Resurgent regionalism, not a secessionist response – Fayemi

The Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has said that regionalism, as clamoured by some parts of the country, is not a secessionist response but a step aimed at enabling regions control the nature and pace of their development while still contributing to a broadly national progress.
Fayemi also advocated a review of the constitution such that states and local councils would be given the powers to legislate and act on basic areas that impact more on the lives of people, including education, health and water resources, while the Federal Government retains its powers on defence, currency policy and customs.
Delivering the 10th convocation lecture of Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State at the weekend, Fayemi said in tandem with the review, the revenue sharing formula should reflect proper derivation to resource producing regions, while provisions should be made for “a buffer fund” that would assist less resource endowed areas in the spirit of federalism.
He said: “For a holistic notion of development to become the raison d’être of the Nigerian state, there is need for a fundamental reform of the faulty legal architecture of the country through a constitutional process that will deal with powers and how they are shared across the various levels of government.
“Crucial constitutional reform issues that will facilitate such state-of-being include the devolution of more powers to the states and lower authorities by the re-composition of the Exclusive, Concurrent and Residual Legislative Lists in the Nigerian constitution.”
Fayemi, in the lecture titled: “Towards the Resolution of the National Question in Nigeria: a Regional Response”, said the national question has re-surfaced severally “in discourses pertaining to the erosion of the state and its failure to meet the needs of citizens, which are posed in terms of exclusion, marginalisation, and general injustice in securing and protecting the lives and welfare of the various groups inhabiting the national space.”
He added that “the power merchants of post-colonial states” manipulated ethnicity in order to consolidate their power bases and deal with the crisis invoked by the illegitimacy of their hold on power hence,  multi-ethnic power relations between ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ groups became a critical feature of the National Question as expressed in terms of disaffection with what is perceived as marginalisation and exploitation within the Nigerian State.
He stressed that the discourse on the national question arose from the faulty political architecture of the country as passed down from the period of colonial rule and was deepened by “a self-serving and rapacious post-colonial elite”, which not only privatized the state for personal gains, perpetrated bad governance and played up divisions to sustain its base, but promoted an authoritarian ethos that enabled poverty, violence and crime.
The governor stated that the case for regional cooperation and integration is predicated upon the need to find a more appropriate institutional mechanism for the promotion of consensus, management of diversity, and the mediation of conflict within an essentially plural society.
Fayemi asserted that any prospect for genuine democratisation and development in Nigeria needs to be anchored on regionalism in order to succeed, and this is apparent in the creation and enlargement of regional bodies in the past decade, such as the South South’s BRACED Commission, the Northern Governor’s Forum and the South East Governor’s Forum.
He however concluded that for regionalism to become a proper blueprint for governance in Nigeria, it needs to move beyond simply being an inter-governmental political solution to the demands of development to a constitutionally formalised mode of alliance across intending states in the country.
At the event, Governor Fayemi congratulated Miss Oluwadamilola Omoniyi, an Ekiti State indigene, who graduated with a First Class degree in Economics and Development Studies from the university, adding that the administration would always recognize and reward excellence among the citizenry.
In his remarks, the Deputy Chancellor and Visitor to the University, Chief Lucky Igbinedion, urged  state governments to set aside scholarships for bright students in the field of Science and Technology in order to promote and patronise local technology and enhance the socio-economic development of the country.
Igbinedion charged the grandaunts to contribute to the development of Nigeria as they pass out to join the nation’s workforce.