Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has blamed the current economic crisis being faced in the country on lack of productivity among Nigerians and mismanagement of the availability of resources.
Obasanjo stated this yesterday, at the public presentation of a book: ‘Court and Politics’, authored by Dr. Umar Ardo.
He also called for devolution of power and resources from the Federal Government to the states and local governments to ensure effective management of resources and reduce competition at the centre.
The book chronicled the first-hand experience of the author in politics and the courts.
Recall that Ardo was the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the last election in Adamawa State, and recently lost his bid to annul the election of Governor Ahmadu Fintiri.
While speaking at the book launch, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, a member of the Northern Elders Forum, threw his weight behind moves by some lawmakers in the National Assembly to return Nigeria to the parliamentary system of government.
Abdullahi, a former vice-chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, said it was glaring that the presidential system has failed Nigeria; hence, the country should
return to a parliamentary system, which he said, was better for the nation.
Obasanjo, represented by former Governor of Niger State, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, however, disagreed with Abdullahi on the call for a return to the parliamentary system, noting that what is needed to put the country on the path of progress is an attitudinal change and political culture in order to strengthen the system.
He said contributions were based on two key issues – productivity and political culture. Obasanjo, who served as Nigeria’s head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as elected president from 1999 to 2007, noted that the foundation of any economy is the productivity of the sum total of the nation’s people and its resources, saying everybody is lamenting that the economy has gone under because the productivity has never been there.
“How can you talk about the economy when you have kidnappers, bandits, Boko Haram, IPOB and all these bad people making life difficult for farmers and schoolchildren?” he asked.
He blamed the Northern leaders for the backwardness of the region, saying it was not correct when Abdullahi said the North had failed itself.
“Don’t say northern Nigeria failed, when you produce somebody who does not know what to do. We should be blaming those people.
“The second issue is that you imported the parliamentary system in 1960 without the requisite political culture to hold it. Now you imported the presidential system; and I have heard people say we should bring back the parliamentary
system again.
“No matter what you bring, if the political culture is not
there — the same attitude, the same people, the same ways of doing things — we are wasting our time”.
He insisted that 24 years of practicing the presidential system were not enough, saying the important thing is to devolve power and resources to the states and certain jobs from the federal to state and local governments.
According to him, this would
reduce the competition at the centre back to the electorate, saying that in some local governments, people who have not even finished primary school are local government chairmen.
