Soludo wants states, LGs, Senate scraped

former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, is seeking a radical restructuring of the polity.

Soludo is seeking the scrapping of the 36 states, the 774 local government areas and a unicameral legislature at the federal, with reduced membership.

In place of the states, he wants a return to the regions structure where Nigeria will have six regions.

Soludo also described the last fifty years of the nation’s existence can be described as waste on the economic front and a classical case of squandered opportunities.

He warned that the dream of having Nigeria as one of the 20 strongest economies in the world by year 2020 may no longer be feasible unless urgent measures are taken to correct the anomalies in the political and economic systems.

Soludo who was guest lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka where he spoke on the topic "Who Will Reform Politics in Nigeria" called for the pruning of Nigeria to six regions with Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja as special centres. He said 774 local governments, were merely conduits for profligacy and waste, as well as the adoption of a unicameral legislature that would reduce the number of law- makers from 459-150.

The copy of the paper will was made available to The Nation in Abuja yesterday said: "In October Nigeria would be 50 years old as a politically independent country. A lot has been achieved. At least, despite the tribulations, we have managed to remain one nation with one destiny. On the economic front, despite recent modest advances, the 50 years of independence can best be described as a case of opportunities largely squandered."

He described as unacceptable the fact that in spite of over US$400billion that the nation has earned as oil rent since 1973, basic infrastructures are lacking while the people wallow in ignorance, poverty, diseases and hopelessness, warning that hundreds of millions of Nigerians who may be frustrated by lack of basic necessities of life in the face of the present bad political system could revolt violently against those who resist change.

Soludo who received several standing ovation, said: "with the hundreds of millions of people that will soon inhabit Nigeria, and with very little investment to prepare for their future, I can only see a dramatic change sooner or later: either we do so willingly or it will be forced upon us. Either way, our politics must change".