Nigeria needs administrative restructuring, says Uduaghan

Following lack of consensus and divergent views among Nigerians on restructuring, former governor of Delta State, Emmanuel Uduaghan, has canvassed ‘administrative restructuring’ of the country for greater development.

Uduaghan explained that restructuring meant different things to different people depending on their background, which he said, had made it difficult to reach a consensus on the subject matter.

Uduaghan stated this as a guest on The Discourse, a programme on Classic FM in Lagos.

Uduaghan, who was Delta State Governor between 2007 and 2015, pointed out that since there was no agreement on restructuring, achieving it would be an almost impossible task.

“Restructuring means different things to different people and that is why we cannot be talking about restructuring or achieve restructuring as a country.

“Some people see restructuring on a geographical basis. Let us just build this country into several states and all that, let us merge some states you know, some parts of the country have taken all positions in government, all the appointments belong to one part of the country or we need to redistribute them. They look at restructuring from different geographical issues.

“But l look at restructuring on the administrative basis. Administrative in the sense that there is a huge gap in the percentage of funds that goes to the Federal government compared to the states and local government areas,” he said.

Uduaghan, who recently returned to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the All Progressives Congress (APC) following his defection over two years ago, explained that the administrative complexity between the Federal, states and the local government areas hinder the country’s development.

He blamed the country’s failure to realise much of its potentials on huge responsibilities vested on the Federal Government through the exclusive list, which restricts the state and local governments from performing some duties in their domains.