A former Presidential candidate in the 2019 general election, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has said President Muhammadu Buhari can achieve a lot in the area of restructuring by urgently sending an executive bill to the National Assembly in areas where a national consensus has been built.
He said this while speaking to newsmen, in Abuja, on Wednesday.
The businessman turned politician noted that from ongoing public debate, it was obvious that consensus has been built around issues such as the desirability of state police to deal with insecurity, devolution of powers to states to control resources in their inland basins to pay taxes to the centre.
This, he said, would be a good way to start. He argued that it was practically impossible for the Federal Government to continue to carry on the way it was doing without devolving power to the federating units.
Olawepo-Hashim said, “It is time for us to agree on things that are agreeable and continue to discuss things that are not clear but may become clearer in the future.
“Some of the areas where there exits clear national consensus include creation of State and local government police, side by side with the Federal Police, to make policing more efficient and to bolster National Security.
“Amendment to enable States government to have some control over the development of all mineral resources in the inland basins, an amendment to ensure concurrent jurisdiction of federal and state governments over electricity generation, transmission and distribution and electoral reform clause to include electronic transmission of results from all level of results collations.”
These issues, he said, do not require the drama and time-consuming activities of a National Conference.
Olawepo-Hashim stressed that a simple executive sponsored constitutional amendment bill narrowed to the aforementioned clearly defined items may get resounding support if properly managed with the 36 Governors in Nigeria, as well as Speakers of the States Assembly.
