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Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, weekend declared that the myriads of challenges bedevilling the country are not insurmountable. The governor urged Nigerians not to despair, but take useful lessons so that the nation does not continue to make the same mistakes over and over.
Fayemi
stated this at the University of Medical Sciences, Ondo, Ondo State while
delivering a paper titled: Re-thinking Nigeria For Future Development, to mark
the University’s combined 8th Distinguished Guest Lecture and 5th Founder’s
Day. He said: “The problems are generally symptomatic of the developing
nations. “Most of the challenges the country faces in its developmental journey
are part of the necessary developmental hurdles it must cross to get to the
desired destination.”
Fayemi described the existence of a unitary policing system in a defined
federal structure as an aberration. His words: “Nigeria is currently faced with
security challenges that include terrorism, banditry, armed robbery,
ethnoreligious issues and other low-level criminality. The country’s security
architecture remained ineffective because it suffers what one might call
“structural obesity. “Our political structure is something to cast a big look
into; many commentators have identified the kind of federal structure we run as
one of the reasons for our numerous challenges. “There is a general sense of
inadequacy and powerlessness among the federating units in the critical areas
of socio-economic development. “For example, many have asked questions as to
why the state cannot develop its rail system and it has to be on the exclusive
list, it is also argued that the idea of the national grid is the recipe for
energy crisis that we now have. “It is just elementary that if all of our
energy sources are on the single grid, the grid is bound to suffer constant and
consistent collapses and infractions. “Why do we have a national driver’s
license and vehicle licensing system when motor licenses are a municipal
responsibility of vehicle inspectorate department of the state ministries of transport?
“Why do we have a unitary policing system in a federal structure? Does it not
fly against reasoning that a state would have a state legislature to make its
laws, the state judiciary to interpret them, but would not have state police to
enforce the law. “I have always maintained along with my colleagues in the
South West Governors’ Forum that if we could trust the state judiciary to
discharge justice, which sometimes they stand against those in authority, why
can’t we trust the same state with the police to bring suspects before the
courts?” Fayemi, who is Chairman of the Nigeria Governor’ Forum listed the
problem of nationhood and slow economic development as the two major problems
facing the country, saying Nigeria has remained a deeply divided country along
mainly ethnic and religious boundaries. On stomach infrastructure, Fayemi said:
“The concept of stomach infrastructure was espoused by a barren political
demagogue, indeed, the confused intellectual arm of the society even found
justification for the ridiculous idea until it became clear to everyone that it
was a bit of nice idiocy. “We cannot continue to remain festooned to the
politics of tokenism; our politics must be defined by a grand understanding of
contemporary problems and the capacity to see it to the future. “We need to
draw away from the politics of antagonism based on the social attributes of the
individual. Our political thoughts should motivate critical debates on economic
policies centring on national institutions and anchoring on decent
engagements.” In his remarks, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State said
expressed surprise that Nigerians generally were not interested in the
development of the nation adding that we should not permanently refer to
ourselves as a developing nation.
Source: Vanguard
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