The Spokesman of the Northern Elders Forun (NEF), Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has said states ought to be abolished as they encourage wastage of public resources that have no direct bearing on the populace and governors often work at cross purposes.
Baba-Ahmed spoke with Sunday Punch while speaking on the role of the northern governors in addressing the economic and security challenges confronting the region.
The NEF spokesman advised the governors to shun partisan politics and cooperate to address poverty, insecurity, poor education and other challenges confronting the region as one single unit.
“I will advise them (northern governors) to put aside partisan politics and adopt pan-northern policies in a number of areas. On insecurity, from Sokoto to Maiduiguri, from Katsina to Makurdi, northerners are insecure. This tendency for the 19 states to create their own policies is not helpful; it frustrates governance and it fritters away the goodwill of the citizens when they don’t see the government perform. So, the first priority for them is to rise above partisanship and to recognise the fact that virtually the North is just one region and everything that happens in Niger State happens in Taraba. They need to adopt common policies on insecurity, poverty and economic development. You need to have a common policy on issues of Almajiri and girl child education; these are important issues that should be prioritised.
“Talking about militancy, the Boko Haram problem, banditry and kidnapping, they (governors) must find a way of engaging the rest of the country. Unless they do this as northern governors, their weight will not be felt and their efforts will be wasted, because the rest of the country will not take them seriously. They need to remember that the Tinubu administration was voted in substantially by northerners. Tinubu got almost 60 per cent of his votes from the North. Northerners are very liberal, we are very open, and we are very democratic. We voted for everybody.
“All four (main) contestants got their highest votes from the North. The North must be a beneficiary of this administration and subsequent administrations, not just by virtue of this, but by virtue of the fact that the majority of the population lives here. Most of what we eat comes from the North. If you tamper with agriculture, you are not just tampering with the socio-economic health of the North, but you will actually be threatening the country. So, the North needs to understand its own strengths and weaknesses. The governors are immensely powerful. But if everybody goes his way; this one is legislating against open herding, this one is supporting another side in the quarrel, then they wouldn’t go anywhere.
“This is a problem that transcends state borders. I tell you the truth, if I had my way I would have abolished states. State boundaries are a liability. Nineteen states, 19 governors, you can imagine. Look at the amount of money we are spending,” Baba-Ahmed said.
Asked if he was advocating a return to a regional system of government, the NEF spokesman said, “Sadly, I will advocate some change. The North can’t carry 19 governors, 19 legislatures, and 19 judiciaries.
“When people talk about the cost of governance, it is a mistake to talk about the size of civil servants. It is in the amount of money politicians spend on themselves and steal. That is really where the cost of governance is.
“The people of the South-East complain that they have only five states. They are lucky that they have only five states. If they get rid of their insecurities and recover the ground that they lost in terms of being the industrial base of the country, they will be in heaven.
“They don’t have the number of governors we have. We have 19 governors, including the weight of the Federal Government. So, governance alone just takes a huge part of the resources of the North, and until we can find a solution to that – common policies, common strategies, an awareness of their own worth to the North, an awareness of their value to the rest of the country and an informed strategy for engaging the rest of the country.”