[b]Ayinla condemns agitation for the splitting of Lagos State

November 23, 2011 06:02PM




A former Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Jubril Ayinla, on Wednesday kicked against the agitation for the creation of Lagoon State from the present Lagos state.

Mr Ayinla, who spoke in Lagos, stressed the need to reduce the cost of running government by consolidating on the existing states, instead of creating more.

Agitation for the splitting of Lagos State into two is gathering momentum among politicians in the state.

Ayinla noted that even now, the resources available to Lagos State was inadequate to cope with its physical development, largely because a lot was being spent in running government.

“We have too many states in Nigeria; government is too expensive. If you start agitating for more states, then every home in Nigeria will become a state.

“I think we should forget about the creation of more states, instead, we should think of reducing government expenditure by putting the number of states together to have regional governments,” Ayinla said.

Regional governance would mean coming down to six regions, instead of the current 36-state structure which the retired naval officer believed was unwieldy and draining the nation’s resources.

Ayinla stressed the need to embark on the concept of a regional system of government, noting that the cost of running a state at present, would be enough to run a region.

He also kicked against the re-introduction of toll gates in the nation highways as a means of maintaining the roads, adding however, that “the country has a terrible maintenance culture”.

The former naval chief also said it could be appropriate to introduce a form of petroleum tax for the maintenance of highways.

According to him, government will raise enough money from the tax to construct roads of international standard and maintain them without necessarily re-introducing toll gates.


















Back[/b]

he is speaking for nigeria
while some people are speaking for thier pocket