Former Finance Minister Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu suggested that supporters of the regional government abandon the concept because it is unrealistic. According to him, the return to the regions, as in the case of the First Republic, is late. In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the former statesman begged the Igbo what to do if they were looking for their quest to produce the president in 2023 to materialize.
How do you see the state of the nation?
We believe that at that time we deserve to face this COVID-19 directly because we have our communities; we have our transport system by road, rail and air. Obviously, it was hoped that our internal security agencies could now find a way not only to deal with those already in the country, but also to save them from the outdoor raids of our borders through forces that are not meant to do so. to enter this country illegally.
For some of us, it becomes a sadness that we still hear about Boko Haram, banditry, AK-47 brandishing the so-called shepherds, because it is purely illegal. We anticipate that it will now be a genuine anomaly that this is part of the daily news, as was the case when shepherds bring weapons, where other people die everywhere, where other people are kidnapped on the main roads, where stories are told. other people camp in forests across the country, not in the southeast, southwest, middle belt, but in all northern regions. It is intended to be a primary country in terms of population, in terms of labour to be mobilized to protect citizens. The defense of citizens is a primary service as a government; takes precedence over everything else. We cannot say that Nigeria, however, has become a non-violent country where all these aberrations: kidnappings, murders, rapes, human rights violations, other people’s property are confiscated without recourse and, in any case, other people are killed. He deserves to be behind us now and distracts us from anything else. Nigeria has been a very peaceful country, a component of the unrest that led to the Nigeria-Biafra war and some of the other unrest. Number two; We have so many questions that persist about resource usage, deploying resources to bring the basics we deserve to have had. Twenty years or more, we deserve to have had blank water in homes across the country, education deserves to be almost absolutely loose now, given the resources we have and our ability to take credit for the resources we have; Leverage means that if you have a task to fulfill and you have 80 and you have to mobilize up to 100, you can mobilize because you are a developing country; the budget that you want to put into force your projects deserve not to be an impediment because with what you have you can mobilize with the personal sector, foreign agencies, grants, grants, loans to complement yours in order to get the resources you want to mobilize to achieve this purpose and then you will have a quality infrastructure – waterArray roads, communications, electricity, etc. and then all the facilities that you deserve to provide to citizens to provide to the citizens to achieve this purpose and then you will have a quality infrastructure – waterArray roads, communications, electricity, etc. and then all the facilities that you deserve to provide to citizens to provide to the citizens to achieve this purpose and then you will have a quality infrastructure – waterArray roads, communications, electricity, etc. and then all the facilities that you deserve to provide to citizens to provide to the citizens to achieve this purpose and then you will have a quality infrastructure – waterArray roads, communications, electricity, etc. , good enough homes, etc.
This is the moment of sadness and, of course, the third, which is the slowness, the unnecessary resentment, the discord that arose with the concept of pursuing our letter to make sure our letter works for us. Not only our statute, but also the disposition of our monetary duty under our federal formula and, of course, the power with which we would have used all the profits we have on gas, and especially oil with so many minerals. There are too many mineral stories that Nigerians ask: “Do we have all those minerals extracted illegally here and there, in addition to the classic minerals we had? This means that we have resources that have allowed us to reach a much higher level and a sustainable popular life than we have been able to do.
The political restructuring factor is the fourth; they’re all related. In fact, there is no explanation for why we deserve to have so many conferences, we deserve to be exposed, what do we need? I advised and many other people pooped because they didn’t start from my own premise. My own premise is that many countries can restructure and separate. Shamelessly, I prefer this country to succeed over its mistakes, build and use our heterogeneity as a force. As an individual, without shame, I will say, despite our history, that we deserve to give everything to this country, only if the building blocks agree that, yes, it is bigger to stay as we are, completing each other. with our heterogeneous resources. Arrange with our other perspectives, with our other tactics of dealing with problems, etc.
To do this, let us sit down and do anything about the multiplicity of our local governments; unsustainable local governments. Let’s reduce that number and have viable local governments. Choose a safe population length: 600,000; 700 000; 750, 000, etc. and divide the country into local governments. These are numbers that will allow us to bring to light projects of maximum progression in addition to the very heavy ones. You can reduce the number of local governments from 774 to about 350, for example. We are all local governments, if we can do that, where those local governments are giant enough to ensure the progress of each and every indigenous user of local internal government. Of course, other people may be loose to live anywhere they need and that’s why we have a letter that allows you to do it. But in terms of progression, entrust this position to some 350 local governments that are viable to some extent to satisfy everyone’s wishes: health, education, etc., small, medium, some degrees of infrastructure. The heaviest will now move to the state level. Once we have local governments of that nature, if we need to separate 25, 30, or 35 states from the 350 local governments, plus a federal center, we can do it. Once you have that local government to which everyone belongs, you have the right to vote and to be elected, they can mobilize and invest, they can pay their taxes, they can earn their source of income and they can live as full citizens. If we do that, it won’t be a nationality consultation.
