"California is the 6th largest economy in the
world. It's economy is larger than that of France
or Brazil. The little problem is that California is
not a country. It is a State in the United States
of America. It has little offshore oil, yet its
economy is larger than States in the US that are
famous for their oil reserves, like Texas.


California generates much of its revenue from
non-oil products. It found a way to absorb and
domesticate much of the intellectual output
from its premier university, Stanford University,
into saleable products within its economy.
As a matter of fact, much of California's
economy is built around Stanford University. So
with this, Silicon valley developed. I'm sure
you've heard of Silicon Valley at least once in
your life.


Now with Silicon Valley came companies like
Apple, eBay, Cisco, Lockheed, Hewlett Packard
(HP), Google, Netflix, Facebook, Oracle,
Tesla...and the list goes on and on ad
infinitum.These are multibillion-dollar
companies.

The yearly budget of any one of these
companies might be larger than the entire
yearly budget of, say for example, Akwa Ibom
State. I'm talking about companies that are
richer than
countries. They are all in California. But that is
just in the technology industry where the
technologies and inventions spewing out of
Stanford are caught midair and converted to
money spinning enterprises.


But there is also the entertainment industry in
California. Yes, Hollywood is in California. The
US movies industry contributes about $
504Billion to USA's GDP. Hollywood, as you
know, contributes over 70% of that figure. Most
iconic movie studios are in Hollywood. As a
matter of fact, the "Big Eight" consisting of 20th
Century Fox,
Columbia Pictures, MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer), Paramount Pictures, RKO Radio
Pictures, United Artists, Universal Studios and
Warner Bros are, or were, all in Hollywood.
These again, are multi-billion dollar companies
generating revenue for California.


Despite the above, California also thrives on
agriculture. As at 2014, California had nothing
less than 77,000 farms and ranches raking in
about $55Billion in revenue yearly. It produces
over 400 agricultural commodities, a large
chunk of which it exports. It is the leader in
producing
exotic fruits in America. Its wine industry is
unique. California wine is drunk with relish the
world over. I used to drink some too.
This is just one State in America. You see,
California actually had a choice of sitting back
and striving to get a piece of the revenue
generated from Texas' oil. It could have
depended solely on Federal allocation to survive
so that every month end, it will send its
Commissioner of Finance to Washington DC to
receive monthly allocation so that it can barely
pay salaries of its workers and nothing more.
Then San Francisco would resemble Ajegunle in
Lagos. And there certainly would not be those
beautiful sights and sounds that make
California what it is today. But No, not
California. Not
America. California gives to the center and,
because of its wealth, despises the idea of
depending on it for survival. The Federal
Government actually needs California to survive,
not the other way round.


You see, America is structured in such a way
that States must look inwards to exploit their
wealth for the good of its citizens. There is no
free lunch for the lazy States. There certainly is
no commonwealth. But there is your wealth, if
you can create it. Under American Federalism,
you are the captain of your ship. But again, you
are also the waves upon which the ship will
sail. That is America.


The local government, the government closest
to the grassroot, is deliberately made the
strongest level of government. Items like
Variances (adaptation of state law to local
conditions,) Public works (yes, public works!!),
Contracts for public works,
Licensing of public accommodations,
Assessable improvements, Basic public services
are all left for local county governments to
handle.


The State handles weightier matters like
Property law, Education, Commerce laws of
ownership and exchange, Banking and credit
laws, Labour law and professional licensure,
Insurance laws, and Electoral laws, including
parties and Civil service laws. Items that the
Federal Government, the center, handles
affecting the States, are actually very negligible.
Nigeria on the contrary will never do well unless
we restructure. We pretend to have a Federal
system but we are actually operating a unique
form of unitary government, and it is weighing
the polity down.
Can you imagine a country where the school
curriculum is regulated by a
national central body and states have no
powers to vary or amend their curriculum? So,
if the rest of the developed world is light years
ahead in
what they teach their children from primary
schools, and our Minister of Education has
absolutely no clue, the States must be
burdened with antiquated school curriculum
until such a time (if we are lucky, before rapture
perhaps!!) that we have an Education Minister
who would realise how far behind we are and
bring the
curriculum up to date.
Just take a look at the science curriculum for
grade students in
advanced countries and you would cry for
Nigeria. I recently read of a high school in
Japan which has amended its curriculum to
include robotics and drones technology. IN
HIGH
SCHOOL!! But our Professors here don't have a
hang on Robotics even! Students are still taught
the very prehistoric rudiments of physics and
chemistry in our schools. And this is even in the
few schools that teachers and students still
meet in the classrooms!
For the few public schools that are lucky to
have labs, all you see are
miserable nameless creatures trapped in
formalin, to which nobody ever pays attention.
These creatures suffer a double jeopardy having
suffered the first misfortune of being caught
and
preserved in formalin in Nigeria, and then
thereafter completely ignored, even in death!
And because the control of our curriculum is
central, there is nothing potentially proactive or
progressive-minded States can do about this.
You would think this is not a problem until you
understand that Nigerians spend over ONE
TRILLION NAIRA every year to study abroad,
despite there being over 100 tertiary institutions
in Nigeria. Not one is deemed good enough.
You see, the reason why you have Cambridge,
Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Oxford, etc is not only
for academic excellence of the citizens of the
countries which have these schools. No. They
invest in their institutions so that they can earn
revenue from foreign students from countries
like Nigeria which has destroyed its
educationalvsystem.

