 Welcome back. It's sort of breakfast and plus if you have care and set for our first major conversation this morning on the structure and systems of the Nigerian Federalism I'm glad to say we have joining us for the second time in a couple of days You know as we're still in the celebratory mode of Nigeria's independent anniversary Olu Darae Arlene Laja. He is a CEO as a chief executive officer of Olu Darae Akin Laja Research and Devolving Company. I'm sorry Olu Darae Akin Laja. Thank you very much for joining us this morning on the breakfast and good morning to you Olu Darae Akin Laja Thank you. It's good to be here. It's good to be here again. It's good to see you again today. Fantastic. Fantastic. All right, when you hear, you know, structure and systems of Nigerian Federalism, what comes to mind? Basically, it's just how we are designed as a nation to function. So every time you hear the word structure or system it just simply means that a nation where a group of people, different ethnicities, different languages, different ideologies different and cultures. Okay, so how have they chosen to exist or cohabit together? How have they chosen to carry out their business, to carry out their individual endeavour, you know, based on their community? How have they chosen to carry that out? So that's what I think about every time I hear structure or systems. All right. And what is your thought on the current structure of Nigeria? I mean, we hear the word being bundled about federal restructuring, rather, especially as it concerns the forthcoming elections, politicians are being asked at you for restructuring or against restructuring. What are your thoughts on the the federation as it currently is structured? Okay, so when I would always like to answer it from my point of comfort, okay, my place of expertise. So if you're a consultant and you go to a business and they tell you the business is not making money, for instance, or the business is not, is not able to produce or is not growing based on their goals. The first question you want to ask is how are you structured? What is your mode of operation? How are you designed to function? So now look at Nigeria, looking at how diverse we are, looking at how complex we are as a country. It's important for different organs of the country, different states, different local governments, different communities, to be able to design how they intend to grow based on their realities. As it is in Nigeria today, we really don't have some form of context with respect to growth. So let's do a quick case study. If you look at a state like Lagos, Lagos is different in its design, different in its structure, different in its administration compared to a state like Enugu, for instance, in the southeast, or Edo in the south-south, or Quara, or Niger state in the north-central. Now, if you have these different forms of communities, different forms of existence, how then do you want to use a lateral strategy or a lateral policy in education, for instance, or in health, or in security, or in infrastructure, okay? You just give one view to lateral policy and you expect these different regions to administrate the same way, okay? Now, it will be difficult for you to administrate the same way because the structure is different, the population is different, the cultural behavior of the people in those communities are different. So all these things are very important in design and structure. So I think Nigeria must begin to see the need to allow each state grow according to its space, allow each state administer resources based on its context. As a development consultant, you must understand context, you must understand how policy must be placed into context based on many factors. So Nigeria is diverse and we must begin to consider how do we administer these resources or our policies based on the context of these different communities? In simple terms, that's what I call restructure. Restructure has nothing to do with greed, or maybe if somebody wanted to have allocation in a state country, no, we're different. How do you want to drive the lateral policy based on our differences? All right, interesting. You've talked about allocation of resources and resource control, let's call it that. But you've also talked about administrative structure. It could be argued that that current state of affairs of the structure of the country really does not stop states from coming up with their policies. I mean, we have state governments, if you're looking at maybe a health policy for instance, we have state ministries of health that are allowed to come up with their policies. Nobody stops them. We have commissioners of health. We have even when we talk about the Center for Disease Control and Epidemic Response, you have states, agencies for that. So, I mean, states are allowed, it could be argued, to come up with their policies. If you look at maybe education sector, for instance, basic education, you have the local governments, secondary education, the state governments, they have their calendar, the governors are able to say, oh, this is when, or the governments are able to say, this is when the school session starts and when it ends. They run their own universities as well. I mean, federal government only looks at maybe federal universities and federal universities in the country. So, will it be fair to say that the states are not given ample space administratively to run their affairs? So, now, the question is, how are resources allocated to the state? For a state like Lagos, maybe Lagos is not a perfect example because Lagos is an economic hub. So, Lagos can generate its own resources independent of a federal location, for instance. Lagos state can go ahead to do certain things it needs to do without federal government impute. But the truth is, if you