Tinubu: Nigeria faces bleak future without true federalism - The Nation Newspaper

                   

Former Lagos State governor Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has said true federalism must be established first if Nigeria must make progress.
He said: “Until we establish genuine federalism, we will never achieve our best future. Unless we have real federalism and have it soon, our problems will mount while their solutions recede. The nation in which we live will become a slight and an inferior thing. The way in which we govern ourselves will remain our worst enemy and highest obstacle.” 

The former governor spoke in Lagos in a keynote address entitled: Federalism and the rule of law: The Twin Compass to Our Best Future, at  the opening of the 2012 Law Week of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja branch.
Tinubu, who was represented by Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola,  noted that the national government should no longer be a “powerful cyclops terrorising those smaller than it”.
He argued that “true federalism is about empowering states and local governments to work for the people they know and who know them. If we can develop this federalism, it will enrich our lives in practical, yet profound ways”.
The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) National Leader decried the attempt by the Federal Government to severe relationship between states and local governments through direct funding of the third tier of government.

He posited that “it is a political sleight-of-hand to weaken those state governments controlled by the opposition parties”. 
Tinubu added: “The plan is an attempt to pull the rug from under the opposition state governments by allowing the ruling party in Abuja to gain financial remote control of the local structures that underline state institutions.

“This is a move towards concentration of power in the Federal Government and greater concentration of power in one party.”
The eminent politician said the attempt to sever fiscal link between states and local governments portend adverse political and developmental repercussions.
He said: “The federal plot would make local governments beholden to Abuja for its survival. Coordination of economic development activities between states and local governments will be overriden by this federal insertions. Local governments will take direction to Abuja, meaning they would begin to act in cross purposes with their state governments.”
Tinubu suggested a reduction in the power of the central government to avoid having a central government that is too powerful. He said this would countermand constitutional provisions “and disregard established principles of accounting with impunity”.
The chairman of the Law Week Planning Committee, Mr. Roland Otaru (SAN) said  the type of federalism currently in practice in Nigeria kills productivity and promotes dependence on the centre. 
Otaru noted that the nation needs to move away from the military-imposed federalism, which promotes indolence and bad governance.
The NBA Ikeja chairman, Mr. Adebamigbe Omole, said  it would be fundamentally wrong for Nigeria to continue with the present political arrangement because of the glaring inadequacies in the system.
“The various agitations by the different ethnic nationalities and groups are evident of the fact that there is a systemic failure of our structure,” he said.
He added that true federalism must be established to put the country on a sound footing and have a nation of everyone’s dream where peace and economic prosperity would reign.