By Dapo Akinrefon
LAGOS—AFENIFERE Renewal Group, ARG, has warned that if urgent measures to curb the dwindling state of the economy are not taken, the country may be heading towards the doldrums.
Addressing a press conference yesterday in Lagos, on the State of the Nation, ARG’s national chairman, Mr Olawale Oshun expressed worry that is faced with “a depressing economic outlook because of dwindling revenues, corruption and heavily flawed and extravagant budget.”
He added that “worse still, divisive politics is now so pervasive that the concept of a free and fair election in 2015 is looking more like a mirage, especially the way the Independent National Electoral Commission’s, INEC, rating has plummeted in recent times. How we navigate 2015 elections in the reality of this context will determine the country’s survival.”
In his address titled: ‘Nigeria Democratic Governance Report: Curbing Political Instability and Extravagance’, the ARG chairman said Nigerians should be concerned over the country’s depleted tank of political instability “if certain reforms are not pursued as urgently as possible.”
In his recommendations, Oshun said the alleged corruption in the federal government must be tackled.
According to him, reforms such as restructuring of the current governance framework to reduce the cost and entrench maximum devolution of powers to federating units with a commensurate revenue allocation formula among other reforms must be taken into consideration.
He said: “The uncontrollable wastage and rapacious corruption in the federal government necessitates the reduction of federal government’s share in the revenue allocation formula to 35 per cent, with maximum devolution of powers to the federating units. We must warn here, for the umpteenth time, that granting autonomy to local government administration’s is counter-productive in a federal state. Remove LGS from revenue sharing and let each federating unit manage as many LGA as it could.”
He, however, said that “whether this advice is heeded or not, the ARG is conscious of initiatives geared towards protecting the Yoruba people and their interest, as other nationality groups in the country are presently doing.”
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