Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha, yesterday faulted the manner of resources allocation in the country which, he said, put so much at the centre to the detriment of the federating units.
Ihedioha, who was addressing the Kenyan constitutional implementation committee which was in the National Assembly to understudy the Nigerian constitution review process, said: “Resources are concentrated at the centre, such that the Central Government takes more than 50 per cent of allocation from the Federation account. This state of affairs has created challenges of development at the constituent units where there is noticeable paucity of resources.”
Also in his brief, the Deputy Speaker who doubles as Chairman of the House ad hoc committee for the review of the 1999 Constitution, said the committee adopted a procedure for maximum consultation with the people at the grassroots for purposes of amending the Constitution by Organising what it called “the Peoples Public Sessions” together with major stakeholders.
He said one of the objectives of the ongoing amendment of the Constitution is to rectify perceived imbalances in the structure of government and allocation of power and resources between the central government and the states.
He said: “A perusal of the various constitutions of Nigeria since 1960 shows that the Exclusive List had constantly been increasing mainly as a result of military involvement in governance.
“Certain items have been moved from the Exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list such as Railways, Stamp duties, Pension, Road Safety, Youth, Environment, Arbitration, whereas certain matters that are residual in nature like Health and Housing have been moved to the concurrent list. The idea is to devolve more power to the constituent units of the Federation,” he disclosed amongst other reviews.”
Earlier, leader of the Kenyan committee, Hon. Njoroge Baiya, said they were in the country to interact with the national parliament with a view to aiding its work back in Kenya, considering that both nations had a lot in common.