Segun Akanni, Toronto, Canada A former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has said there is no better time to restructure Nigeria than now when there are calls from various quarters to restructure the country.
The former VP, who said this on Monday while delivering the annual Prof. Ademola Popoola Public Lecture, Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife said restructuring would offer permanent solutions to many problems confronting the nation.
Speaking on the topic, “The constitutional and political framework for reconstructing Nigeria for true federalism and national integration,” the former VP stated that merger of unviable state with viable ones would translate to better life for their citizens.
He said states should be able to generate fund to run their affairs without absolute dependence on the Federal Government for the monthly allocation to pay salaries and do things.
While condemning the present structure of the country which he said allowed states to be unproductive, he said that restructuring would encourage federating units to be more productive, adding that it would engender healthy competition which he said was good for the overall development of the nation.
He 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 plausibility 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 agitations 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.”
