A presidential aspirant on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Adamu Garba, has kicked against the call for complete restructuring of the country.
He says if the country as presently constituted is to develop and overcome its current challenges, there was the need for a strong central government that can tap the various natural resources of the country and harness it for development.
Garba stated this during a visit to BusinessDay office in Lagos, where he fielded questions on his presidential bid.
He noted that the idea of restructuring of the country was necessary, especially considering the myriad challenges the country was facing, but warned against complete restructuring, stressing that it was necessary that there must be a strong federal system that would control the resources of the country.
“There are several stages of restructuring that need to be natural, like state of residence, federal character, etc. The only area I have concern is in the resource control, because we need to build industries, schools and we can’t do this by concentrating of in the regions; for example, in Enugu and some other states we have large deposit of coal and we need a federal government that can develop and tap this resource for the benefit of the country,” he said.
The Adamawa-born businessman cum politician promised to build local industries that would use local raw materials while creating jobs, adding that his focus would also be on agriculture by harnessing the farm produce to be used by local industries.
He stressed that his administration would privatise the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and that he would list it on the stock exchange. He also promised to reposition the Central Bank for efficiency.
He further said he would launch two national programmes, namely, the awakening and rejuvenation initiatives, which would give Nigerians a sense of belonging, while opening up the country to nine geo-economic zones, which he said would aid the utilisation of resources by local industries and promotion of entrepreneurship.
“What we did was to look at what strategy can be implemented in our economy and we came up with step by step initiatives. We would give farming a priority but we need to use this farm produce in the factories that would be built to create jobs for the people,” he said.