look at it critically, no matter what the state wants to do, who is going to finance it, who is going to finance what the state wants to do. So, on one hand, you say you are giving the state independence to drive its project and to drive its resources and to drive what it wants, but you are still going to allocate resources to that. And in the issue of politicking, you know, politicking will still play with whose party is in power, that determines the amount of access you can have to certain resources, do certain things you want to do. So, at the end of the day, states are still going to be put under the pressure of the federal system because how are we going to get resources to push this project that we want to do, even as states, for instance. The federal government will still have to allocate. And he who pays the bills or who plays the, how does that say, he who plays the Piper will always determine the tune. So, that's what I mean by, yes, by states really on paper, okay, you look like you're the ones allowed to administer it, but you still will have to go back to the federal government or go back to the federal government to get resources to do what you want to do at the state level. So, how much independence do you really have? Okay. So, is there a similarity between what you're talking about and the concept of devolution of powers? Yes, there is. So, this is the, this is the, this is the, will I call it, this is the fear or this is the greed, okay. So, I would then agree with you on this. Now, this is the greed. So, state governments feel they don't have a lot of independence from the federal government, then the state governments then say, why would the local governments not be independent from us when we are not really independent, okay. So, that's, that's where you still have that, that command and control kind of structure that still takes place. So, some state governors still control the local government structure, the one that like local governments have access to funds, they still want to be able to control what local government do and all that. So, we have to devolve power because you really cannot get development until you are able to bring it to its barest minimum. And we need to stop being political about this thing. Nobody's trying to say, oh, that's one person, because the every decision we make in Nigeria is usually political, okay. Someone is afraid of being absorbed, his authority being absorbed for instance. So, if a local government chairman can do things independent from a state governor without having to go to state governor, the state governor starts saying, okay, what if he stops supporting me, you know, all that political control is what is affecting how power can really be devolved. But whether we like it or not, local governments must be able to take charge of certain things, the roles, the schools, how much money do they really have to be able to get these things done. So, whether we like it or not, whether it's a discussion we want to have now or later, we must have to devolve power to the least to the bottom of administration of our country. Local government, words, councils, at every level, we must be able to do that across the world. All right. So, we're talking devolution of powers and restructuring. What in your opinion is a perfect structure for Nigeria to adopt? So, I'm sure scientists are always careful of perfection, or being perfectionist. So, we can reword that. What is the right structure in your opinion for Nigeria to adopt? What is the structure that can create some level of productivity and growth with respect to the way we are now? We should begin to, because I heard a very smart man, I admire a lot. He said something once. He said, how does the federal government want to tie a road in Binyin, for instance? And somebody in Abuja is determining how the road is going to look like. He's determining what kind of decisions to make with regards to that road. You don't understand that road. You might not even be from that area. You might not be able to understand the challenges of that road. So, I'm thinking that more power should be given to the local government, power should be given to states, and federal government should serve as a balance or serve as somebody who makes sure and ensures that these things are being carried out. So, which is the true federalism. And we have these things documented. We have the 1979, we have it documented. But like I said, people are just being political. People are afraid of maybe outliers rising. I don't know what local government you are from now, but maybe your local government begins to become productive. For instance, you begin to do crazy innovations. So much money begins to come to your local government, and your state governor begins to say, do you want to outshine me as a local government chairman? Am I not your governor? So maybe people are afraid of people growing independent of a command and control system. And that's why people do not want to, but we must allow local governments, everyone in the world, look at productive centers. The local governments have the strength going to the state government to administer and also to the federal government. So I think a bottom up approach is going to be a very good structure to be able to drive development because this top down structure we're talking about is really heavy and complex. Because people, so for instance, there's an allocation for a fund, for instance, for let's say environment, and the federal government is giving let's say a billion dollars to administer. How is that fund going to administer? Politics is going to come to play where a particular person is from, where the director of this is from, where the current person is from. So those funds will be disbursed based on some form of interest. So development will