The Committee on Political Restructuring and Forms of Government at the ongoing national conference has voted to retain federalism as the best form of government for Nigeria.
Members of the committee agreed at the conclusion of its sitting on Wednesday that the federating states should be further empowered.
The 28-member Committee agreed that Federal government would hands off Local government as States would henceforth be empowered to create Local government they can maintain.
A former Minister of External Affairs and co-Chairman of the Committee, Gen. Ike Nwachukwu (rtd), while addressing journalists at the end of the committee’s deliberations confirmed that the delegates were against regional government.
He said, it was a consensus that any group of willing States can form a Commission to pursue a number of responsibilities within their spheres of influence.
These include economic development, good governance, equity, peace and security in accordance with the constitution of Nigeria.
“We agreed on the most vital aspect of our work that Nigeria would remain a federation, with the states as the federating units but the States can now be in charge of creating Local Government in their States.
“The Local government won’t be a tier of government but would be a creation of the State.
“We also agreed that the constitution would give recognition to the Local government.
“It was also agreed that the States may have a zonal commission that would look at certain of their areas.
“We are not proposing regional arrangements, right here, we decided that Nigeria will remain a federal state with the State,” Gen. Nwachukwu said.
On the need to reduce cost of governance under the arrangement of States being the federating units, the former military governor said he had nine Commissioners in the then Imo State now fragmented into three States.
He said, “The leadership of the State can decide to reduce its size drastically if it so wishes”.
Taking turns to speak earlier, members of the committee had canvassed various forms of arrangement suitable for the country under federalism.
Conference committee dumps regional govt, retains federalism
