All hope not lost; We can still Reshape Nigeria – Atiku

Former Vice-President and chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has once more reinstated his stand on true federalism saying all hope is not lost yet as the rights of state affairs can still be re-written.

The Turaki Adamawa who was the Chairman at Chief E K Clark’s 90th birthday anniversary gala night at the Sheraton Hotels and Towers in Abuja also said we as adults, can re-examine our ways and practices to restructure the federation.

“But all hope is not lost. We know we can right the ship of state; We can, as adults, re-examine our ways, our practices, and the structure of our federation in order to find ways to fix its features which impede the development of this country and its constituent units, including the improvement of the welfare of our peoples”.

Atiku maintained that our challenge is to work fast and let this needed reversal occur while some of our illustrious sons are still much around.

“One of the privileges of sticking around for a long time on this earth is the right to say “I’ve seen it all.” Our celebrant, Chief E. K. Clark, has every right to, and can, really brag that he has seen it all. Who would deny that bragging right to someone who participated in the struggle for Nigeria’s independence and played a role in the First Republic politics? Who would deny him that right when he served the country as a Federal Commissioner in 1970s, a period which some regard as our country’s most affluent years since its independence?

“What Chief Clark has not seen though is a truly great Nigeria, a Nigeria that lives up to its full potential as an economic powerhouse, a thoroughly thriving democracy, with robust separation of powers among the three arms of government; a government characterized by respect for rules and regulations”, he said.

The former vice President pointed that for six years after independence, Chief Clark witnessed a federal system that functioned as one, one in which the federating units had control over their resources and agreed to surrender some powers to the centre on matters which are better handled by the centre, such as defense, foreign policy, immigration, national currency, and setting and maintaining standards; a federal system that encouraged healthy rivalry among the federating units.

“But then January 1966 happened, the military took over and over time all that changed. Progressively, the federal system was eroded; power got concentrated in the centre and more resources got shifted to the center. And the federating units got splintered into more and increasingly enviable entities that are dependent on the centre. Currently the federating units lack control over their resources and the capacity to develop at their own paces. Thus there is little healthy competition among them as they try to provide for their populations, populations that are largely detached from the primary source of government revenues. It is no wonder, therefore, that our country finds it really difficult to make appreciable progress in the key indices of development, and accountability”, he added.