Senator Victor-Ndoma Egba
Federal structure no longer workable – Senator Ndoma-Egba
[From ANIEKAN ANIEKAN, Calabar]
Former Senate Leader and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba SAN says the present federal structure is no longer workable.
Senator Ndoma Egba, SAN made this known while speaking on some topical issues bordering on the federation.
Ndoma-Egba represented Cross River Central Senatorial District in the senate in 2003 and was re-elected in 2007 and 2011.
“The so called federal structure we have is no longer workable.
“The center is over-burdened, it has become so unwieldy that more than seventy percent of the federal expenditure goes to recurrent expenditure while less than thirty percent is left for capital.
“The states, as federating units have become absolutely dependent on federal allocations than their own internally generated revenues, what my friend and brother, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, refers to as feeding bottle federalism.
“The local government system across the country has completely collapsed leading to increased migration from the rural communities to state capitals overstretching infrastructure and facilities beyond limits.
“The structure is no longer working. We are are at the point of structural implosion more so as the economy has lost its productive capacity”, Ndoma-Egba said.
The former Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDCC) Board emphasized that things will only get worse if the country continues to insist on retaining the current structure.
He said the country needs to go back to the drawing board and restructure one way or the other.
On constitutional review, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria said that for any amendment to pass a near national consensus must have been reached.
He stressed that the present constitution does not provide how that consensus can be reached and so the process of arriving at that consensus has to be outside the constitution.
He said “It will require any national conversation which may as well be beyond the structure of the country but also its vision and destination.
“It has to be a conversation that will involve everyone more so as the powers of the National Assembly to amend the constitution are severely circumscribed”, Senator Ndoma Egba SAN said.
