Former Nigerian Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has revealed what
will happen to the 36 states of the federation after the country is
restructured.
Atiku said, the 36 states will acquire more powers which will
enable them to generate more resources for regional development.
He stated this in Abuja at the 3rd edition of the Policy Monitoring
Dialogue Series on National Unity, Integration, and Devolution of
Power/Restructuring held on Friday.
Atiku said Nigerians who were agitating for restructuring should not
be bullied into silence, adding that violence and intimidation cannot
replace sound arguments.
The former Vice-President said: “Restructuring to me, means effecting
changes to our current federal structure, it means devolution of more
powers to the federating units with their accompanying resources.
“After restructuring, states will get more resources than they are currently getting, they are simply lazy.
“Restructuring will ensure greater accountability. People are more
likely to hold their state and local governments to account once those
governments are no longer able to convincingly blame the central
government for their shortcomings.
“Restructuring will promote healthy competition among our federating
units, which will encourage them to diversify their revenue sources.
“Restructuring will ensure greater fairness and a perception of same among our constituent parts.
“Beyond these, there is also another huge economic imperative for us
to restructure: oil, which underlined and underwrote our excessive
centralization and fragmentation into numerous unviable states, and
which has been at the centre of much of our squabbles, seems to have
reached its peak as source of revenues for our country.
“In fact, long-term, it seems to be on a downward trajectory. And
even if its contribution to our revenues were to remain at current
levels in the long term, it still spells trouble for our economy and the
unsustainable structure which it has supported for nearly 50 years.
“The states or zones of the country that are most dependent on oil
revenues have a greater urgency to decouple themselves from that
dependency now that there is still some oil revenue to assist them in
the transition.
“That window may not remain open for a long time, which may then make the inevitable transition much more painful and chaotic.
“New technologies of oil production have hugely increased oil output,
especially in the US. This, as well as the massive investments in
alternative energy sources around the world, has depressed oil prices.
“And things are going to get worse for oil dependent economies.”
Also speaking was the former Secretary General of the Common Wealth, Emeka Anyaoku.
Anyaoku on his part, insisted that a return to a regional system of
government will hasten socio-economic development of the country’s
regions.
“Restructuring will be the panacea of most of our current challenges.
The powerful centre that we have which breeds the do or die competition
for the control of that centre – I would suggest that the 36 states,
they should remain as parts of the six federating units, they should
become development zones within the six federating units,” he said.