Nigeria has two problems, they are both listed in the following write up, they are to be exact the reason why the states cannot be developed. [size=16pt]The states make up 99.92% of the country so solving the problem of state development is effectively solving the Nigerian problem.[/size]

Being a paper presented at the Island Club, Lagos Business Session, on Wednesday, April 9, 2013.

THE Island Club has created a niche for itself as a platform for the generation of great ideas which have helped to foster national unity and development.

Therefore, I feel highly honoured to be considered worthy of delivering this lecture which dwells on a topic that is dear to us all as citizens of this great country, Nigeria.

It is my pleasure to speak on the challenges of state development within the context of Nigeria’s federal system.

Let me begin this section by relaying a recent experience of mine. I was at the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently to speak on the investment opportunities in Oyo State. The Chairman of the occasion was a former Secretary of the Commonwealth Business Council. He provided an insight that many critics of the investment drive of State Governments hardly think about. He said Nigeria, with its 36-state structure, presents 37 different opportunities for investments in Nigeria. These are the opportunities offered by the Federal Government and the 36 States. The moral in this is that, as a federal entity, the 36 States have individual and peculiar needs, challenges and opportunities. For too long, many of us had placed the onus of the development of Nigeria on the Federal Government. My personal experience as a senator at the federal level and Governor at the state level is that the state shares as much, if not more, of this burden of development as the Federal Government.

One major lesson that the democratic dispensation has brought into bold relief is that the state, as a tier of government, has a duty to develop its own vision and mission and design strategies to advance its development, within the context of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The days that the vision and mission of state governments were espoused in the national budget as it was under the military government are gone for good. Every state has a responsibility to work for its development within the confines of the national policy for development.

Permit me to confess that you will never know the depth of the rot in a government until you get in there. On assumption of office on May 29, 2011, I found out that the rot I had complained about in the government we inherited was a tip of the iceberg. It also soon became clearer that the speed at which we could pursue our vision for Oyo State also depended, to a great extent, on the constraints of the federal system of government in place in the country. It is against the background of the inherited ruins in government and the limitations of the federal system that we embarked on the project to Tranform, Restore And Reposition Oyo State.

The adoption of the federal system of government, as enshrined in the Lyttleton Constitution of Nigeria in 1954, was borne out of the conviction of the founding fathers of Nigeria that, as a country of about 350 ethnic nationalities, the federal system is the best form of government that will allow our peoples to protect their peculiar cultural identities and develop at their respective paces. However, the trajectory of Nigerian federal setup has altered the vision. The consequence is a federal system that has become a burden on the Federal Government and a drag on the development of the constituting units.

The core element of federalism is the existence of a system based on the sharing of power between at least two levels of government (federal and state) that allows each level to make final decisions on matters concurrently and exclusively. The core federal principle has the following core characteristics : No level of government is subordinate to the other; The two or more levels of government operate directly and simultaneously upon the citizens; There is a written constitution which is supreme – amendments, especially on matters related to the formal division of power should not be the exclusive preserve of one level of government; There is an independent and supreme court which serves as final arbiter in constitutional disputes; The levels of government, especially state governments, should have reasonable levels of viability and relative economic autonomy both to ensure that they are able to perform their constitutionally assigned functions and that they are not subordinate to the other level; and the constitution does not contain a secession clause that allows federating units to secede at will and does not also grant the Federal Government emergency powers that can make the states subordinate when used.



These features cannot be said to exit in contemporary federal system in Nigeria. I will highlight three areas in which our contemporary federal practice hampers, rather than advance, development in the States as a tier of government.

The first is the revenue allocation formula. As you are all aware, Nigeria’s federal structure comprises the federal government and the 36 state governments. There are also 774 local government areas which serve as the third tier of government. The federal government takes 52.8 percent of all federally collected revenue. The 36 States share 26.72 percent while the 774 local councils share 20 percent.

