The Governor of Borno State,
Kashim Shettima, has described the clamour for restructuring Nigeria’s
federation as an effort made towards “treating the symptoms, not the disease.”
According to him, restructuring
the minds of the people and the quality of governance was more important than
the issue of devolution of power.
He stated this during a chat with
the media at the weekend.
Shettima said: “My own take on
this restructuring debate is that we are treating the symptoms, not the
disease.
“Restructuring my foot; let’s
restructure our minds, let’s restructure our quality of governance. When people
are talking of artificial intelligence, when others are talking of robotics
engineering, of nanotechnology, we are talking of restructuring the federation;
our problem is not an issue of devolution of powers, let’s be very honest.
“Our problem, as Chinua Achebe
rightly encapsulated, is largely that of leadership. Leadership that will put
the nation first is much more important than restructuring the nation. Let’s
restructure our minds. Let’s restructure our quality of leadership,” Shettima
added
On the public perception of
federal government’s anti-graft war, the governor said President Muhammadu
Buhari was the leader Nigeria needs to overcome its challenges, with respect to
the anti-corruption campaign.
“No matter what you will accuse
Buhari of, nobody can accuse Buhari of corruption. He’s a stabilising factor in
this country, he’s a man of impeccable credentials,” he said.
Amid speculations over the
President’s decision to contest the presidential election in 2019, Shettima
believes President Buhari is the only one who has a say on such decision.
He, however, said that nobody can
force the President to contest in 2019, neither can anyone preventing for
running for a second term in office.
“That decision should be made by
the President; nobody should ask him not to contest, in the same vein nobody
should push him to contest. He has his own health to take care of, he’s not a
young man by any standard.
“The nation truly needs the
wisdom, the integrity, the commitment of the likes of Buhari but believe me,
whatever decision he takes, we are solidly behind him,” he said.
This man, you should not be too arrogant!The truth is you need to look at issues from two sides and come up with a superior view. I'm from Kogi,(north central Nigeria) I believe strongly in restructuring Nigeria to six regional governments with six governors. That will in a way reduce the overhead cost of maintaining 36 states governors, their commissioners and unending lists of special advisers and special assistants. Can you imaging the costs of maintaining their motorcades alone. It is taking so much from our resources. We need more money to fund education, health care and provide infrastructure. In addition to restructuring there should be devolution of power to the regional governments. The federal government should be in charge of military and foreign affairs. Regional governments should handle other things. Truth be told, the
ReplyDeleteEastern and Western regions of those days could have by now be closer to developing artificial intelligence etc had the northern dominated federal government not slowed them down by controlling everything that federal government should not have concerned her self with.