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Former Senate Speaker Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki has expressed his opinion on the lingering problems regarding the restructuring of Nigeria.
Many Nigerians, groups and individuals believe the country needs to be restructured to bring equity and justice to all of its regions, with some even insisting that this is the only way Nigeria can stay together as one. ‘unity.
But answering questions at an Independence Day luncheon in commemoration of Nigeria’s 61st independence anniversary, held in Abuja over the weekend, Saraki, who is also a former governor of Kwara State, advised Nigerians to seek better governance instead.
According to him, members of the government must ensure that there is development in all parts of the country, insisting that people would not be happy to stay together in a country where only one party is being development.
He said that under such circumstances it was impossible to believe that the country would remain at peace.
The former Senate Speaker said in restructuring Nigerians should look at what they get from the government, adding that it is the government’s failure to meet the expectations of the masses that has led to the agitations for the restructuring.
“I think the government not being able to respond to people in terms of their values and expectations, made us start looking inward to see that there is something structurally wrong. … That’s why you hear people talking about maybe we should give more power to states, more power to regions.
“My point of view is that we must ensure that we provide the most viable means of government at all levels. This includes making our state more viable… ”said Saraki.
“We say this because we saw a failure at the center. I think we need to tackle what is wrong with our country. The major problem has to do with the opportunity for all of us. I call it the democratization of opportunity.
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“Today, a lot of people don’t have a sense of belonging. They don’t believe the opportunities are fair for everyone. We have to come back to this. We need to have an environment that allows us all to believe that we have a fair chance to get to where we want to go and in doing so we need to be sure that some of us don’t believe that we are being held back. “
Speaking further, the former head of the National Assembly said states and local governments need to start looking at what makes them viable, adding that it will help them generate their income.
“You only have internally generated income when there is activity. You cannot build from zero activity. This is why we have the problem of VAT. Because the places where there is commercial activity are limited, ”he added.
“Some states think it’s their income that is shared by other states… the point is, we have to make every state viable. It is possible to make every state viable if you have policies that encourage a particular investment in different sectors… I think it’s doable but we have to have the capacity to understand what the situation is.
“There was a bill we passed in the Eighth Senate on how to generate money through the road authority. I was trying to see if there were any amounts being paid for the maintenance of roads across the country, but that did not materialize because of the problem we had in the Eighth Senate.
“I am told the same bill that they are about to pass now. Six years have been lost, if this bill had been passed 6 years ago, the country could have generated enough income thanks to it and these are just examples that we must do.
“There’s a lot of noise about restructuring, but I think we need to see first that we’re better governed. There are things we need to do and we need to see that there is fairness and fairness in the way we are governed and how Nigeria’s resources are distributed.
“We also need to ensure that there is development in all regions of the country. You cannot see the development in one part of the country and believe that we will stay united, it is not possible. In some parts of the world, there are incentives to invest in places where there is no investment. “
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