not be able to go across board like we intended to do. So we must find a way where we can take this bottom up approach from the local to the state and to the federal government. All right, interesting. You're talking about a bottom top approach from the local government to the state government and to the federal government. It could be argued, and I'm sorry I'm going to play the devil's advocate a bit more, because I'm looking for the perfect structure. So as it is now, you're looking more at the evolution of powers from the center. The current structure, we have the federal government and then the 36 states and the FCT. Do we need to see probably a rearrangement into clearing out some states and then forming, joining states and state to form probably maybe a larger province, or you look at probably the regional arrangement like we had in the past before the Civil War. Some point to the fact that the Civil War was a turning point when after the Civil War, in order to make sure that the regional agitations do not emerge again or erupt again, you know, they had to like do a divide and conquer, divide and rule strategy. So are you looking at getting back to something like that? We have a larger units that can stand on their own, because some have said the reason we need to have more power at the center in the current arrangement where the government handles the national resources on behalf of the states is for equal redistribution. The resources to the states that are not able to stand on two legs if you want to call it that. But the truth is if we want to be sincere with ourselves, there's no state in Nigeria that doesn't have the capacity to produce or generate growth at a level. We are just carried away maybe with the size, if you go to the United States of America for instance, there's no, you can compare the economy of California for instance with the economy of maybe Delaware or the economy of somewhere else. Because each state knows what its strength is and these are the things that drive migration. So if I'm in a particular state and I think that the state is not able to achieve or to be able to meet my ambitions and I go to another state. So I think for too long we have politicized this thing. Whether we like it or not, if you don't allow a person to think, if you don't allow a person to drive his own growth, how do you think the person can perform? You see and we're giving the excuses for things. So for instance, we don't even have to devolve powers because I see people who also argue for state, police and community policing. Now so if we're not even sure whether we can comfortably drive that with respect to trust issues or maybe culture and we're not sure whether people will not take advantage of that, let's even start economically. Let's start doing it economically. Let's allow states to manage a bigger percentage of their resources and send the percentage to the federal government. We can start from there. Then see how we build and grow at it. So I think the regional structure worked and as a consultant, if a strategy worked and brought some level of development, why did we have to change it? But of course, you have said why it was changed. But let's just go back to how it was before and let's monitor growth. And you see, you keep tweaking as we go. What happens in the western world? Sorry to interrupt, but that regional structure, some have argued there was also, it had this form of oppression. You look at some states where some regions where you had a minority tribes where they didn't have any say. Some of these minorities in court were the ones that were having the larger resources in terms of the emerging oil and gas sector at the time. And if you look at the war, especially the clamor for the session in New Republic in the southeast, I mean, I lived in Portugal for many years. I know what the locals feel about the civil war. The the the people are called Sabo by their brothers from the southeast, you know, in the old Eastern region because they took the side of the Nigerian forces and were able to, that I think, dealt a death knell to the agitation of the civil war from the southeast. So the history is well documented that the people from Portugal felt that they were being colonized by their brothers from the southeast, that everything about Portugal has been taken over. In fact, recently the governor of Imocerupu Zodima stared the hornet's nest again by saying that those from the southeast developed Podhakot and made it what it is. And if you go online, you see hundreds, thousands of comments, you know, Podhakot people don't have a very pleasant memory of three years before. You look at the languages in in in in the schools that were thought, most of the language that was thought was from the southeast and part of the country. Native languages were relegated. They felt that there was this takeover mentality they didn't have it say in in in their state. So how do we how do we overcome these these these, you know, challenges? Yes, if we're talking about if we're talking about okay, let's look at the the so-called geopolitical zones, which is actually doesn't exist anywhere in the constitution. It's a creation of political, you know, lingo, you know, people just say, there's nothing in the constitution that says geopolitical. It doesn't exist. We've just created that and now we are we are dividing ourselves by ourselves. If we were to go with those six geopolitical zones, even in the in the southwest or southeast or south-south, how is it going to run? Because disagreements amongst the states, even within states, there's a number north, a number central. Go to cross river state, northern central, district central. They are fighting as to who should be the governor of the state now. GDP has gone to pick Sunday or no. Okay, I'm just going to stop