General News
A Political Scientist, Prof. Gbade Ojo, has advocated for political and fiscal restructuring as a way of addressing the current federal arrangement in Nigeria.
Ojo, of the Department of Political Science, University of Ilorin, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Tuesday.
He also rejected the suggestion by Gov. Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti that Nigeria should embrace proportional representation in its political system.
Ojo, a former Chief of Staff to former Gov. Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State, said that what Nigeria required at this moment was political and fiscal restructuring, rather than proportional representation.
According to him, the country’s current convoluting federalism is not ideal for national integration.
“The problem is simply that of a structure that is defective, which has led to what is now known as federal immobilism.
“Political elites should be sincere to know that the current federal arrangement is defective and requires serious restructuring.
“The experience of the First Republic in which each region of the federation was autonomous, with a coordinated federal arrangement is what is required now, especially with the number of ethnic conglomerates that we have.
“The idea of proportional representation in this kind of a federal arrangement that is too centralized can simply not work,” the political scientist said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Fayemi, while inaugurating a road and a newly-constructed bridge in Ibadan recently, had called for proportional representation in the political system.
Fayemi, the chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Form (NGF), who was invited by his Oyo State counterpart, Mr Seyi Makinde, for the project inauguration, had said that a practice where the winner takes all was not healthy enough for the country.
The governor said that he had just returned from Kenya where he had attended the inauguration the country’s new President, William Ruto, who scored 50.49 per cent of the total votes cast to defeat his closest challenger, Raila Odinga, with 48.85 per cent votes.
Fayemi said that with the margin achieved by the opposition, they should be given an opportunity to partake in governance.
He said that he was looking forward to a day when Nigeria would allow the practice of proportional representation where the opposition would have representatives in government, based on their performances in an election. (NAN)
KN
Tags: Abiola Ajimobi Prof. Gbade Ojo
