Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State on Tuesday at the 26th edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit said, contrary to public perceptions that the ruling All Progressives Congress is not ready to push a policy from its campaign manifesto on true federalism, some members of the National Assembly have indicated support to convert the report into a piece of legislation.
El-Rufai who spoke at a panel session which has the theme, ‘Rethinking Sub-national Competitiveness’ said several members of the National Assembly have already approached him personally on the report and indicated their support to explore the opportunities of the current constitutional amendment in the National Assembly and push report as a private member bill.
“Our party appointed a committee to look into this issue in 2017 and said since this is a campaign promise, how do we convert it into a policy and a piece of legislation. We made broad recommendations. The National Assembly had an ad hoc committee on constitutional review and we encouraged them to pick the report in piecemeal and push a legislation on it. Some have approached me already on that.”
The governor, an influential member of the APC and a close ally of President Muhammadu Buhari, also explained at the panel that President supported the report of the party on true federalism when it was presented to him in 2018, adding that action was put on hold on the report by former APC chairman John Oyegun due to proximity to 2019 elections and fears of being politicised.
The governor, who raised several concerns with the Nigerian federating system, said the federal republic is only federal in name, pointing out that promotes overstretched and inefficient centre.
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“The federal government is so overstretched, and which makes it not be effective in doing so many things.
We need to look at our constitutional arrangements, give more responsibilities to the state and hold them accountable.”
According to the governor, “We need to have a very honest conversation on how to redesign our country to work better, for it is currently not working very well. Nigeria consists of 36 states. Nigeria can only make progress if the 36 states are making progress and pushing in the same direction. These are my views based on experience in public service.
The political culture as it currently stands does not lead to emergence of competent polical leaders,” he noted.
Politicians, he said, tend to weaponise division to gain political power, observing, however, that, “Once you divide people to get power, it is difficult again to collaborate to make progress.”
“Governors are chief security officers in name and are not in control of either the police or the military in the states.”
He further frowned at states’ over-reliance on federation transfers, raising concerns that it has made several of them lazy, as they do not work hard enough to realise the potential of revenue generations in their respective domains.
