Nigeria needs to revert to proper, honest federalism – Archbishop Adeleye

By Chris Njoku

Retired Archbishop Tunde Adeleye, Former Archbishop of the Anglican Province of the Niger Delta has asserted that Nigeria needed to revert to correct, proper and honest federalism if it must experience change.

Adeleye disclosed this on Tuesday during the second edition of Birthday Colloquium in his honour in Calabar with the theme “recovering Nigeria through transformational leadership.”

The former bishop of Calabar diocese of the Anglican Communion said the present type of federalism practised in Nigeria where one person was governing 250 million people from Abuja would not work.

According to him, we need to ensure that the nation is properly divided into component units that are virile and functional.

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“There is no reason why somebody should be in Abuja and tell somebody in Calabar when to go on holiday, the system of education to run or when the police are to function or not.

“We can’t continue like this and expect transformational leadership; it really has nothing to do with age because even today many people being tried are younger people in politics like their older counterparts.

“Unless and until we begin to practice a proper federalism where for example Cross River has its own police, school system suitable for its environment, we will be wasting our time aiming for transformational leadership,” he said.

Speaking further, Adeleye said if the nation wanted to create leaders that were properly transformed, then, it had to root them in their places of origin so that they could transform their areas.

He added that bringing someone from the north to transform oil in the east would be difficult because he is not used to it and vice versa.