The Afenifere Renewal Group, ARG, has called for a return to the
First Republic’s regional political structure or the constitution of
Nigeria’s six geo-political zones into federating units.
In the First Republic, Nigeria practised a true federalist system
with three regions, Western, Eastern, and Northern, as federating units
and each being quite semi-autonomous.
The ARG, a Yoruba Socio-cultural pressure group, argued that Nigeria
can no longer afford the cost of running the present political
structure.
The group made this call in its ‘Nigerian Democratic Governance
Report,’ subtitled: ‘Curbing Political Instability and Extravagance.’
It argued that the country is over-governed with 36 states and 774
local governments and 1 Federal Capital Territory and said with the
prevailing dire economic situation the country can no longer afford to
maintain the alarming cost of government bureaucracy.
The group said the reason for the infrastructure decay in the country
is that a huge part of government revenue in all tiers of government is
used to service the bureaucracy of government that merely covers 3 per
cent of the entire population.
“When budgets of all these government tiers are collated, more than
60 per cent of all public expenditure in Nigeria goes to service these
bureaucracies that consist of less than 3 per cent of Nigeria’s
population. This high cost of governance is the reason we cannot fund
the delivery of critical infrastructure and social programmes. High cost
of governance contributes to high cost of doing business, which in turn
reduces Nigeria’s competitiveness in the global market.
“Unfortunately, current economic realities show that Nigeria can no
longer fund these bureaucracies as some states now owe workers as much
as four months’ wages, with no respite in sight. One would not be a
Prophet of Doom to say there is a high probability that two-third of
states in Nigeria might not be able to pay salaries in 2015. This is
another threat to political stability as social vices and malfeasances
would increase.”
The group also advocated the devolution of power, and the
restructuring of the revenue allocation formula where states are made to
control the resources in their domain and percentage contributed to the
government at the centre. For instance, it frowned at the where Lagos
is not earning derivable funds for the thousands of ships that berth at
its coastline yearly.
“When will Lagos and other suffering South-West States have access to
derivable funds, be it on import/export duties, corporate taxes, and
VATs being carted away therefrom? Arising therefore, as revenue from
other regions is not faithfully remitted to the nation’s coffer, can the
South-West region pursue means through which a per cent of revenues
generated from its area can be kept or taken up as other regions are
doing?”
The group, which also did an assessment of governance in the last 15
years, concluded that there are no appreciable differences in the manner
the country was governed during military rule and during the 15 years
of democratic rule.
Using the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators from 1996 to
2013, ARG argued that regulatory quality, government effectiveness, rule
of law, and corruption have largely remained what it was during
military rule and throughout the current democratic dispensation. ...more
Source: Premium Times.
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