In like manner, Sanusi picked holes in our presidential system, which he also said is very expensive and unsustainable. “When one thinks of reflecting on the problems of the country, it tends to stand common sense on the head. You sometimes wonder if anyone needs to tell any group of persons you don’t need 36 governors, 36 deputy governors, each with commissioners, special advisers, a president, his vice, 36 ministers and the likes. Simple arithmetic would tell you that if you have this structure, you are, first of all, doomed to spend 80 per cent to 90 per cent of your earnings in maintaining these public officers. This is really common sense but it is a big problem in Nigeria. “I remember as the CBN Governor when I raised the point that 80 per cent of government revenue was being used to maintain one million public officers, leaving 20 per cent for over 160 million Nigerians, my state governor reacted by saying the Federal Government was planning to recruit more people. “The situation we are in isn’t an unforeseen one so we need to go back to the basics and basic common sense by tailoring our political system to the level of development and resources of the country. We have to ask if the resources are to pay political office holders or provide services to the people? We need to free up the resources and invest them so as to free ourselves from these problems we’re having.’’
In the same vein, the Awujale said: ‘’The governance of the country has been a matter of serious concern for many years now. As most of you are very aware, I ascended the throne some 56 years ago at a time Nigeria was getting ready for self rule that was attained on October 1, 1960. At that time, there were three regions, namely the western, eastern and Northern regions and the Federal Government, each with its own Constitution. Later came the Mid-Western Region, with all operating a federation under a federal system of government. ‘’However, with the military coup of 1966, the federal system of government was replaced with a unitary system of government with concentration of powers and resources at the centre a situation that brought about a bitter struggle among the political parties for the control of the centre. The situation became worse during the oil boom years which further fuelled corruption. “Consequently, it was only those who had direct or unfettered indirect access to government treasury and assets that controlled politics and election and ultimately, the government. The greatest danger of course, was those who otherwise would have genuinely served the country were discouraged as politics became petty, dirty and corrupt. The economy was in shambles coupled with decaying infrastructure, and the steady decline in the quality of education among others, while the private sector became a mere onlooker, having been frustrated by bureaucracy and ineptitude. This has been more or less the story of Nigeria since independence. ‘Why I endowed the professorial chair’ ‘’Some of us who have observed unfolding events with keen interests over the years have all but given up on Nigeria.
But we cannot. The deep patriotism that flows in our veins will not allow us to give up on Nigeria. That is one of the reasons for the endowment of this Chair. It is my fervent hope that the discourse, research and innovative thinking that the Professorial Chair will stimulate will help the next generation lift this country out of its seemingly intractable problems. ‘’It is therefore my belief that for a lasting solution to these teeming problems, the youth must actively participate and be positively engaged in bringing about good governance; starting now.’’ Fraudulent election gives rise to awuuf leaders —
Osoba On his part, Osoba said: ‘’When government is elected fraudulently, it is an Awuuf government. When local government elections are being held and it is massively rigged, they will elect Awuuf leaders. ‘’I keep wondering what is the pedigree of those we elect as leaders today? What have they done with their lives before going into any elective positions? What have they managed? These are part of the problems that we have with governors today, in my days, I was elected by open ballot system, I and Adebanjo quarrelled because he said it is not my turn and I told him I will prove to him it is my turn. At that time, people queued and their votes counted, we have to abort the idea of governors elected fraudulently. ‘’I am not a lawyer but I was shocked by the Supreme Court ruling on Akwa-Ibom and Rivers states. Technically, the card reader was not entrenched in the Constitution and as a result of that, they gave judgement. However, we know that the card reader recorded 200,000 votes in some states and results given in some of the states are 1.4 million votes. So with such moves, we are electing governors by Awuuf. ‘’I cannot imagine a governor sleeping successfully after cornering allocations belonging to the local governments, it is unfair and unjustifiable. We are denying the local governments funds and when we call for elections, they won’t allow our votes to count. In my time, we used to send money to local governments to pay salary, so when we have governors who are collecting uncountable security votes and they are not securing anything what type of governor is that? Such governors have no pedigree and they have nothing to show for the huge amount they collected. “The National Assembly must legislate on the issue of card reader. I am not impressed with Professor Attahiru Jega, he introduced the card reader and he should have announced to us that in each of these states, this is the number of accredited voters and not the bogus millions of votes announced in states like Rivers and others. So we have to go back to the card reader and let it be stated in the electoral act. INEC must announce the number of accredited people at the end of accreditation which is 3pm, each local government and states will know the actual number of accredited voters, anything beyond that should be thrown out.”
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