PUNCH
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dr Paul Ananaba, shares his thoughts with AYOOLA OLASUPO on the national minimum wage tussle between the Federal Government and Organised Labour, the debate over adoption of a regional government, among other issues
The issue of state police creation has been a bone of contention. While some people are asking for it, others oppose it. What is your view about it?
State police happens in other advanced societies and there is no reason why Nigeria cannot be said to have advanced to have state police. The point is that it is unsuitable because our founding fathers would have done it if we had practised true federalism. In that case, there will be issues that the state police and the central one should handle because for example, why do I need a policeman from Sokoto State in my village where he may not even understand the language, and the people using the native dialects can even trade him off?
In America, the language is almost centrally English. It is the same in the UK and France; they speak French. It is not here that we speak all kinds of languages and then, the man is policing you. The man policing you doesn’t even really understand the dialect. He is here for two weeks, and he has moved to another part of the country. So, that’s why as a person, I believe in devolution of power. We should re-examine the federal units of that federation.
Some people are saying that for the creation of state police to come into reality, there is a need for the country to restructure or amend the constitution. Do you also subscribe to that?
Restructuring must affect the constitution because it will affect section 9 and it won’t affect section 3. Those are the federating units in the constitution. I agree that the constitution should be amended. I agree that we should change it. This system is not working, and everybody knows it. Why should each region of the geo-political zone; the South-East, for instance, have five governors and five Commissioners of Education when there are Permanent Secretaries there? Why should the South-West have six governors when one governor is okay? You save a lot of money.
Are you saying that it will reduce the cost of governance?
Exactly, so that each region should now decide whether they will run by county, or by local government, or whether they will not have states. They will have common currencies and all that. That is federalism. For example, if a particular region is not interested in education, the other region may be the best in education, and people will go to school there. Then we will bring to an end the ‘feeding bottle’ federalism, where every month, people will go to Abuja to collect money from the Federal Executive Council.
The FEC will come to an end. You stay in your region and think of what best to do with your region without waiting for the Federal Government. Even corruption will come to a lower level, because who will you steal money from? No region will allow anybody to steal their money, not now that there is a national cake. You go to the centre, cut your own, and come back home. People will celebrate you because you stole enough.
Are you saying the country should go back to geo-political zones?
I support going back to geopolitical zones. Each geo-political zone should now decide if they want to create 100 states in their geopolitical zone, but whatever they create will not be the federating units. The federating units will be the six regions. The point I’m making is that the federating units should be the regional government. If they want to create a local government that is one billion, let them create. In my place, they used to say if you want to eat akara, you should eat from your pocket and if you pay from your pocket, you know how much akara you will eat.
But some people have argued that the local governments should be cancelled. Do you subscribe to that?
I think it is lazy reasoning that is causing that kind of argument. If we are going to be regions, they don’t even want to say that the local government will continue. We may decide to have counties in the regions and states. They may create their own states. Look at South Africa; it is an example of what I’m talking about. They have their regions; the Southern and Northern Provinces, Eastern Cape, Western Cape, and Northern Cape. The federating units have their local administrations and they run well.
Where did we bring these 774 local governments from? What our forefathers chose, we should not discard their wisdom. So, if the National Assembly goes for regions, I support regionalism in terms of geo-political zones. This clamour for the creation of states will come to an end. There will be no issue of the creation of states, marginalisation, and all of that.
Every region will go to work and what you get is what you have. Where did we bring our people from the national government to go to the Niger Delta to drill oil? Why should they go to Zamfara State to be interested in their gold or uranium and all of that? If it is a regional thing, they will not allow their minerals to be wasted.
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act (Amendment Bill) 2024 passed by the Senate prescribed death penalty for persons found guilty of trading hard drugs and narcotics. Isn’t the law too extreme?
It is the law that makes an offence a capital one and it depends on the country. In Asia, it’s a capital offence and in many countries, it is not. So, let’s not talk about that. But I don’t think we should kill people for drug offences, but there should be strict punishment because drugs are affecting humanity; changing man from what God made him to be.
What is your suggestion on that law?
Death is what we are talking about. It is a human being we are talking about and that thing called death is not reversible. So, we should value the sanctity of human life. Long imprisonment is a yes, but a death sentence is what I don’t support it.
The issue of kidnapping and killings has been on the rise in recent times. How do you think this can be addressed?
Much of the annoyance and the grievance of many of these kidnappers and all that, and the inequity you see in the practice of governance now, where evil triumphs. Somebody kidnaps and before you know it, he’s now flowing in money. He uses the money to buy votes and becomes a leader.
So, a lot of people will say that’s good, let’s go and try our luck. But in the regional government, where people know themselves, the centre is not attractive. Where will you start the kidnapping from? If people know themselves and anything happens, they will know who to sue and that will reduce it. So, kidnapping is on the rise, but there is no work.
Take for example, where you turn regions into federated units, they have saved so much money and they can do big projects and not just small ones because that money you used would have been used to do something reasonable. You are using it to run an administration, the recurrent expenditure. Check our budgets. The current expenditures are so high.
You maintain a government house and have up to six to seven government houses. When one government house can take care of that region, people will be impressed there in their region and those that do well will continue to excel. The ones that don’t do well, people say don’t go there. So, the Federal Government can easily fight the instability.
