The Cross River State Resident Electoral Commission (REC), Mike Igini on Thursday said that increasing the number of items on the exclusive list have weaken the federating units in Nigeria.
Mr Igini, who was a guest on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, said federalism is the key to development in Nigeria.
He said: “the world has not lacked leaders but what we are grabbling with worldwide is development. The forefathers of Nigeria made painstaking efforts and came up with the idea of federalism.
“You find out that in the first republic, that was the golden era of development in Nigeria. Why?
“It was because as at that time, if you look at the constitution, we had only 44 items on the exclusive list. In 1963 we had 45 now in 1979 the exclusive list for the federal tiers was now increased to 66 and under the current constitution we have 68 items.
“With the increase of the exclusive list, you weaken the federating units in terms of development.”
Mr Igini was speaking against the background of the speech delivered on Tuesday by the former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Emeka Anyaoku at the launch of a book entitled: “Reforming the Unreformable,” written by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
In his speech, Mr Anyaoku advocated a major restructuring of nation’s current political arrangement, pointing out that the desired rapid development and stability would not be achieved without true federalism or regional autonomy.
He described the current structure of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory as administratively too expensive, with huge recurrent expenditure and leaving only a meagre percentage for the needed capital development and that the current constitution review should form a basis for returning Nigeria to true federalism.
