With all these our intellectually lazy governors bereft of ideas about how to fund the new minimum wage, I think we should send them to Western Australia to see how true federalism works

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Like Nigeria, Australia is a federation but one big difference between the two nations is that their state govenors get off their backsides and raise revenue internally

[2] My people moan a lot about the lack of federalism and keep shouting restructuring but the truth remains that it is only oil and gas that is really affected by the insane unitary system of government we run in Nigeria today. Nothing for instance stops Kogi State’s governor from exploiting its unique position as the confluence of the rivers Niger and Benue

[3] We all want to see a return to the 1958 formula under which the federating units were responsible for all the resources within their domain and paid 50% of this to the centre but we have to stop using the lack of federalism as a lame excuse for development. Kogi State for instance is not in any way shape or form affected by the lack of federalism but is just woefully managed

[4] Nigerians have got to start holding their governors responsible for the nation’s woes. Do you know for instance that about three of them live in Abuja. Why are there not daily demonstrations attracting thousands to protest this blatant insult? How dare a man run for governor and then refuse to reside in the state, living in the comfort of Abuja?

[5] Back to Kogi, it could easily generate enough power to service the whole or Nigeria with massive hydro-electric power plants at Lokoja and Idah. Kogi should also be the tourist capital of Nigeria as Lokoja should be as developed a location as say Niagra Falls

[6] What is happening in Kogi is repeated in most states of Nigeria. State governors refuse to get off their lazy backsides and exploit the potential revenue they are sitting on. Even if we reversed General Aguiyi-Ironsi’s Unitary Decree 34 of 1966 today and reduced the exclusive list back down to four, states like Kogi will not benefit from it

[7] If anyone wants to know how a state is run, they need to visit Western Australia. Economic diversification across the state over the past 20 years has provided a more balanced production base and led to less reliance on just a few major export markets, insulating the economy from fluctuations in world prices to a large extent. Do you know that Western Australia's overseas exports accounts for 46% of the nation's total?

[8] Western Australia is a major oil producer too but hey, unlike Akwa Ibom, Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers states, it is not slavishly and lazily dependent on crude. Major export commodities mined, processed and exported from Western Australia include iron-ore, alumina, nickel, gold, ammonia, wheat, wool and liquefied natural gas

[9] Western Australia just shows how intellectually lazy we are as a people. About 70% of the state is uninhabitable desert but guess what, the people have made it habitable. The infertility of most of the soils has required heavy application by farmers of fertilisers but guess what? They have made the state a major agricultural producer

[10] Now, I am scratching my head for answers here but how come Western Australia like the rest of Australasia which was founded as a penal colony has managed to exploit its environment to the maximum but the people of Borno, Kogi, Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Ekiti or Zamfara states have not? Even if we had full resource control today, would we even know what to do with it? Can we please start off by holing our governors to account. Until we are at least prepared to do that, we have no moral right to demand good governance