
Professor Phillip Adetiloye has said regional autonomy will only consolidate the power of the political and economic oligarchs that hold grassroots development by the jugular for decades to come.
Adetiloye who is a retired professor of Crop Science made this known Monday in his text titled:”Reform Nigeria Or Risk Balkanization” which he read at a press conference held in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti state capital.
The erudite scholar who was apparently dissatisfied with the conduct of some political leaders in government said : “Nigeria has become a field laboratory for testing the limits of human endurance.”
He lamented that “For decades, government policies and programs do not appear to be solving the problems associated with hopelessness in the country, adding that the deplorable economy, poor standard of living and insecurity of lives and property continues to pose existential threats to Nigeria’s sovereignty.”
On local government autonomy granted by the apex court recently, the crop scientists said one would have expected the governors to work for the emergence of a true federalism by pushing for local government autonomy as well as state autonomy in which security, education, health, science and technology will be the affairs of state governments rather than those of federal government.
“It is utter dishonesty for some governor’s to say that local governments will mismanage their funds if they have autonomy. Every local government in Nigeria can boast of more than one hundred people who are as competent if not more competent than any governor in Nigeria. It is the governor’s who put voiceless and incompetent praise-singers they consider as loyalists in political offices during kangaroo local government elections.
“It is this impunity by the governors who see themselves as demi-gods that facilitate their mismanagement of local government funds thereby crippling local government and national development,” Adetiloye stated.