GOVERNOR of Anambra State, Nigeria, Charles Chukwuma Soludo, has thrown his weight behind the growing calls for a single term for elected office holders.
He also argued that any form of autonomy for local government areas in the country is against the tenets and spirit of fiscal federalism.
The former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) also proposed a single-parliament National Assembly in the face of dwindling costs of governance.
Soludo spoke at on Wednesday at The Platform Nigeria, a programme by Lagos-based church, Covenant Nations, to mark the 2024 Democracy Day.
The ongoing event is with the theme, ‘Democracy and the free Market Economy.’
In attendance are former Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola; the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan-Kukah; and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; among others.
Soludo said, “Sometimes, these conversations about a single term might begin to make some sense so that you fix it, whether you say four years or five years, six years, seven years, or a single term.
“So, you are not thinking about the next election once you finish getting into this. I face that all day in my state.
“You want to get into this (project), they say, ‘No, wait, you know you have an election’. And I say, ‘No, let’s get it, if we get there, we get there and if we lose, we lose.”
On the calls for local government autonomy, he said, “Funny enough, more recently, some people are arguing for the autonomy of local governments including some APC persons, which would take Nigeria back many decades from what a true federation is about.
“There is no federal system in the world where you have three federating units. The counties in America where we copied (democracy), or their local governments don’t go to the centre to collect money directly.
“Each state must have the power to design the kind of local government system that they want. That is what true federalism is about.”
Soludo also averred that some responsibilities in the Exclusive List should be dropped by the Federal Government to sub-nationals.
“We need to tinker with the fiscal powers of the federal and state governments, devolve much of the responsibilities under the Exclusive List to the states, and at about 60 to 65 per cent of the revenues to the states, with each deciding on the local system to adopt.
“Why not consolidate the National Assembly into one with no more than five representatives per state?
“We don’t need a National Assembly costing over N300bn yearly to maintain. We don’t need it,” he said.
While urging President Tinubu to clear the iconic mess by previous administrations, the Anambra governor admitted that President Tinubu did not cause the extant economic problem confronting the country.
He said the country was suffering from the accumulated poor actions and inactions of previous successive administrations since 1999.
“We are now suffering the consequences of delayed adjustments,” he said.
He, however, emphasised that Tinubu has “the historic duty to mobilise Nigerians to clean up the mess for future generations.
“Nigeria faces fiscal quagmire and even technical solvency problems. Debts have piled to a level that leaves little headroom for more borrowing albeit at very high cost.
“Yet, the needs of the citizens keep increasing in geometric proportion by the day.”
He warned that printing more money would lead to spiraling inflation, acknowledging that, “We are in a bind and we must get out of it.”
