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| Okogie |
The Archbishop Emeritus of Lagos,
Anthony Cardinal Okogie, in this piece, says those who wrote the Constitution
appeared to have in mind only a Nigeria awash with petro-dollars.
Nigerians are witnessing two scenes
of a drama.
Scene one is the drama of clamour
and resistance – clamour for restructuring and resistance to restructuring of
the federation, that is, if Nigeria can be called a federation in the proper
sense of the word.
Cardinal OkogieCardinal Okogie Scene two is
the drama of accusations and mutual accusations.
The party in power today accuses the party in
power yesterday of corruption, and the party in power yesterday accuses the
party in power today of the same offence.
These two scenes cannot be ignored.
What is going on, underscores the
need to be truthful about our past and our present, so that our future will not
be a continuation of falsehood and the corresponding failure to build a just
society. Terms of debate
The debate on restructuring is
cloudy, the drama heightened.
What is intriguing is that neither
side of the debate seems to know what the terms of the debate are.
Many of those who call for
restructuring have not been able to explain what precisely they mean by
restructuring.
By restructuring, some expect the reduction of
the current 36 states to six geopolitical regions.
Some others want the local governments to be
reduced or removed altogether.
At the same time, many of those who
are afraid of restructuring come across as people who do not know what they are
afraid of.
Certainly, there is a case to be
made for shrinking the size of government prescribed in our Constitution.
This Constitution was written by
persons who appeared to have in mind only a Nigeria awash with petro-dollars.
The number of government offices
provided for by the Constitution can only be maintained by a stupendously rich
Nigeria.
That was the Nigeria of the 1970s, the era
when the 1979 Constitution was drafted.
And the 1999 Constitution is substantially
identical with the 1979 Constitution.
They both reflect the squander mania
and prodigality of the period of their birth.
The size of government we have is
such that government is the largest employer of labour................Click on this link to read full story:http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/07/constitution-writers-mind-nigeria-awash-petro-dollars-okogie/
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