By David
True federalism has been described as the only road map to the much-needed food security in Nigeria.
The senator representing Bayelsa East Senatorial District, Ben Agadaga, made the observation during the weekend while answering questions from journalists at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa.
Sen Agadaga was of the opinion the present food crisis in Nigeria would be a thing of the past if the nation’s leaders would allow true federalism in the country.
According to the lawmaker who is also the chairman, Oil and Gas Host Communities in Nigeria, the country can never get it right until there is proper devolution of power from the centre to rural setting to allow mass participation and productivity.
The country’s economy, he explained, was not buoyant because Nigeria was yet to get the right leaders to harness it for the prosperity of the nation and her people.
Nigeria, he further observed, is a very vast country with the biggest black population in the world. It also has large resources and land mass but clustering at the centre or cities and not at the grassroots where farming takes place.
According to him, the clustering of most Nigerians at the cities was the bane and root cause of the country’s problems ranging from corruption, food scarcity, agitations, inefficiency, bad governance, poor accommodation and transportation, and several other vices plaguing the country.
Sen Agadaga warned that it would get worse unless urgent and drastic steps were taken by the leaders to devolve power down to the grassroots.
Nigeria, he cautioned, should emulate the United States of America who he said was a good example of true democracy and federalism with a populace that loves progress and sagacity for her own good.
The clustering of Nigerians at the centres (Abuja and the state capitals) was fast giving room to agitations and urban drift because the facilities at the centres were far limited to the number of the people at any given moment.
The wealth of the nation, he further remarked, was not at the centre of concentration but from the grassroots, stressing that if more money was given to the grassroots, the resources would go down to the rural areas to create utility and wealth. He did not say if the same corrupt people would not pursue power down to the grassroots and still deny the rural people the benefits of the funds.
“In other words, so much money at the centre is breeding corruption and miss appropriation of funds in billions, leading to the situation where both monkeys and snakes now swallow money in Nigeria.
Answering questions on why Nigerians were yet to toe the part of true democracy despite several such similar patriotic calls, Sen Agadaga pointed out that few powerful Nigerians were the logs in the wheels of progress in the country.
“These powerful people who are at the helm of affairs in the country have refused to let go due to their selfishness”, he remarked .
“It is the same people who are playing out their scripts at the Dangote Refinery because they want to continue the importation of oil and gas for their selfishness instead of refining it here.”
“Apart from that, why can’t we have gas turbine power supply system in Nigeria since there is abundance of natural gas which is rather being flared every day? It is the same people who are into the business of generator importation that have constituted themselves into the same clogs in the wheels of progress in Nigeria”, the Lawmaker lamented, but did not say what the National Assembly was doing to confront this category of leaders he mentioned.
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