When and how did we get it completely wrong? I mean, how can we as a people, a nation, completely lose focus? Governance has been reduced to one big comedy show filled with power tussles, propaganda, and slug fests between opposing political camps. The entire nation has become so glued to this show airing round the year non-stop and people no longer discuss issues or ask key questions. As a result, our politicians are running wild and our dear nation keeps crawling and creeping instead of advancing in leaps and bounds.
I have an issue with the way our states are being run with governors shirking their core duties with impunity. The way we practice our version of federalism is appalling. It is a situation where every state governor is fully focused on the central government, refers all matters to the central government, waits for the central government, and even lives in the federal capital. Most, if not all, states of the federation have been reduced to glorified administrative units of the federal government. They basically process payroll and occasionally execute one or two non-economic or social impacting project(s) that they later use to embark on sustained media propaganda with the widespread, now famous tagline - dividends of democracy.
Apart from Lagos state, most states of the federation depend solely on allocations from the central government and do not generate or intend to generate enough internal revenues to prosecute any appreciable social and economic development. Everyone waits for the federal government to take them to the long awaited promise land.
To refresh our minds, a federal system of government simply means that governmental powers are shared between the central government and its components - state and local governments. The federal government simply sets the policies and is in charge of security and defense. The rest of the work (and that is a whole lot) lies with the states. States and LGAs are assigned primary responsibility for the delivery of basic public services like primary education, primary health care, potable water and sanitation, and local roads linking communities to schools, health facilities, markets etc. Lagos state is a case in point. Pipe borne water is almost non-existent in the entire state apart from areas like Yaba, Surulere, Ikeja and environs where laid by the colonial government. Primary schools and secondary schools are in a terrible state and primary health care facilities are far from adequate.
The argument usually comes up that the current situation with our federalism is far from perfect. The federal government in Nigeria encroaches upon the jurisdiction and sovereignty of states and we are yet to get our fiscal allocation policies right hence most state cannot achieve much given the financial restrictions they face. My response to this is that even with this backdrop, state governments can still do a whole lot. If each state focuses on one sector at a time, a lot can be achieved over the years. And in any case, most state governors, past and present, have been accumulating enormous amount of debt burden on their respective states. What exactly have they achieved with all these loans?
Expecting the federal government to solve all our existing problems is like expecting a manager to do eighty per cent (80%) of the work for his direct reports. It should be the other way round. It is high time our people wake up from their slumber (and while awake avoid being completely sucked into the soap opera on show at the federal level) and start demanding more from their state governors. These people should be held accountable for not bringing about some level of progress in their states.
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