Former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, on Monday insisted that the Nigerian Federation must be restructured, expressing worry that the country was becoming more centralised and “making a mockery of federalism.”
According to Abubakar, immediate restructuring of the country would enable the citizens to live better lives and leave a worthy legacy for generations yet unborn.
The former vice president said this on Monday at the Oduduwa Hall of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, while delivering a lecture on, “The Constitutional and Political Framework for Reconstructing Nigeria for True Federalism and National Integration,” during the annual Professor Ademila Popoola Public Lecture organised by the Faculty of Law of the university.
Dispelling insinuations that restructuring of the country would bring about division or secession, Abubakar advised the leadership of the country to examine the possibility of using the existing geopolitical zones as federating units.
While arguing that many of the state in Nigeria were not viable, he called for the merging of some of the states to enable them to generate a certain percentage of their expenditures internally for a specified period of time.
Over dependence and addiction to oil money, excessive centralisation and concentration of power and resources, intense political competition and political instability, according to the former vice president, were responsible for the country’s numerous challenges.
He, therefore, insisted that the country’s federation should be restructured.
On the way out, Abubakar said, “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.”
The former vice president further said, “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.”
