CHAIRMAN of the Mr Governors’ Forum and Ondo State governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, on Saturday, charged the Federal Government to allow states in the country to control their resources and maintain their internal security while the Federal Government coordinates and not take over.
Akeredolu made the call at the 45th convocation lecture of ObafemiAwolowo University, Ile-Ife as guest lecturer on the theme: “When is a nation? Exploring the sociopolitical crisis in post-independence Nigeria.”
According to him, the states are almost entirely dependent on hand-outs from the Federal Government, saying no state is empowered to take independent decisions for the benefit of its people.
Governor Akeredolu, while making a case that the diverse ethnic nationalities in the nation should be allowed to thrive on their own, noted that Items such as education, health care, judiciary, police, prison services and resource control should be on the concurrent list.
He maintained that the Federal Government should divest itself of the too much burdens and allow the component units to flourish, adding that states should control their resources and maintain their internal security while the Federal Government coordinate and not take over.
“Approvals must come from the centre on virtually everything. This constitution vests all the lands in a state in the state governor who holds same in trust for the people. The incessant attacks on farmers by criminal herders, who destroy the crops of these long-suffering downtrodden members of the society, expose the impotence of state governors.
“Strange elements have been invading states to prospect for mineral resources without recourse to the authorities. Farmlands have been destroyed and the people are constantly exposed to ecological disasters to assuage greed.
“Unscrupulous elements grant prospecting licences to people who move into lands with marauders. The security of these states is compromised, heavily,” he said.
The governor, who identified adoption of a common language acceptable to all the ethnic nationalities as a medium of communication as one of the features of a nation, insisted that power must be rotated between the North and South.
He said he would be happy to see a southerner emerge as the president of the country come 2023, while noting that there is nothing bad if such southerner chooses to adopt Hausa language as the common language for the country
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