…Says all oil revenues squandered on recurrent expenditure

…Restructuring will halt Nigeria’s drift to a failed state – Anyaoku

…South-East govs have adopted Igbo position on restructuring –
Umahi

By Clifford Ndujihe, Deputy Political Editor


FORMER Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo and former Commonwealth Secretary General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Wednesday, dissected the state of the nation and returned a grim verdict: Nigeria will implode and become a failed state without restructuring. To avert the looming disaster, they urged Nigerians to make restructuring the basis for electing any party or candidate in the 2019 general election. According to them, the current structure of the country, which depends mainly on petroleum resources, and constitution has perverse incentatives for a productive economy, and diversification, if not restructured urgently will spell doom for the country.

They spoke, Wednesday, in Lagos at the maiden lecture of Ndigbo Lagos Foundation, to mark the end of the six-year tenure of Professor Anya O. Anya as president of the foundation, and refelect on what should be the role of the Igbo voter in the 2019 election. This is as Chairman of the South-East Governors Forum, Governor Dave Umahi, who was also at the lecture, said the five governors of the South-East are for restructuring of the country and have adopted the Igbo position, which was canvassed at a summit in Awka, two months ago. Chief Anyaoku, who chaired the lecture titled: ”The Political Economy of Retructuring The Nigerian Federation,” faulted the notion expressed by some people that restructuring Nigeria ”is a veiled campaign to dismember or weaken the Nigerian federation.” To survive, he said Nigeria should copy the kind of federalism practiced by India and Switzerland, which have similar pluralistic ethnic nationalities. His words: ”Since my return to Nigeria in 2000, I have been saying that, informed by my long association with governance in over 50 member countries of the Commonwealth, it is only through restructuring its governance architecture that Nigeria can achieve the national unity with political stability and economic progress that its citizens profoundly desire. ”Indeed, I do not see how the country can arrest its current drift towards becoming a failed state without restructuring to a true federation of fewer and more viable federating units with greater devolved powers to plan and pursue development and peace in their respective areas. Eminent personalities at the lecture included Igwe of Oko, Professor Laz Ekwueme; former Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Allison Madueke, retd; Publisher of Vanguard Newspapers, Mr. Sam Amuka; Elder Uma Eliazu; Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State; Chief Ziggy Azike; Mr Cosmas Maduka; Mrs Stella Okoye and Mrs Kate Onyechere among others. Delivering his 12-page lecture, Professor Soludo outlined a litany of reasons Nigeria must be restructured urgenty. The reasons include: Nigeria’s constitution, which he said is an inappropriate Meta institution for a productive economy, institutional dysfunction and circular stagnation, unviable states and inability of 30 of the 36 states to pay salaries without federal allocation, over-dependence on oil revenue, and disincentive for economic diversification among others.

Nigeria suffering from oil structure disease

He said the overarching case for restructuring is economic. ”Restructuring should provide the necessary foundational meta-level socio-political-governance architecture for the emergence and sustainability of a secured and prosperous post-oil economy… ”Nigeria’s meta institution, its Constitution (legal-political-governance architecture) is designed to share and consume the oil rents and has perverse incentives for a productive economy. Oil or natural resource boom is known to cause the appreciation of the real effective exchange rate thus harming the economy, and this has been reffered to as the Dutch Disease syndrome. Ours is beyond the Dutch Disease. We also suffer what can be described as a Lottery Effect – a syndrome whereby a hitherto hardworking person wins a lottery, quits his job and restructures his family’s lifestyle around the consumption of the lottery money; breeds more children and each with guaranteed allowance from the lottery money; and centralises decision-making in the family such that the children never have the experience to take up challenges and mature in the process; etc. At adulthood, the children have developed a dependent/entitlement mind-set and the ageing dad can no longer cope while the lottery money can no longer service the bloated livestyle. Instead of the lottery windfall aiding the family, the arrangements designed to utilise it might turn the Lottery into a curse. ”The above is a caricature of Nigeria’s experience with oil and the institutional arrangements to share and consume it. A combination of the Dutch Disease syndrome and Lottery Effect produced what I refer to as Nigeria’s Oil Structure Disease. Until we wean the system of this Disease, Nigeria’s economy will continue to sluggishly muddle along. This structural disease is the key reason Nigeria’s quest for economic diversification over the decades has been moving in fits and starts.”

The way out

To solve the problem, Soludo said there are three types of restructuring: soft restructuring (amendment of the constitution to allow state police, scrapping of local councils and resource control, etc) as recommended by the All Progressives Congress, APC, Restructuring Committee; and Hybrid restructuring (negotiation of a new constitution with regional auttonomy within the federation); and hard restructuring (confederation or outright independence for any desiring part of the country.) He identified hybrid restructuring as the best for the country and urged political leaders, who he said have developed inertia to act, to carry it out. He also observed that those benefitting from the current structure do not want restructuring. Noting that restructuring will have short to medium winners and losers, he added that everyone could potentially win in the long run.

Oil money revenue squandered on bureaucracy

He argued: ”For a constitution that proclaims a federal structure, the exclusive and concurrent lists constitute an atypical concentration of powers at the centre. Currently, the federal government is burdened with hundreds of parastatals and agencies trying to inefficiently micro manage the entire Nigeria, with recurrent expenditure of the federal government exceeding total federal revenue. Every penny of capital spending by the Federal Government of Nigeria is borrowed, and its fiscal position is precarious. Put starkly, not one kobo of oil money is invested in infrastructure by the FGN; it is all consumed by the obtuse federal bureaucracy. Unless we assume that oil boom will rebound and endure, devolution is a matter of survival for the FGN and the national economy.”

Cc myndd44
Cc lalasticlala
Cc Seun
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/2019-poll-a-referendum-on-restructuring-soludo/

[b]We also suffer what can be described as a Lottery Effect – a syndrome whereby a hitherto hardworking person wins a lottery, quits his job and restructures his family’s lifestyle around the consumption of the lottery money; breeds more children and each with guaranteed allowance from the lottery money; and centralises decision-making in the family such that the children never have the experience to take up challenges and mature in the process; etc. At adulthood, the children have developed a dependent/entitlement mind-set and the ageing dad can no longer cope while the lottery money can no longer service the bloated livestyle. Instead of the lottery windfall aiding the family, the arrangements designed to utilise it might turn the Lottery into a curse. ”The above is a caricature of Nigeria’s experience with oil and the institutional arrangements to share and consume it. A combination of the Dutch Disease syndrome and Lottery Effect produced what I refer to as Nigeria’s Oil Structure Disease. Until we wean the system of this Disease, Nigeria’s economy will continue to sluggishly muddle along. This structural disease is the key reason Nigeria’s quest for economic diversification over the decades has been moving in fits and starts.”[/b]


Only a sound mind will understand this not all this dancing senator,Kemi Oluwole and Gucci majority/minority leader from that waste side of zoogerian republic who see professors as entitlements based on quota system Smh

The way forward

Should be a referendum to break up. Tired of this Sithole meeen.

I and millions of Igbo support hard restructuring that's breaking up of this shithole or black area! #support division of the country.

The north is benefiting from the current structure , so they will never agree to restructuring .

say no to restructuring,

what restructuring will be better than aburi accord?

What did yorubas do when the northerns broke the agreement,if not joining the north to kill igbos,

to hell with restructuring,i would rather support war than supporting their noise making they called restructuring.







God bless the land of the rising Sun.