Photo credit: daraja press
What form of government is Nigeria practising?
Emm….emmmm….
Why are you emming the answer. The question is as straight as a ruler.
Isn’t it?
The question could be straight as straight itself, but the answer depends on where and when.
I’m all ears.
You see, in theory as printed in the constitution, we are supposed to be practising a federal system of government. It is supposed to be fashioned after the American presidential system.
However, in practice, it is more or less a unitary system.
For instance, all the state governors go to Abuja every month to collect allocation. I tend to think this has stopped the states from being creative.
In the first republic, there was a healthy competition between the regions. They went all out to provide the needful for their citizens.
By the way, virtually all the states in this country have at least one mineral resource or the other. The land is also good for agriculture.
I would rather we have a system whereby every state is controlling the resources within its territory.
That means we will have a weaker center. In fact, the states will end up taking care of the center.
If we have this, it will take care of all the divisive groups to a large extent.
The groups did not just arise. They arose mainly because some groups are feeling cheated.
Once we have justice in the matter of who gets what, the need for secessionist groups would have been overtaken.
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