at that for for you. Sorry. So no, so I also think that at some point, we need to grow out of this because it is really something that's very limited. And as a researcher, I always tell people that the culture of the people, the social behavior of the people is more powerful than any development you want to bring, because how people think, how people behave, how people interpret things, you will be shocked. It's a limitation to whatever growth or productivity you want to bring. Now, the reason I went to a regional structure is because that has worked. But if you and I take a poll, for instance, we do some survey or some analysis, and this is where Nigeria must begin to get this. We can't do anything without research. We can't do anything without without understanding our environment. Go and ask how are these people feeling? What are their agitations? What are they are? What was creating this kind of mistrust? And that's what the former government of the Excellency Gologian and did the National Confirm. Now, whether you like it or not, people spoke against that. It was expensive. It was loud. But for the first time in a very long time, a group of people came together and said, the way we coexist does not suit us. This is how we think we should coexist. So I think we need to go back to that document, understudy it and read through it. Most of these things you are talking about might have been stated in those documents because people from most of these communities were represented. Whether they wanted people to represent them or not, people were represented. What were they asking for? Let's bring it up. Let's study it. Let's face our growth and development plan. We have to start to be a country that pays attention to research and data. This is what people spoke. What is the first thing we can implement? What is the second thing we can implement? Because you and I are sitting here and talking about things and you are giving me data. See what you just spoke about and said about Protacott. Many people don't know that this happens. So when you see the agitation and some people say we're not part of the agitation or people get angry, you forget that they are underlining factors today. So we must go back to a policy document. What is the document that we have come together based on an agreement? How do we want to implement this? How are we facing it to implement it? And let's stop politicizing this thing. It's a required agitation. So when I spoke about the region, it's because that's what has worked based on where we were before. But now this you have said now is a new reality. But there is a document and a confer that was done in 2014 that speaks to most of these agitations. Where is that document? The question also to ask is why didn't Jonathan implement it before leaving? I mean he had a golden chance. I'm sure you know. Anyway, some of the school of thought, and this is what I believe too, that if you restructure a country, it might be what is needed, but it will simply be restructuring Nigeria's problems. There are deeper seated issues, issues of this rent-seeking, welfare system, issues of corruption, issues of nepotism, lack of patriotism, and people saying, looking into the interests of their tribes more than to national interests. And you're simply just going to take the larger problems and localize them. So you agree with me that no matter what you think, there will still be problems. There will always be problems. Look at Ukraine and Russia. There will always be those problems of culture and the rest. But what advanced societies do is keep coming up with new ways based on study, based on research. Listen, whether you like it or not, as a consultant, if you have a big business and you're bundled it, it doesn't solve the problem, but it allows you deal with the problem at a smaller level, where you can call it results, where you can generate reference, where you can understand growth. Because what is too complex and too top-down heavy? I spoke about weekend problems. If you're trying to solve one problem and that problem will be created. And I agree with all that. But we have to break them down into smaller units. And we begin to deal with them as smaller units. If you break them down into smaller units, I feel you will be able to deal with them better, understand what the limitations are, understand what the problems are at a smaller unit. See, when you look at it from this helicopter view, it's really, really complex. You have five or one or something languages and four or something ethnic groups. How do you want to look at that from that view? I feel if you break them down into smaller units, the problems will not automatically go away. But what it has done is that it has been able to allow you see how you can deal with them based on the context of the locality where it exists. That way we can create, we can understand feedback, we can measure growth, we can measure the things where, because a lot of things we're talking about now. It's assumption. Because we're looking at it in a much more complex issue. What does that mean? That's the problem in the helicopter. Some people assume that the governors would be power drunk. I mean, if you look at the issue of state policing, for instance. Interesting. All right. We have to leave with that. We could go on and on and on. I mean, you brought your intellectual prowess as a researcher, you know, consulting to bear on this conversation. Oludari Akinlaja, thank you so much. A very much for your time this morning. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Oludari Akinlaja is the chief executive officer of Oludari Akinlaja Research and Development Company Lagos. We have a discussion on payment gateway services. You want to find out what that is about. We'll be right back after this break. Stay with us.