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Present political structure not sustainable – Fayemi

Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), Dr. Kayode Fayemi, yesterday, declared that the country cannot continue with its present political structure as the nation has reached a point at which it must confront its reality as a federation.

 

He, therefore, called for devolution of powers to states in order to meet the yearnings of the population as the current structure serves the interest of those who are more associated with a unitary system of government rather than a genuine federal structure that is more accountable to the people and responsive to the challenges the people have.

 

The governor, who stated this while speaking with journalists in Lagos, however, said that contrary to the belief in some quarters that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is averse to constitution reform, the party has not only articulated in clear terms what its views are on what many refer to as restructuring, but also proposed bills in that regard.

 

Though he acknowledged that a few alterations on the constitution have happened since 1999, he maintained that “the root and branch of constitutional reform has not happened.”

 

To achieve this, he charged the National Assembly to pull together all previous constitution reform processes as well as the 2014 National Conference and the Governor Nasir el-Rufai-led APC Committee on Restructuring, consolidate them and subject it to a national referendum.

 

His words: “I think that we are fast getting to a point at which we must confront our reality as a federation. We can’t continue to run an economy the way we are doing.

 

We have to figure a structure that is more responsive to the yearnings of the population and this current structure, obviously privileges those who are more associated with a unitary rather than a genuine federal structure that is accountable more to the people and responsive to the challenges that the people have.

 

“What that structure should be, of course, has been subject of debate from all sides of Nigeria, but clearly, the state structure that we have now is problematic; it is not working as it should and there is a clear justification for more devolution of not just functions.

 

Unless you want to suffer from the tyranny of unfunded mandate, you can’t devolve functions and not support it with resources and that is what we are faced with.” Noting that he doesn’t see any conflict between the pursuit of fiscal federalism and expanding the devolution project, Fayemi said: “Whether you call it restructuring or constitutional reform, I think it is just a nomenclature issue.

 

For us as APC, we have a comprehensive report – the Nasir el-Rufai committee report, which has not only articulated in clear terms what our views are on what you call restructuring, but also had proposed bills attached to it, which we then took as APC governors to the leadership of the National Assembly – Ahmad Lawan (President of the Senate) and Femi Gbajabiamila (Speaker of the House of Representatives).”

He added: “If you read the manifesto of the party, our position on the issue was clearly stated and we followed it up with the el-Rufai committee and we have given the report of that committee to the leadership of the National Assembly. Now that legislators led by the Deputy President of the Senate, Ovie Omo-Agege, have started with the constitution reform process, it is our hope that it will not go the way of previous constitution review processes.

 

“As governors, we do not have the power, but we can propose and encourage members of our party, but ultimately, the power resides in our National Assembly. A few alterations have happened since 1999; may be alteration on judicial autonomy, legislative autonomy, electoral amendment and a few other things, but the root and branch of constitutional reform has not happened and that is what I think the National Assembly really ought to spend bulk of its time on.”

 

On the possible breakup of Nigeria, he said: “I think what Nigerians want is a country that works for everybody. I don’t think there is a Nigerian who wants the country to break up; people just believe that Nigeria is not working the way it should despite the abundance of human and natural resources we have.

“So, if they are agitating, I don’t think they are agitating for a break-up, although there may be some extremists who would always go in that direction.”

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