Abbe states obstacle to true federalism

Major General Godwin Abbe (rtd) is a former Minister of Interior and later Defence, who few years ago, publicly announced his retirement from active politics to become an elder statesman. He spoke to Alemma-Ozioruva Aliu in Benin City.

President Buhari’s performance
I think the present administration has done extremely well, they have approached national issues most realistically and I believe that to the best of their ability, the nation begets the kind of leadership that they deserve and that is exactly what the present administration has done brilliantly well so far.

It has assisted us in stopping the drift that characterised the last administration. I believe that we should, as a nation thank, the Almighty God for helping us thus far because we have made a lot of mistakes.

The fact that the challenges in the north are being addressed to a reasonable extent means that the administration has done extremely well. If we were not able to bring the insurgency to their knees, at this point in time, it would have been a different song entirely for our nation by now. The issue of the economic challenges that we are faced with, I think every Nigerian should try and understand the situation and render the necessary support to this government so that they will be able to bring about the changes that will enhance the accelerated development of our country.

Then when you say common man, who is this common man, how did he come about being common, the issue at stake is that Nigerians will continue to complain, how many people are contributing? Take for instance the other day; somebody was talking about the price of tomatoes in the market. When we were growing up, we had small tomato garden at the back of the house in every house in Benin, there were small gardens but today everybody wants to go to the market. Every member of society must contribute in some form if we want our society to move forward.

Nigerian federalism
The controversy that is generating is reflecting true democratisation, as far as I am concerned. If every state and indeed every local government gets their acts together, then of-course this issue of not practicing federalism will not arise. The various tiers of government must contribute to it and the culprits are the states, they are not allowing the local governments to function.

Way forward
The states should allow the local governments to function. Federation Allocation from the Federal Government meant for the local government should be allowed to go to the local governments and the local governments should be supervised more. The local governments should be empowered the more, the states should be allowed to put their acts together and do the best they can to become autonomous of the Federal Government through their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and you will see that everybody will be home. Through this, one would be able to see the states that are lagging behind and they will be encouraged but in this nation, we cannot eat our cake and have it.

If we are going to remain united, what we are doing now is the best we can achieve for now because we are a conglomeration of several nations put together, we have to keep managing and building the democratic structure with national unity in mind.

So I congratulate Mr. President and every member of the ruling party for what it has been able to do to manage the errors of the past. The nation should pray that the future ahead of us should be brighter than the past.

Mr. President has shown resilience, has shown courage, he has shown dogged commitment to the course of this country and every well meaning Nigerian should pray for him and pray for the government. When we continue to build on the success that Buhari’s has made in the last one year, the country will keep moving on. Rome was not built in a day and there is limits to which you can continue to listen to critics because it is easy to criticise and when you give them chance they begin to flop but when they are out there, they speak long grammar.