I discussed 4 problems and their implications for the progression and sustainability of peace and orderly progression. These are things that other people like me are not so satisfied with; that we are still as far away as a nation. Look at all the resentment; we communicate about who the president will be, who will be this and that. We restructured into viable local governments, then states and administrative areas, maybe six, seven zones and a federal center with very limited powers and foreign, security, military, etc. Then, in state or local governments, you have the Local Police.
It highlighted some of the unrest facing Nigeria, although it has expressed its position, many continue to call for restructuring, decentralization of force and a return to the constitutions of 1960 and 1963, where we had regional governments that were the unifying units.
It’s 2020, it would be unrealistic to say, from 1960 to 1963. Nigeria is a larger country in terms of population. Whatever you can say, we now have a bigger economy; in fact, the largest in Africa. It is unrealistic and some other people are not happy with the idea: move back to Ibadan, move back to Enugu, move back to Kaduna. If we want to decentralize and delegate power, which is to progress, we create a more decentralized system. I look at it from a different perspective. Some other people would probably say they won’t settle for that and others might not. The first question we want to answer before we start a restructuring is: do we still want a country or not? It is as if other people no longer want a single country and it is not an Igbo consultation, where other people are agitated by Biafra; some claim the Middle Belt, some claim the Republic of Oduduwa, some speak of Arewa, but others have overlooked that the North was the first to call for the break in 1966. They started this. We deserve to talk about a country that ranks third in population until 2050, we are destined to be number 3 in population. This is a projection and is intended to be number nine in the first economy. We can do it in terms of population, that is, after India, China and this is Nigeria. We’d probably be up to 450 or 500 million at the pace of things. That’s what we deserve to be looking for; There’s no point in hunting in the 1960s and 1963s. People in the centers of progression deserve to be encouraged in their domains so as not to try to return to Enugu, Ibadan or Kaduna, etc.
We deserve to go back and have cartographers divide this territory into some 360 local governments; we can draw the map to put in the states, taking into account the heterogeneity of indigenous peoples and so on. What we deserve to focus on is development, taking the strength to increase the budget for the implementation of the allocation. This is what ordinary Nigerians need anywhere they live. People migrating from North to East; east to west and west to north, etc., what they are looking for is where they will operate, and they do not seek ethnic homogeneity, they move away from it. So we have to answer that question, do we need Nigeria to remain a wonderful country until 2050? Most Nigerians would probably say yes. Let’s set the field for thinking in terms of the future; Create viable local governments, get a comparable number of states that never tire; let’s create zones if necessary.
If this COVID-19 means anything, it deserves to force us to take a look at the raw truth of what is essential. What is essential are not igbo, yoruba, hausa fulani, ijaw, tiv, ibibio, etc., each and every country has these things. When it communicates about China, Europe, India, that’s what we’re communicating about; countries that are now going into space, March and we are communicating here about the Hausa presidency, the Igbo presidency, the Yoruba presidency, etc. It simply shows that we have our head screwed back instead of screwing, looking to the future. It’s absurd. We want to move away from this overriding concept of thinking in hindsight and communicating on viable construction sets that can move nigerians’ citizens forward so that we can now begin to have a more powerful country that can provide greater protections to Africans wherever they are. Look how our other people around the world are treated, look what’s going on in Latin America; Black lives matter. All this shows that there is a fault somewhere. You can’t count too many policies without bringing Nigeria. If Nigeria has acted in a combined country in the last 60 years of independence, it will not treat others in this way anywhere they are. These are the objectives we deserve to pursue; infrastructure, technology, education, learning, social and political organization that others can be proud of, this is where we start counting. As long as we keep running, nobody tells us. Kwame Nkrumah and others were communicating on pan-Africanism, where it is today, what sector can be said to have taken hold. Some Ghanaians interviewed on CNN said Nigeria deserves to have played a leading role in the oil sector. From now on, Nigerian oil corporations deserve to be the ones exploring oil with their African counterparts: oil engineers, etc., but look where we are.
2023 dominates political discourse. Some say the presidency stays in the North; while some insist that it turns south, arguing that there will have to be a rotation for a balanced federation, while others postulate that the Igbo have it. Where are you on this issue?
