Senator Ike Ekweremadu, Deputy President of the Senate, has
called for the collapse of the 36 states of the federation into six
geopolitical zones as part of a drastic restructuring of the country’s
federation failing which the country’s development would continually be
hindered.
The abolition of the 36 states, he said, would release the
latent potentials for growth by the regions, which he said, were, over the
years, foiled by the reckless derailment of the country’s federalism by
successive military governments.
Ekweremadu’s positions were offered in his new book, Who
will love my country: Ideas of building the Nigeria of our dreams, which is
due for public presentation tomorrow in Abuja.
The Deputy President of the Senate praised the nation’s
founding fathers, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamadi Azikiwe and Sir Ahmadu
Bello, for espousing federalism as the basis of the country’s federation at
independence.
He said that suggestions that fiscal federalism would bring
about distortive growth were untenable, affirming that even in a forest, not
all trees are equal.