Abroad, schools are so important to
society that the economy, business and lifestyle
of whole cities and even States completely
depend on or revolve around schools. What
would the city of cambridge be without
Cambridge University. Or Cambridge,
Massachusetts without Harvard University.
These cities depend on these universities to
survive.
And imagine that Nigeria had invested in its
universities and was earning $1billion dollars a
year from foreign students seeking to study
here, who would be fighting over oil in the Niger
Delta? How many car manufacturing companies
would we have in Owerri near FUTO where
students are constantly doing and selling their
research products to burgeoning engineering
and manufacturing companies?
Recently, three students in Sweden conducted
research and came up with a product that
could improve wear
and tear on tyres. The product became so
successful that Volvo had to partner with these
students to patent the product. Now when this
product hit world stage, can you imagine how
much revenue sweden would earn from these
product?

Do your research, most of the world-
class products we buy today off the shelf, at
great cost, were invented by university
students. As you are reading this, do not forget
that without Harvard University, there would not
have been facebook, and this our interface
would have been impossible.
But our students In Nigeria are not entirely
without inventions. We invented the Pyrates
Confraternity, the , the Eiye, the
Vikings and what not!! Students resume school
with guns and bullets, rather than books and
scholastic ideas, as though academic
institutions were a war college. Lecturers fly
colors as do
students. And when the turf war begins, people
die in droves. But States can do nothing about
this because some of these institutions are
controlled by the Federal Government.
Even for the ones controlled by States, you still
can't do much because the security apparatus
is controlled by the Federal Government. The
Federal Government will provide or withdraw
security from the State, depending on whether
it is happy with the sitting Governor.
So every year, all sorts of characters are
vomited from Nigerian Universities to take their
place in Nigerian society. So you have Judges,
Lawyers, Engineers, Doctors and so forth whose
first and primary allegiance is to their cult
group, before the Country. The multiplier effect
of this, is a treatise for another day.
But suffice to say that as long as this problem
persist, let's forget about Silicon Valley in
Nigeria, because there will never be a Stanford
University here to provide an infinite supply of
ideas and prodigies to feed the invention value-
chain

Nigeria cannot wake up from its slumber today
because it cannot lift its head. The entire
weight of its existence is concentrated in its
head. From the viewpoint of government, the
weight is In Abuja. From the viewpoint of
revenue source, the weight is in the Niger-Delta.
We need to urgently restructure and evenly
distribute this pressure points and weights to
diffuse tension in Nigeria.
We need to revisit the exclusive legislative list in
the constitution and systematically reduce the
responsibilities of the Federal Government vis-a-
vis the States.
Resources have to be handed back to the
States that generated them but
place an obligation on each States to contribute
an agreed percentage to the common federal
purse to service obligations of the Federal
Government.
There is no reason Education, Policing, Prisons
(only people convicted of
federal offenses should go to federal prisons!!),
Ports, Inland waterways, natural minerals, even
marriage (yes, english form of marriage!!) and
so many other items should not be the concern
of the Federal Government. We will never
develop with such weight that weigh us down
at the center.
Nigeria can never raise its head in the comity of
nations because of the sheer weight of the
head.


There is more to say, but scarcely any time. But
to emphasis the point I've been laboring to
make, shall I say again that there is absolutely
no reason or need to fight for oil in the Niger-
Delta. There are so many things that can bring
more revenue to States in Nigeria than oil.
South Africa has no oil, but it has Gold, and is
richer than Nigeria. Let us fight for a system
that will promote both equality and equity.
Nigeria will be Great again......."

Nice post but use spacing on your paragraphs it's better for the eyes.

I agree federalism is needed.

Property rights including minerals in hands of individuals and companies.

Power to be decentralized away from Abuja.

States need to reduce power of governor in general in my opinion.

Federal government can work like USA and have marble cake federalism.

Rule of law example being violent hurdsman.

Reconciling Hegel’s politics and our Nigeria system of Government.

The most obvious pattern of Nigeria system of government revolves around Hegel’s theory of State as the ultimate objectification or self-projection of the Absolute Spirit in which the drivers of government policies are superior to the people. This work investigated and outlined the consequences and the remedy to this Hegel’s foundation of Nigeria government and emphasized the necessity for...

http://www.scharticles.com/reconciling-hegels-politics-and-our-nigeria-system-of-government/