From what I’ve already said, it shows how primitive we are. What we want is a leader. A leader will have to get out of the political process. You must realize that you want to show leadership through the political process. I inspire many of our other people and they will verify it; you can’t locate a single party, regardless of that party, but you seek strength at all the bases of the protest involving the national leadership. This is how we are not going to do this on the eve of the elections and start the absurdity, as I said, of the Igbo Presidency, the Yoruba Presidency, the Hausa Presidency and the Peul Presidency. That’s where the game call is. Are you in the games that can get the leaders out? If you’re not in the one-off matches, what kind of magic do you use to get someone out and say, yes, because the force has been here and there, there will be that person. There’s plenty of time for the rest of our people to read the stage as it is.
It is counterproductive and absurd; that’s not really the kind of power argument to just say it deserves to happen here or here. Other people will have to worry about the political process. You can’t spend some of your time tying your back and during the election you say no, no, those other people have been in power, we deserve to come and rule in Abuja. In fact, we want to worry. There is no explanation why we deserve not to worry, we have been concerned: we have been a main player. So if we’re not now, we deserve to figure out why, and we have to force the stage through the political process. You can’t worry a match that’s obviously in a better position to get those who can win and you expect to dominate them and settle you down. It’s not genuine. It is smart that the factor is rising now; we have two years and a lot of time to restructure. There are establishments that some of us have helped put in position to allow our other people to organize to rebuild the East. Being in position, I wrote this article and I said, I am not writing this for the East, it is also what the West deserves to do, it is also what the North deserves to do because at the moment you rebuild, do not fight about the politics and the loot of the office, percentage of the national cake, but building the genuine sectors, infrastructure, communications, etc. By the time you build it on 4 other bases, the country becomes stronger.
Coming in 2050, when the world expects the third largest country to show leadership and we are talking about centrifugal forces, ethnicity and all sorts of things. It will be a wonderful shame and we will carry the weight of dropping our own career when we deserve to be up there taking the look-and-go table with India, China, Russia, United States, etc. It’s time to start planning. ; If you plan that, know that other people have to go back massively to education, science and technology, exploring areas, and they should be able to feed and supply the rest of the world with their food surplus because we have the land, everything. These are the problems, not all of igbo pre-connectivity, Yoruba pre-connectivity and hausa pre-connectivity.
These things seem very absurd, but there are political processes; there are procedures to make sure that this can simply be the herbal flow of things, not a special action, a special reward, a special pity to say, the Igbo person as president. It’s an insult as if President Igbo is less than any other president.
What we want is a leader who can take Nigeria to this committee of nations from which that user comes, and there is no reason, as I pointed out when I applied for the position, I say, outside the doors of the query as an Igbo User. Array, we’re looking for someone who’s a fashion leader, and no one will tell me that the West or the North are more capable of doing it than the East. You don’t have to call President Igbo because he’s from the east. I am looking for an elegant leader who will take the country as his own electorate; it’s better to start talking in those terms. We are 30 years from 2050; it can even take place faster than that.
So, from somewhere will you take the country to Eldorado?
Yes, and there is no explanation for why that user comes from the East. When you come from the East, do you make it a concession to the Igbo?
The Igbo continue to cry out for marginalization and accuse the existing government of not being fair to them; they cited the recent 640-kilometer Ajaokuta pipeline, Kaduna, Kano in which the southeastern one excluded. Percentage of your feelings?
It’s so absurd. I don’t have to talk about it as a bachelor project. You see that everything comes from the quality of leadership. This sharing, this sharing, this sharing is the mark of primitive government. If you have well-established governance, all of these are primary and planned projects, such as projects in a program. If planned as projects in a program, that program is intended to cover the entire country.
You can’t use things as vital as political punishment for any segment. Maybe we don’t have the facts. If you have a program, it can be implemented in stages, however, if the court cases come from the fact that you expect the first phase, and it comes and goes; Phase two will come, you still don’t worry, phase 3 will arrive and you’re still not worried, something’s wrong. This descriptive way of looking for assignments and investments shows that something is wrong with governance. It’s still a primitive way, if you do that, we do that, it doesn’t infrequently look that way. There are things that can paint for the East because the other parties would probably not have raw fabrics for that kind of thing: the oil and fuel industries. Take a look at putting them from a transfer point of view and from a profit standpoint, you’ll be paid to issue them instead of a singles area, even for security reasons, you issue them in all regions of the country. Out.
One of the stories about restructuring and leadership in Nigeria
Cosmas Omegoh, Lagos The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, the Reverend Alfred Adewale Martins, expressed his deep fear Array..
The Nigerian Diary
© 2019 The Sun Nigeria – Managed through Netsera.