By Nelson Utip
Tunde Adeleye, a former Archbishop of Calabar Anglican Diocese, has proposed the adoption of true Federalism as a solution to the sociopolitical quagmire persistent in the country, insisting that full power of autonomy should be given to all the sub-nationals to function independent of the federal government.
The Archbishop said this recently in response to Rt. Rev. Godfrey Ifeanyichukwu Ekpenisi, Anglican Diocese of Ika, who gave a lecture on the theme, “Recovering Nigeria Through Transformal Leadership”.
This was The Anglican Church organized the 2nd Birthday Colloquium in honour of Adeleye in Calabar after his retirement two years ago.
During the occasion, Adeleye said “The biggest problem Nigeria is having is the disregard of true federalism.
The country should adopt the truest form of federalism, not what is practised now. Each federating unit should have its own police, independent parliament, legal system, school system, control of its resources, etc.
“We should not be waiting for the centre to direct on every basic issues whi h the subnational cannswiftly execute
“It shouldn’t be compulsory to have schools have the same system. It’s not workable to have people from the South or West posted to the north to do police duties when they’re not familiar with the locals or nooks and crannies.
“Without proper federalism we are deceiving ourselves.”
He observed that Nigeria is not practicing the so called Presidential system of government copied from the United States of America, USA effectively.
n his lead paper on the occasion, Ekpenisi said, “The cry for mighty men with transformational leadership is a call to reawaken the young Nigerians to the norms, value and imperative realities.
“Let Nigerians set their priorities right and do everything possible to maintain the legacies which have been laid down for us. If this is done faithful men shall be raised that will represent us in the political spectrum of our country.”
