A new political association, the Core Federalist (CF), has reasoned that, only true federalism can stop the agitation for power shift and rotational presidency in the country, asserting that, \u201cIf Federalism wins, the people win.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement in Lagos Thursday, its Acting National Spokesman, Mark Adebayo, explained that, the socio-political organisation is out to advocate for a comprehensive restructuring of Nigeria reminding that, one of the founders, the late Comrade Yinka Odumakin, has voiced its concern over the altercations between the Southern and Northern Governor’s forums currently overheating the polity during his life time.<\/span><\/p>\n According to the statement, “The communiqu\u00e9s from the forums of the Southern and Northern Governors have made it\u00a0clearer to identify and determine the issues that should be addressed to enssure a better future\u00a0for Nigeria and the issues demand urgent attention.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The CF stated further that, \u201calthough the immediate cause of their political rift can be situated in the 2023 general elections,\u00a0the values they represent, advocate for and promote as their casus belli are inseparably linked to\u00a0the Federalist imperatives that the CF has repeatedly called all stakeholders to\u00a0address, namely a restructuring of Nigeria to make governance in Nigeria work better for all\u00a0Nigerians”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Against this background, the organization observed that, “It can, therefore, be deduced that, whereas the 2023 general election is the immediate cause\u00a0of the political rift between the Southern and the Northern Governors, the root cause of the rift is the failure to address the deficiencies, gaps, distortions, inadequacies and lapses in the\u00a0 practice of federalism in Nigeria”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The CF stated further that, theNorth-South Governors’ political divide has been reduced to three core issues which all have\u00a0salience with the core issues of inadequacies already identified in the call for restructuring\u00a0namely:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n i. Control of Open Grazing of livestock and its security implications for federating units,\u00a0linked to devolution of policing and the empowerment of the federating units to enhance\u00a0community policing\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n ii. Collection of VAT by Federating units, linked to the call for a review of the Exclusive\u00a0and Concurrent lists to reflect more devolution of powers to enhance the viability of\u00a0Federating Units; and\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n iii. Power sharing through power rotation\/power shift mechanisms between the North and\u00a0South, Geopolitical and Senatorial zones; in this instance principally between the North\u00a0and South but linked to the need for Constitutional reforms to ensure explicit and\u00a0Justiciable clauses for breaches of the Federal Character Principle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The CF however declared that, “But progress cannot be made if the truth and justice of the issues\u00a0are not addressed”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The statement read further thus: “The call by Southern Governors for the control of open grazing of livestock through state laws is\u00a0in order. Although the Northern Governors forum has distanced itself from the call, in reality both Northern and Southern Governors have affirmed the need for such legislations, the typical\u00a0illustrations are Benue, Katsina and Taraba States that are currently burdened with many internally displaced citizens”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The CF opined that, “The call by Southern Governors for the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) by Federating\u00a0units is also in order.\u00a0In actual fact, the position of the Northern Governors runs counter to the\u00a0 demands of their forebears prior to independence. To be specific, *items 1 and 7* on the eight-point\u00a0demand of the North in 1953 regarding the need for regional autonomy states as follows:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 1. That each region shall have complete legislative and Executive Autonomy with respect to\u00a0all matters except the following: External Affairs, Defence, Customs and West African\u00a0Research Institutions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 7. All the revenues shall be levied and collected by the regional government except Customs\u00a0revenue at the port of discharge by the central Agency and paid to its treasury.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If Nigeria is to truly practice Federal governance that incentivizes autonomy of federating states,\u00a0the opposition of the collection of VAT by Federating Units will be a reversal of these intentions\u00a0of the founding fathers of Nigeria. There may be modifications requiring states to contribute\u00a0parts of their collection for federal developmental purposes but such contributions can only be\u00a0meaningful with collective understanding of its purposes and benefits.\u00a0So, opposition to the call for power rotation and\/or power shift is a recipe for chaos”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Therefore, the Core Federalists called on all Stakeholders to “engraft the power sharing mechanisms explicitly in Constitutional\u00a0Law and provide legal and administrative triggers to address breaches of such agreements.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Concluding, the association suggested that, given the imperatives which these issues have raised and the consequences they foment\u00a0in creating an unstable, divided and troubled polity, all stakeholders are again urged to seriously\u00a0consider the Constitutional Agenda to expedite the following; redraft a new Constitution\u00a0addressing the above and other important Federalizing Reforms, particularly the Exclusive List\u00a0before December 2021, conduct a referendum to legitimatize the new Draft Constitution by\u00a0February 2022 and prepare for Election in May 2023 using the new Federalized Constitution.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new political association, the Core Federalist (CF), has reasoned that, only true federalism can stop the agitation for power shift and rotational presidency in the country, asserting that, \u201cIf Federalism wins, the people win.\u201d In a statement in Lagos Thursday, its Acting National Spokesman, Mark Adebayo, explained that, the socio-political organisation is out to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3354,3355,3353,3008,3356],"class_list":["post-5477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-cf","tag-core-federalist","tag-rotational-agitations","tag-true-federalism","tag-yinka-odumakin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5479,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5477\/revisions\/5479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}