NO NEED TO GO BACK TO REGIONS OR ZONES BEFORE RESTRUCTURING .....Says Akpederin K. Ehensiri Esq.

Following calls for a restructuring of the entity called Nigeria, many have thrown their weight behind the move, saying that the time is long overdue.



While some have posited that Nigeria should be restructured on the old arrangement where the country operates based on regions, a legal practitioner, Akpederin K. Ehensiri, Chairman, People's Agenda Movement and also, the General Secretary of the Okpe Union in Delta state, says there is no need to go back to regions before restructuring is carried out.

It must be recalled that, one of Nigeria's former Head of State, General Ibrahim Gbadamosi Babangida had joined in the call for the country to be restructured to quell agitations from the various groups.

Akpederin speaks:

On restructuring of Nigeria, it should be primarily concerned with devolution of power from Abuja to the component units.

Many persons who suggest going back to the regions or its basis on 6 or more zones do so because of the view that the states are not viable. What will make the bigger entities automatically viable?

The problem is not the size of the component units, but on the powers and resources available to it. If the central government has access to only about 15% of the current revenue, while the states have about 85%, they will be able to  fund their local admin and develope their states.

What therefore is needed is for the federal government to be involved in only matters like defence, currency, national police, foreign affairs and some few other general matters, while the states handle all other matters including everything about local government creation and funding, state police, primary & secondary education (federal government colleges should be handed over), agriculture, and most other matters.

According to Akpederin, the states are to have their own constitutions which will determine the type of Local Government Area set up it desires and other basic issues and laws.

We don't need to go back to regions or bring strange bed fellows together before Nigeria can be restructured, he says.

There are many independent countries today that are not even as big or populated as most states in Nigeria. All the states are viable, it is the structure of Nigerian federalism that is killing them, the legal practitioner stressed.