He said it was “crude thinking” to continue to base the country’s hopes on a finite resource as oil, urging the country to plug wastages, diversify the economy and return to true fiscal federalism.
“Those who believe in what I call ‘the infinite’ nature of oil believe that we cannot do without it. We have done without it before and today, we have gone past the peak, really of oil, because the world as of today, is investing in more alternative forms of energy than buying petrol or crude oil.
‘’So, if you are still talking about oil, you are in the past. As far as I am concerned, the era of oil is gone.
If you want to believe it, believe it. If you do not want to believe it, you will see it. It is crude thinking to continue to talk and base development projections on crude oil,” he said.
Abubakar spoke in Abuja at the formal public presentation of Daily Stream, a newspaper published by Skillsgate Media and Communications, yesterday.
On uniform salary structure for states In his paper, entitled, The Challenge of Unity, Diversity and National Development: Nigeria at Crossroads, Abubakar also faulted the current structure where civil servants in different states earned same salaries.
According to him, salaries of civil servants across the states of the federation should not be the same because “the development is not the same and their Internally Generated Revenues, IGR, are different”. He said Nigeria “purports to operate a federal structure, but over the years our federalism has experienced fundamental distortion, to the extent that there is now a huge, acrimonious debate as to the true nature and character of our brand of federalism.
“I call it unitary federalism because while we still have a formal federal system, the centre has become too powerful, relative to the increasingly unviable federating units.
” Ways out of challenges Abubakar, however, listed four ways out of the plethora of challenges facing the nation. He said: “We should, first, dispassionately and painstakingly re-visit our 36-state structure vis-a-vis the idea of overly dominant Federal Government.
Second, we should devolve power from the centre to the federating units: many of the items in the Exclusive List should be devolved to the states or any other agreed federating units.
‘’Third, that devolution of powers must include an end to federal intrusion in local government administration. The so-called states/local governments joint account has virtually absolved state governments of responsibilities to fund local governments, while they virtually confiscate the funds allocated by the federal government to the local government.
‘’To have the Federal Government create local governments and directly fund them makes nonsense of the word ‘local.’ Those powers should be vested in the state governments.
And it should include an end to federal ownership of interstate roads, schools, hospitals and the uniformity in remunerations across the country. ‘’Fourth, we must sit down, discuss, and agree on the nature of our fiscal federalism – how to share our resources.
I am on record as having advocated the control of rents by the federating units from which they are derived, while the Federal Government retains its powers to levy taxes.
“That will make us all productive again and our federating units to engage in healthy rivalries and competition, which will only result in more progress.
” We don’t want another civil war On his part, former President of the Senate, Ken Nnamani, who chaired the event, counselled against another civil war or secession, but said every component unit of the country should be allowed to develop at its own pace.
He said: “The area that will bring unity to Nigeria is when people are allowed to develop at their own pace, not to exit.” ‘Noise’ between NASS, Executive necessary Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, said there was no “face-off” but only some “noise” between the National Assembly and the Executive. Represented by Chief Whip of the House, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, the Speaker said what was playing out was just some form of institutional checks necessary for the deepening of democracy.
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