The Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, has opposed the move to grant full autonomy to local government councils.
Soludo made his position known on Wednesday at the annual programme of Covenant Nation: “The Platform Nigeria.”
At the programme organised by the Lagos State-based church, the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria backed the proposal for a single term tenure for elected political office holders and proposed a single parliament National Assembly.
At the event themed: “Democracy and the Free Market Economy,” Soludo said: “Sometimes, these conversations about single term might begin to make some sense so that you fix it, whether you say four years or five years, six years, seven years, single term.
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“So, you are not thinking about the next election once you finish getting into this.
“I face that all day in my state.
“You want to get into this (project), they say: ‘No, wait, you know you have an election.’
“And I say: ‘No, let’s get it, if we get there, we get there and if we lose, we lose.’
“Funny enough, more recently, some people are arguing for the autonomy of local governments, including some APC (All Progressives Congress) persons, which would take Nigeria back many decades from what a true federation is about.
“There is no federal system in the world where you have three federal units.
“The counties in America where we copied (democracy), their local governments don’t go to the centre to collect money directly.
“Each state must have the power to design the kind of local government system they want.
“That is what true federalism is about.
“We need to tinker with the fiscal powers of the federal and state governments, devolve much of the responsibilities under the Exclusive List to the states, and at about 60 to 65 percent of the revenues to the states, with each deciding on the local system to adopt.
“Why not consolidate the National Assembly into one with no more than five representatives per state?
“We don’t need a National Assembly costing over N300 billion yearly to maintain.
“We don’t need it.”
On the economic front, the former CBN governor said though President Bola Tinubu did not cause the country’s economic problems, he has “the historic duty to mobilise Nigerians to clean up the mess for future generations.
“Nigeria faces fiscal quagmire and even technical solvency problems.
“Debt has piled to a level that leaves little headroom for more borrowing albeit at a very high cost.
“Yet, the needs of the citizens keep increasing in geometric proportion by the day.”
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