Regional governments?
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Aare Afe Babalola(SAN), has canvassed for return to regional government for Nigeria to recover fully from its economic woes and myriad of challenges confronting it.
According to Dailypost,The founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti(ABUAD), said having a central government with a president directing the affairs of a large and multiethnic and religious nation like Nigeria had been the reason why the country has failed to develop.
The senior lawyer said this in Ado Ekiti at the weekend, during a programme tagged ‘diplomatic talk’ organized by the Department of international Relations, where Malaysia High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Lim Juay Jin was the guest speaker.
Babalola said: “I have attended three conferences in Nigeria and return to regional government has always been my position. Nigeria consists of over 300 ethnic groups and with different religious bias, so what we need is confederation or loose federalism, where each region will be allowed to grow at its own pace and contribute to the centre.
“This has been the practice in USA, Australia and Canada. But in Nigeria, we have a central government , where only one person determines what happens everywhere. In the past we had regional governments where each was allowed to develop and Nigeria was better off then.
“Nigeria has six geopolitical zones and these can be allowed to function as component parts and Nigeria will be good for it. During the regional government, Nigeria was growing faster. Malaysia is a very small country with a population of about 30 million and this makes it easy to govern.
“If Nigeria has been operating the regional government, we would have developed even better than Malaysia. Our fore fathers considered the population, land and resources as very large, that was why they introduced regional government. It has always been the smaller, the better”.
Delivering his lecture, Ambassador Jin, who described ABUAD as a new face of Nigeria education, insisted that Nigeria should have made very good exploit in eco and medical tourism, but for pervasive insecurity in the system.
He assured that Malaysia will strengthen its business relations with Nigeria because of the integrity of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government and its hostile disposition to corruption.
“ABUAD is a place where you can study under a peaceful atmosphere. It has a good environment and a complementary state-of-the-earth infrastructures where student can learn and deliver. I know the graduates will be change agents in the system because of learning and character that is in practice here.
“One thing that has been of tremendous advantage to both Nigeria and Malaysia is that they highly educated workforce. I believe that if Nigeria can deploy this effectively, greatness will be achieved because hope of success has not been lost”, he said.
What do you think about his opinion?
Gbam!!!!!!! This is the only reasonable way forward.
ReplyDeleteEvery region should control it's resources. The lazy ones fighting for centre so as to feed on other regions resources will wake up and find how to develop their region.
DeleteSo what is the role of governors? All ideas sounds logical till u look at it calmly...if state governors can't handle individual states, what will happen when(if) you lump the country into regions?
DeleteHmmmmmm
ReplyDeleteI support ooohh. And no more state allocation too.' Make everyone cultivate their own farm and fever are funds from there.
DeleteSay no to regionalism. It is one Nigerian all the way
ReplyDelete*Nigeria
ReplyDeleteThe only solution to Nigeria problem
ReplyDelete*Larry was here*
That is the way forward.
ReplyDeleteThe North and the ruling class will never allow it. The reason being that the North and individuals such as the Tinubus of this country profit from the present arrangement. Tinubu and co did not work so hard only to settle for a regional piece of the pie.
ReplyDeleteThe Federalism we currently operate is flawed and we all know it. The regional system first and foremost recognises our differences as a nation and it would allow for better representation and accountability.
Really?
ReplyDeletePart of the reason why nigeria moved away from regional groups is because of the reasons you are saying we should move back to regional groups. It was due to the oppression of ethnic and religious minority groups by the more dominant groups and going back to that will only worsen the problems you cite.
ReplyDeleteStates and their governors are already independent enough to handle the affairs of their state with little hindrance from the centre.
I listened to some politician on the radio not to long ago and he said it's very easy to say we should go back regional groups and all our problems will be solved. He said if going back to regional groups is truly the answer then all it'll take is for one state to prove so. The states and governors are independent enough to develop their respective states. If one, only one state, is able to use its resources, allocations and internally generated revenues to develop its state then a case can successfully be made for regional groups.
All it takes is one capable governor but in Nigeria of today I'm not sure there are any present
Hausa man speaking
DeleteWow this idea is so on point....
ReplyDeleteNigerians are not ready for that... it's magic dey want
ReplyDeleteI totally agree
ReplyDeleteHe is an old idiot
ReplyDeleteSo becos u can't read or u dnt undstand what he said. The best time to say is that thing as comment?.
DeleteSmh most of u here are really low class with low reasoning. So when u dnt agree with wat sumone says the best thing to say is make an insulting comment? Sigh.
Gbammmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the only way...... So that if ur region isn't developing u knw who is doing u. Not dt everything wld b heaped on the president. This is when each region wld b able to explore its own resources and develop @ its own pace instead of dem abandoning deir own natural resources and waiting for govt allocation. Infact every state develop urself it's just dt sum states with very terrible governors wld just die. Anyway if d citizens of dt state knw demselves dey wld protest such a governor and ask for his removal. Abeg dis system of govt we are practicing no b am. But d political elite wld never support it. U want dem not to b able to control resources not in deir state.
ReplyDeleteMost naijas would rather sit and pray to God for help....meanwhile God is not not a magician, he has given us all the ability to think and work towards improvement. Anyway, regional government is much better than the current nonsense and incompetence of the present system.
ReplyDeleteGOD bless afe babalola for these statement.
ReplyDeleteYes ooo, let us all go back to our regions. I am with you on this biko.
ReplyDelete