₦airaland Forum

You dont need ten years to transform a state if you are judiciously using the available funds for its purpose. It only takes a non corrupt mind to do justice

Twy you have said it all. Children are brought up to give unquestioning respect to elders and chieftains, even siblings who may only be 5 years older. Age and position suddenly become  tools for possible manipulation and oppression.

it, meanwhile, they can build the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge, another LCC property, which will be TOLLED, with $42 m of Lagos State Taxpayers' money.

Is "abject poverty" likely to be solved in just 4 or 8 years? How much did you actually expect to get done in that period of time? Rome wasn't built in a day as they say.

Truth be told, there is really only so much a governor can really do to solve a problem like poverty.

Now you are asking good questions. Notice I said Senate(the Nigerian people)

If Nigeria was truly practicing federalism and representative democracy, changing the constitution to institute state police will be the up to the Senate, but in Nigeria with our almost one party system. The Senate represents a small elite mostly from the same party. So there you are.

As to state paying civil servants or funding their operations you know the reasons for that, you are definitely not ignorant of the cap in hand state allocation system, resource control, right to tax and collect revenue including Port ( sea, land and air) right to establish power stations and other revenue generating utilities, right to determine state wages based on state income and revenue.

Listed above are just a few of the rights fully or Partially denied the states by the FG, it is not easy to run, budget, and plan your government with that kind of handicap. Do not forget that the power to maintain law order and appoint or hire law enforcement officers( a major component of economic development) also resides with the FG.

So, that is the situation my bro.  The same problem exist between the states and LG too, this centralized control enforced by our past military mis-adventurers should have been jettisoned, but your elites are too busy making money from the chaos to bother.

They will not give up easily. That is why I will never support non-radical leaders in Nigeria.

Very True, Apart from Lagos no other state can produce their own revenue internally. "They are nearly all entirely dependent on federally collected revenue for their stipends and overheads. At the end, they have nothing to spend on development. In effect, The creation of more states now could be read as underwriting an asset transfer from servicing the development needs of the country to funding the tastes of an add-on new elite in the beneficiary territories." Basically, many states in Nigeria are not meant to be states. They have no means of generating revenue and the allocation they receive are mostly spent on salaries living little to nothing for development or for a police force. Does Nigeria really need 36 states?

I know I'm now trolling but If a state like Ebonyi spends 70% [example] of her budget in salaries why can she merge with Enugu? Now Instead of only receiving 30% of the budget for development she will now receive 100% of the budget since they have no governor or civil servants to pay. But of course since she is now merge with Enugu she will probably have to share some of her exciting allocations with enugu. So at the end of the day Enugu may receive 30% more to her budget while the "ebonyi area" receive 70% of the former state Ebonyi's allocation. Every one wins and there is less bureaucracy and a higher budget to fund development such as roads, schools or even a police force.

Just my 2 Kobo

I already addressed that concern. That was the point of my first post.

Again, if you remove state police command and control from under the FG, it is reasonable to expect that the current funding or budget allocation for them will follow them to their states, cities or LG. Nor be so?

There is no need to banish federal police sir!

The American system we practice for the most part has a strong Federal police and law enforcement arm  (FBI, DEA, US marshals and others) while maintaining a strong and effective city, county and in many cases small state police marshals -all independent of the federal and existing together

Let us avoid that False Dichotomy. Both can exist together, one should not kill the other.

I'm sure you can come up with a better argument against state police. This one is weak shiiiit. Sorry

If The senate(Nigerian people) can take state police control and responsibilities away from the FG, it is only reasonable to assume that the current budgetary allocation for them will go to the state too.

In any case, true federalism demands that state police and more money go to the state. End of story.

I actually prefer local government police or city police. State police is not a strong enough reform for me

hank goodness Ibadan was the seat of then western regional government in Nigeria and still the capital of Oyo State. It does not take a genius to decipher what would have become the state of town of Lagos if not for federal capital. A good look at Abeokwuta should tell the whole truthful story.

@Knowall, There are places like that in all states of the federation.

@OP

The reason, among others, is individuals such as you who waste bandwidth in praises of Fashola who is the governor of town which served as the seat of federal government of Nigeria.

Railways: The Nigerian Railway Act forbids private individuals and companies from operating any form of rail transport and vests all control in the hands of the Nigerian Railways Authority, a moribund, corrupt and generally under-performing authority.

It means that Ghadaffi is better than all our clueless presidents both military and democratic

Unfortunately Nigerians are so disillusioned that they will prefer to praise mediocrity than risk having nothing at all. It happens a lot

How did he graduate? this is the question we should be asking, his school should also withdraw his certificate.