund local governments as they deem fit.
“Why do we have federal roads all over the country that don’t get maintained? Why do we have federal hospitals and schools all over the country that are no better than their state counterparts? We even have more clamour for federal takeover of existing state institutions. That’s is not how to run a federation. Rather we are centralising more and making a mockery of federalism. This is a parody of federalism, and we must get away from it.”
