Presidency says "No" to narrowed focus

The Guardian published this report on the Presidency's reaction to new CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi's call to focus on two or three things that can be delivered in four years rather than trying to complete President Yar'Adua's entire Seven Point Agenda.

To make a long story short, the federal executive has no intention of "pruning" the agenda. All seven points will be accomplished, they insist. The President's spokesman pointed out (correctly in my view) that all seven points are important, so important that it would be wrong to drop any one of them.

I repeat, it was correct to say that all seven points are important to the federal republic.

However, as I pointed out in this long and rambling post, the President cannot possibly hope to achieve all seven points in one term in the current political context. Even if he were to win a second term (manipulated polls or not), his are likely to be the umpteenth set of undelivered promises from a federal leader. It is too much to do, in a political context that makes doing anything good more difficult than strictly necessary.

But there is hope. The President can make headway on all seven points (and more) but only if he prioritizes one particular thing: Geographic reform of the federal republic's our three-tier administrative structure.

We should have 7 states and 84 districts, instead of 36 states and 774 LGAs. The combined total of state assemblymen and local councillors should be 66% lower than it is today. There should be 25% fewer federal legislators in a single chamber. The “Federal Capital Territory” should be coterminous with today's Abuja Municipal Area Council, with the rest of the current FCT transferred to one of the 7 proposed states; this reduced FCT would be one of 4 "federal territories" unaffiliated to any of the 7 states.

The effect of creating bigger and stronger second-tier and third-tier federating units would be to relieve the federal government of the responsibility of doing EVERYTHING.

You see, Presiden Yar'Adua's spokesman is right. All seven points (and more) must be done and must be done now. But the federal government does not have to be responsible for doing all seven. Some of the burden can be shifted to new, stronger second- and third-tier federating units. Even things as expensive and far-reaching as heavy infrastucture can be shared more efficiently and effectively across the pyramid.

Right now, most of the LGA governments are run like the personal property of the respective State Governors, and even the few bright spots of governance at the second-tier level are held back by the fact that there are few linkages between their economic development efforts, and the broader regional and federal markets those development efforst will ultimately rely on.

Not to mention the Presidency and the broader federal government will no longer have to worry about how to fix every single problem. It would be so much easier to focus on the big ticket issues when the smaller issues have been devolved, but we need stronger platforms on which to base such devolution.