Why I Fear For Nigeria —Ikuforiji

Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, has stressed that his fear for the future of Nigeria is borne out of the many challenges facing the country that now seem insurmountable to the Federal Government.

Ikuforiji, who was speaking as a guest at this year’s Congress and Third International Conference of the United Kingdom Chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in London, said the fear in the country now is that if not adequately and immediately managed, the situation could pose a huge danger to the sustainability of the country’s democracy “and possibly impede the pace of socio-economic and political development in the real sense of it.

“The problems of insecurity, excruciating poverty, declining social services and widespread corruption that have bedevilled our country over the years are essentially, the offshoots of several decades of bad governance which took its roots from our nation’s First Republic and became deepened during the prolonged military dictatorship that eventually raped and stripped our people naked with impunity.

“The lingering mutual distrust among major ethnic groups in the country as well as the incessant agitations by minority interests which in the recent times have assumed a more dangerous dimensions, are indeed, potent signals to all stakeholders of the Nigerian project that it is high time we paid attention to the clarion call for the restructuring of the Nigerian state and its power relations based on the principles of equity and fairplay.”

He said a major solution to the myriad of problems in the country is for Nigerians to renew the call for true federalism.

“There is no better time in our current democratic dispensation that we must invest our quality time to ponder on the ways and manners by which we could strengthen Nigeria’s democracy and work concretely to bring a lasting solution to the lingering problems of monumental imbalance in the allocation and distribution of our national resources than now.

“The dilemma of defective fiscal federalism has negatively impacted on the growth capacity of states and local governments within the Nigerian federation while the Federal Government has enjoyed undue constitutional advantage and powers to the detriment of other tiers of government, which are even closer to the people at the grassroot,” he said.

He recounted the history of the country’s revenue allocation formula, adding that the disparity in the formula was the reason behind militancy in the Niger Delta which has refused to abate.

“Even the amnesty initiative that was aimed at pacifying and rehabilitating the Niger Delta militants could not totally resolve the endemic problems of social dislocation and lack empowerment that the people have been confronted with over the years.

“It is, therefore, imperative for us at this juncture to emphasise that only a recourse to true federalism can genuinely lead us to our socio-economic Eldorado as a nation.

Ikuforiji commended the chapter for remaining steadfast behind the party and urged the members not to be deterred just as he further urged them to help fight for a special status for Lagos State as the commercial centre of the country.

—Eromosele Ebhomele