Former Vice-president of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on
Monday said Nigeria needed total restructuring and reform
to correct its porous system.
Atiku, who gave a lecture on “Constitutional and Political
Framework for restructuring Nigeria for better Federalism
and Integration” at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife,
during an Annual Public Lecture of Professor Ademola
Popoola emphasised the need for restructuring the mode of
governance in the country.
He stated that the current system in the country
concentrated powers in the centre, and made the country
to be economically unproductive and politically weak.
According to him, immediate restructuring of the country
would enable the citizens of Nigeria to live better and leave
a worthy legacy for their generations yet unborn.
Atiku faulted the notion in some quarters that restructuring
of the country would be divisive, arguing that using the
existing geopolitical zones as federating units would solve
array of national problems.
Carpeting some state governors over their style of
leadership, he called for the merging of unviable states with
the viable ones should the unviable states were unable to
generate a certain percentage of their expenditures
internally for a specified period of time.
“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 possiblity 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 would 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”, Atiku stressed.
