Recently, there has been an agitation, calling for the restructuring of the country, many affirmed that this current structure of the country has not brought desired working of the 36 constituent states which to a reasonable extent is justifiable.
However, as desirable as the restructuring can be, there are still certain elements in this current structure where constituent states are still lagging and many blame the central government for such inadequacies of the exclusive power of state governors.In this current setup, governors have been getting an easy pass. They are not held accountable for many things which they have exclusivity for. Among such things is the issue of Basic education. Millions of kids are out of school in various States but we choose to blame the federal government. The governors cannot even ensure our out-of-school kids are taken back to school. For God’s sake, Basic Primary education which is the first level of education is the exclusive responsibility of states and local government, unfortunately, whatever is the responsibility of that level of government cannot be guaranteed to be done. Something needs to be urgently done. Even with matching grants, they have not tackled this monster.
Another eight years term is about to expire at the federal and state level and those kids denied primary education are probably 13 – 14 years old now. In a few years, they will be a menace to society.When there is a high unemployment rate in a State, we blame FG only. When a governor does not pay salaries regularly which eventually breeds poverty in the state, we blame the FG.They cannot invite companies to invest in their states, they cannot even ensure payments of salaries talk more of taking care of waste. They cannot make schools conducive for students. Is the federal government blocking all these?
The governor can decide to reside in Abuja every day and occasionally visit his state. He can decide to spend government monies on his political ambition or to install a stooge. He can decide to donate billions of naira to other states when his state is in dire need of money.
The blame shouldn’t always go to the federal government all the time. How has Lagos been able to do it, especially with what the state does with the state rapid response squad, a component of the Nigeria Police Force(RRS) since 1999? Let’s stop this excuse for the state governors.Lagos created Lagos State Waste Management Authority (Lawma) yet a state like Oyo and Ogun are still dirty. This same Lagos created LASTMA before other states took a cue from them. Let our governors wake from their slumber!Sincerely, when we want to get something done we look for a way, when we want to avoid it, we look for an excuse. Recall that Lagos was having Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of 600 million in 1999. I am sure you are looking at the IGR of Kaduna and how it has grown in the last eight years. What is their advantage?
The question is out of 36 states in Nigeria, how come it is only a few states that seem to be successful? Which means something is wrong with the whole system.I think we are getting to the root of the matter. Kaduna was not having this success story until Nasir El-Rufai got there. I was shocked the day Kaduna moved to number five on the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) list to the extent that it overtook Kano. Our governors’ have to brace up!