The implication of this is that the Federal Government is surfeit with resources while state governments face serious financial challenges. This is in spite of the fact that the states are responsible for basic needs that impact on the social well-being of the citizens and the development of the states.

For instance, the issues of education, health, infrastructure and even security, at the state level, are borne more by the states rather than the federal government. I give you an instance. The federal government caters for about 50 Secondary Schools and 40 Universities. Oyo State alone caters for over 2,000 Primary Schools, over 700 Secondary Schools, one (1) College of Education, one (1) College of Agriculture, one (1) Polytechnic and one (1) University. The State also shares responsibility with Osun State for the finance of the Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomoso.

This responsibility for hundreds of educational institutions, especially at the primary and secondary school levels, is replicated in the states. For the development that we seek as a nation, we need to put more resources in primary and secondary education than the states can afford to do at present.

The second feature of our federal system that hampers the speed of development in the States is the constitutional delineation of power between the Federal Government and states governments. At present, the Federal Government controls 68 legislative items under the exclusive list and shares 24 with state governments on the concurrent list. Apart from the fact that the long legislative list raises issues of effectiveness at the federal level, given the expansive nature of the country, many of the items could be better executed by the States, rather than the Federal Government. Such matters include education, health, and even provision of public infrastructure within the States. For instance, rather than appropriate funds to the Federal Government to provide township roads, would it not be better for such monies to be appropriated to states that are in daily contact with the townships and their needs?

Finally, security. The foundation of all development is peace and security. This in essence puts the burden of security on any state government in search of development. But security has been made the exclusive responsibility of the federal government. The states face enormous security challenges but are armstrung by present constitutional provisions. We need to rethink the constitutional provisions on security for efficiency and effectiveness.

In general, the anti-federal provisions in Nigeria’s federal system include Large number of matters on the exclusive legislative list; Limitations to the competence of States in matters on the concurrent list (by which state laws are constitutionally rendered null and void to the extent of their inconsistencies with federal laws); Provision of emergency powers that allow the Federal Government to take over the affairs of states; Over-centralization of control of the Police; Provisions on local government that allow federal interference.

Extant laws that are anti-federal include the Land Use Act; the Laws on Petroleum and Gas that give these resources to the Federal Government; the Federal Inland Revenue Act of 2007 which empowers the Federal Inland Revenue Service to collect revenue for the three tiers of government, the Monitoring of Revenue Allocation to Local Government Act of 2005, which compels states to set up joint local government account committees and empowers the federal government to deduct from funds allocated to States money they failed to pay to local governments in the previous year.

The Experience in Oyo State:

The vision of our administration, despite these constitutional constraints, is to create a society in which everyone can be the best he legitimately desires to be. Our focus is the provision of an efficient public infrastructure and urban renewal; human capital development through education, skill acquisition and efficient healthcare delivery; development of value-chain agriculture and agro-allied industry; improved security and peace as well as good and transparent governance.

It is my pleasure to acknowledge that even our worst critics have admitted that we have done well in the delivery of our promises in these areas.

Let me use this platform to acknowledge the commendations we have received from far and near for the successful urban renewal initiative in Ibadan and other parts of Oyo State. Let me state with all emphasis at my disposal that we are just beginning. We are determined to make Ibadan and Oyo State in general attractive and inviting to investors and tourists. Next month, we are going to commission the first indigenous flyover in the ancient city of Ibadan. We are at present dualizing all the major entry points to Ibadan and other notable towns like Oyo, Ogbomoso and Iseyin. In 22 months, we have rehabilitated over 250 roads across the length and breadth of the State. We are still counting.

When this administration came into office, Oyo State was number one in the league of states afflicted by the menace of insecurity and violence. In 22 months, through the engagement of stakeholders, the establishment of the State Security Trust Fund and firm refusal to encourage the politics of brigandage that defined our predecessor administrations, we have established Oyo State as one of the most peaceful states in the country.

