Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and ex-President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Dr Olisa Agbakoba, has said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu cannot achieve any meaningful economic reform with the current political governance structure in the country.
Agbakoba said this on Friday on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme.
The legal luminary, however, suggested that Tinubu should take some of the powers conferred in the exclusive legislative list and transfer them to the state government.
“Right now, the streets are not showing it. It’s a different thing. When the National Bureau of Statistics announces a GDP growth rate of 3.3%, is it happening on the ground where garri, rice, beans, palm oil are crippling people?
“So the President’s responsibility, which he demonstrated yesterday, is to take on the final two years with vigour.
“He cannot achieve any economic, meaningful economic reform in the context of the current political governance structure.
“Some say restructure, some call it decentralization, others call it rebalancing. Some call it devolution, whatever name it is, the President, please take some of the powers that have been vested in the exclusive legislative list and transfer them to the state government.
“And the state government itself needs to transfer serious power, real political power, to the 774 local governments so that we can have a broad-based three-tier government all focused on the delivery of services.
“All Nigerians want are services: education, health, jobs, security of tenure, good pension, that’s all they want. And the only way that can be achieved is to rejig Nigeria”, Agbakoba stated.
