By Jerome-Mario Chijioke Utomi
Even though its has been noted long ago by the sage that no individual, society, state or nation becomes great by living on borrowed funds, a critical look by this piece at the recent approval of a credit facility amounting to N40 billion by the Delta State House of Assembly for the Delta state Governor, Sheriff Francis Oborevwori, for the purpose of assisting the 25 local government councils settle their accumulated pensions owed to retired primary school teachers and local government employees in the state, reveals that the state government’s action was laced with ingrained merit(s).
Also in agreement with the above assertion are relations, friends and believers in the doctrines of common good, justice and equity, conversant with the excruciating economic hardship suffered by local government pensioners in Delta State as a result of this protracted disappointments and local government’s inabilities to pay these pensioners their statutory entitlement.
To this group, the governor rendered to each of the local government pensioners; what is properly theirs, what is equal, fair and commensurate with the service they rendered to the state and their father land.
For me, Oborevwori’s, latest action when broadly viewed, tells us as a nation that the country’s administrative structure is dysfunctional, that local councils across the nation are constrained by a centralising constitution that over-empowers the centre weakens the component states and local Government Areas that lack the authority to control their own resources, or secure lives and property within their territories.
The action by Delta state government’s becomes even more appreciated when one remembers that it exposed how financially emasculated and economically unhealthy the Local Government Councils across the nation has become, and more than anything else elicits call on the Federal Government to cede more revenue generation powers/privileges to the local Government Councils in the country.
Call it restructuring, fiscal federalism or structural reconfiguration, you may not be far from the truth.
Supporting the urgency of the above assertion is the ugly report that the 25 Local Government Councils in the state (Delta) owed retired local government workers by twenty five Local Government Councils in the state N51billion since 2016.
The unfortunate aspect of this narrative is that this local government Councils insolvency- challenge is not Delta state-specific but exists in both covert and overt forms and degrees among all the local government councils in the Federation.
This fact tells the Tinubu led administration to admit, appreciate and contemplate the need to have the country restructured.
Essentially, a peep into such conversation will also reveal that while many argue that the nation is asymmetrically structured and standing in an inverted pyramid shape with more power concentrated at the top and the base not formidable enough, making collapse inevitable if urgent and fundamental steps are not taken, some feel that restructuring is a panacea for enduring nationhood, and need not be a one-off thing. Hence, must be handled the same way one seeks equity; everyone is obligated to come to the table with clean hands; meaning, tolerance, openness and accommodation.
To the rest, Nigeria has a choice, to restructure by plan or by default.
In their explanation, a planned restructuring will be collaborative, systematic, and redesign Nigeria, yet keep it whole. A default restructuring will happen, certainly not by choice, but definitely like an uncontrolled experiment with attendant risks and indefinite outcomes. The challenge confronting Nigeria now is that the long-overdue restructuring will happen when the cost of not restructuring far outweighs the cost of restructuring.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari at one particular occasion noted that ‘no human law or edifice is perfect. Whatever structure we develop must periodically be perfected according to the changing circumstances and the country’s socio-economic developments’.
This piece believes that the hour has come for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu led Federal Government to identify the imperfection in the nation’s Federal system and have them amended. This is inevitable and eminently desirable.
Catalyzing the process of reforming this changing circumstance as stated by the former president should be the preoccupation of the FG and also acts as the propeller to having our federal framework reworked.
The above is imperative as the current posturing has made the government at the centre become the dispenser of goodness by proxy while leaving the federating states idle and lazy which is against the spirit of the federal system of government and the expectation of the masses.
As an incentive, what the masses are saying and wanting in my understanding is that the padding of the second schedule of the exclusive legislative list, of our 1999 constitution with sixty-eight (68) items has made Abuja suffer ‘political obesity’ and need to shed some weight via power devolution.
What the people are saying is that the over blotted exclusive list has made our nation to currently stand in an inverted pyramid shape with more power concentrated at the top and the base not formidable enough making collapse inevitable if urgent and fundamental steps are not taken.
What the proponents of restructuring are saying is that the majority of the items are too trivial for the Federal Government to handle and should serve the greater good of the people if left in the hands of both the state and the local government. This is the hub of the masses’ expectations.
Items such as; Police and some government security services, mines and minerals; including oil fields, oil mining geological surveys, control of parks, stamp duties, public holidays, taxation of incomes, profits and capital gains, and insurance among others to my mind should find their ways back to the states and the local councils.
However, it will not be out of place if the states and local councils are allowed to handle all these and made to pay taxes when necessary to the federal government coffers. By doing so, the federal government will be freed from handling the tiny details which prevent them from looking at the bigger national issues. In the same vein, it will empower states/regions and local councils that have been technically rendered redundant.
Finally, this piece holds the opinion that the template to solve these problems is already there: the Report of the 2014 National Conference. The holistic implementation of that report is germane to the survival of Nigeria.
Jerome-Mario is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Policy), Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), Lagos. He could be reached via Jeromeutomi@yahoo.com or 08032725374
