udemejack:
Our legislooters are becoming power drunk and cluesless every passing day.
that is simply Dead on Arrival(DoA)

Stingman:


Afonja parasite spotted!!!

udemejack:
i have warned you severally to stop smoking that thing and you will not agree.now you see were it has landed you?

Stingman:


Why would you persistently want to be using other people's resources to develop your region, because of much power at the center? Now answer the question, to see where you have been dumped?

Ovamboland:
Do these legislators understand the constitution they operate?
Since when do you need to submit constitutional ammendment for presidential assent?

Is the ammendment not supposed to be submitted to the state assemblies nationwide and wait for two thirds or 24 states to affirm and accept the ammendment for it to become law?

At no point is the president or governor required to make any direct input.

omohayek:
This is a misguided proposal, as it simply transfers power over resources from the federal government to individual state governors, who are then free to divert any funds raised to whatever selfish purposes they please. The right thing to do would be to enshrine private ownership of any resources found on private land: if you find oil or gold in your personal background, you should own it, not the local, state or federal government. The governments should only be getting their cut like they do from any other line of business - by taxing your profits at the same regular rate as they tax any other enterprise.

Until private ownership of mineral resource rights is guaranteed, most of these resources will either continue to remain fallow, or the proceeds will simply be siphoned off to be squandered, as usual with Nigerian officials at any level of government. What good has even the 13% derivation done for the general masses in the Niger Delta, other than buying mansions and private jets for a few at the top?

omohayek:
This is a misguided proposal, as it simply transfers power over resources from the federal government to individual state governors, who are then free to divert any funds raised to whatever selfish purposes they please. The right thing to do would be to enshrine private ownership of any resources found on private land: if you find oil or gold in your personal background, you should own it, not the local, state or federal government. The governments should only be getting their cut like they do from any other line of business - by taxing your profits at the same regular rate as they tax any other enterprise.

Until private ownership of mineral resource rights is guaranteed, most of these resources will either continue to remain fallow, or the proceeds will simply be siphoned off to be squandered, as usual with Nigerian officials at any level of government. What good has even the 13% derivation done for the general masses in the Niger Delta, other than buying mansions and private jets for a few at the top?

Adminisher:


Ol boy.
You get sense die.
We don't just get it in this country. A lot of the people shouting restructuring are actually thinking geo political power instead of an individual-centric approach to state, governance and sovereignty.
In fact calls for restructuring is just an immature, un,-astute , childish way of doing geo political warfare rather than finding a sustainable solution to the problem.

Any solution to Nigeria's problem should be based on the question - who is a Nigerian and what are his fundamental rights?.
A new constitution would turn be prepared based on those rights.
That way all the big English and stupid tribal bashing will go away.

Blue3k:


Trust me you see many people who say the current system works will. The can't imagine life where they are responsible for their own lives with out father government controlling them.

Example people say say currentry resources being completely owned and controlled but federal government not hindrance to economy. The say this with straight face with non existent mining industry.

grandstar:


Can this work here? Is it not a bit advanced. That's the US system. My worry is tribalism.

This will favour Niger Deltans and may be resented by some who will earn very little.

Also, it may create robber barons who'll buy large parcels of land.

Without proper enabling laws and strong institutions, it is prone to abuse.

omohayek:


1. Yes, it will favour those Niger Deltans who happen to own land with oil under it, but why is that necessarily a bad thing? We don't all start life with the same endowments of wealth, health or intelligence. Besides, nothing would stop people from any part of the country from speculatively buying land elsewhere towards similar purposes: it's not like everybody prospecting for oil in Texas is a Texan. Nothing should stop a Nigerian from any corner of the country going to any other part of it and buying land in the hope of extracting resources, and the natives should welcome this as it would mean a rise in valuation of their land; with good enforcement of property rights, they don't have to sell up if they can finance exploration on their own. Either way, they're still better off than they would be under the current system.

2. Yes, some individuals will get massively rich, but having people who've made their wealth legitimately through resource extraction is far better than having a few politicians illegitimately diverting "state" or "national" assets to private foreign accounts. With the private operators there is far more transparency, and it is far easier to hold them to account for any misdeeds they commit.

3. What is the current system but one gigantic farrago of abuse, with more than $400 billion squandered to no purpose over the last 56 years, and massive environmental degradation to show for it?

The fact is, if privately-run British firms like Shell hadn't began prospecting for oil in Nigeria as early as 1937, under the country's current structure the necessary incentives would never have existed for the oil to even be dug up, just as so many other resource deposits are lying unused throughout the country.