Our administration also identified the major challenges in the education sector as infrastructure decay, personnel inadequacies and monitoring needs. We have embarked on a massive rehabilitation of classrooms to make our classrooms comfortable for our children. At the last count, we have provided additional 67,000 pairs of furniture to cater for 134,000 pupils in our secondary schools. We have trained over 6,500 teachers and promoted 12,076 teaching and non-teaching staff in public secondary schools in the state. We have also entered into a partnership with the University of Ibadan to provide efficient monitoring and supervision of personnel in our schools.

We have paid N350 million each year in 2012 and 2013 as WAEC fees for our students. We introduced extra-mural classes for our final year students. In the last WAEC examination, Oyo State moved from the 34th position of 2011 to 24th position. We are determined to put Oyo State in the first 3 positions in WAEC examination.

Beyond secondary school education, we have provided the necessary facilities and secured the accreditation for the Oyo State College of Agriculture to offer Higher National Diploma programmes.

We also established the Technical University, Ibadan to offer courses that are at present not offered in Nigeria like Robotic Engineering, Underwater Engineering, etc.

Next week, we shall be signing an agreement with the University of Texas, United States of America on the programmes of the university. In the scheme, our students will share their four years in the university by spending two years in Ibadan and two years in Texas, the United States.

We have provided 20,000 youths with intervention employment. We are also exposing them to leadership and entrepreneurship training to equip them for the contemporary challenges of the economy. About 500 of the youths are being exposed to training under our Young Farmers Scheme, through which we are encouraging our youths to take advantage of the business opportunities in Agriculture. Still on agriculture, about four weeks ago, we made history by providing 320 tractors to our farming population in the quest to take advantage of our 38,000 square kilometers arable land.

We have constructed seven new earth dams across the state; rehabilitated three existing earth dams and provided agriculture loans to thousands of farmers.

Our women have received special attention of this administration. Two of the three arms of government in the state —- that is the legislature and the judiciary —- are led by women. We have seven women in our cabinet and 10 female Permanent Secretaries. In the area of empowerment, 396 grassroots women have received financial support for their businesses. Sixty-six women from the rural areas have been trained in Bee-keeping while 120 indigent women were trained in locust beans processing. About 400 women have received training in modern catering and 200 of them were given sundry business equipment to set up small scale businesses.

This administration has paid workers full 13th month salary for two consecutive years since coming into office. We have also trained over 15,000 public servants in two years. We have increased housing loan to civil servants by 100%. We have increased car loan to civil servants by 100%. We have increased pension by 142% and have paid backlog of pension accumulated for five years by predecessor administrations. We have introduced free transport services for workers in the state and removed the barrier on the path of Chief Typists who can now rise to level 12 by virtue of exposure to ICT training. We have also introduced life Insurance Policy for our civil servants.

On health, we have commenced the rehabilitation of our general hospitals and the provision of medical equipment in them. Only last week, we approved the procurement of hospital equipment worth N604m for Adeoyo General Hospital, Ibadan. We have also introduced the public-private partnership in the provision of some services in the hospitals to enhance efficiency. We have introduced periodic health outreach missions through which we take healthcare delivery to the doorsteps of our people. Over half a million patients have been treated under this scheme. We have also introduced 34 ambulances at critical points across the state to help in the evacuation of emergencies cases to our hospitals. Finally, we have rehabilitated 66 primary health centres to give life to our vision of taking healthcare delivery to the grassroots.

Conclusion:

We can do more than we have done if the constraints put on states’ capabilities in the federal provisions of our Constitution are removed.

In summary, we need to review our Constitution to grant responsibilities that are best performed at State level to the States. This should be complemented with concomitant amendment to the revenue allocation formula to free more resources for the states to discharge their responsibilitie

Abolishing local governments and turning them into completely state dependent districts is best, they are unnecessary and complicate things for the state governments who should be the driving force behind Nigeria.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=119366:the-challenge-of-state-development-in-federal-nigeria&catid=72:focus&Itemid=598

I wonder why no Nairalander is commenting on this good post