 Welcome back. It is still the run-up before we went on that break. I told you we will be talking about a bill this bill actually was taking financial and legislative autonomy for local governments and it has been rejected by state houses of assembly There's been a lot of talk around local government and how they are more like rubber stamps in the hands of state governors and In fact matter of fact as of today in Nigeria some states do not have local government chairman They do not have local government councils that are functional even though the buildings are there Whatever happens in the local government areas, they would have to come cap in hand to the state governors even though there are duties assigned to this Money and they're supposed to be a location going to them You know a lot of things has been a lot of this has been swept under the carpet Or should I say taken over by you know the state state government and now They keep trying they keep trying some states need to beg and beg and talk and talk before there are local government elections Happening in this state and even when it happens these people these chairman these Counselors cannot do anything except it is assigned by the state governor and now they are seeking for financial and legislative autonomy Which I think is what is supposed to be I mean is constitutional right? So why are they rejecting it? I don't even know if this is a supposed to be a new deal or something because I I know the pronouncements that President Muhammad Abu Hari made about local government and how they are autonomous and should have prayed as autonomous being so Now a bill going to that. I need to I need to find out what the real the real meat of this bill is What is the different thing that is now trying to define autonomy financial and legislative autonomy of local governments? And why the state? Assemblies will be rejecting this kind of a bill, but bio now that we're trying to talk about How Nigeria will relate? with the the entire globe and now from home let's start from home Where because sometimes they say if you keep abusing your father in the public If there's a tendency that everybody will now look at your father as you know So if we cannot get it right at home I'm wondering how we can get it right on the global scene in terms of how we relate with them and every other Country every other independent state that will be dealing with let's begin with this bill and go over to How Nigeria should relate with the entire world in our foreign policy? well the The issue is that From and this is a very emotive issue. So I have to be careful so that I'm not misunderstood You see from from 1999 It became obvious that states in Nigeria did 36 states in Nigeria Did not appear comfortable to the local government components of their states having any form of autonomy And the easiest place in which you would find this is in the revenue allocation the constitution of Nigeria 1970 1999 Provides for three tiers of governments the federal government the state governments and the local governments and then the federal government has Matters on which it can legislate listed on the exclusive list this includes defense foreign policy and so on the states have matters on which they can legislate on the residual list and The states and the federal government can both the state on matters on the concurrent list Now certain Certain aspects of being a state functions are allocated to local governments primary health care for instance primary school education issuance of drivers licenses issuance of the license plates for cars Wine of license for bars and things like that state local governments can generate revenue And that was why the constitution went ahead to specifically mention how many local governments They're right in the country 774 which by the way is debatable because many feel that some states have way too many local governments Especially given the kind of population Now having said that the fact remains that the states irrespective of whichever political party was in control in those days None of them was comfortable with local governments being autonomous and we have seen that battle going on today and Maybe president of mass media present for Harry have been very pronounced and very vocal And the president had we didn't hear him say much about it president Jonathan probably didn't say too much about it But it tells us that all this money And we know that Issues that are supposed to be dealt with by the local governments. Maybe I wake up In the morning and the gutter in front of my house is flooded I just mentioned the president's name as I don't know what the president is doing because the gutter in front of my house is Floated maybe a car breaks down somewhere across this traffic jam. I start shouting I don't know what the president is doing the fact remains that some of these things are actually things that the councilors or the local government Chairman should be dealing with and then some of the state governments, but everybody now in Nigeria They don't even talk about governments. Well, something is not working. They just called the president whether it was Jonathan or Boston job So we need to really and I support this bill and I don't see why states Should be opposed to it. It simply just shows that They have mostly the local government system And maybe we should be realistic, you know, and say fine, we scrap local governments. Let's just have the federal and state governments Which is which is wrong because if if a bridge linking two villages collapses in one of the 774 local governments In fact, this is a village in a local government 774 is already a big number and this is for local government For the village to village I should be able to carry placards to the local or to the council or even and say We need this bridge to be done and he will escalate it to the chairman Well, how do you go to Buhari for instance and say the village bridge has collapsed If there is no local government, we cannot function and that is one of the many Anomalies, excuse me that we've had to deal with I mean we we are dealing with because Even the people that have local government chairman, how many of these chairman reside in the local government? How many of them stay where you can have access to them? So let us assume that there is a yam go in or go local government area of Enubu state, for instance And you know, you're right and the bridge in front of your house just collapsed And you're going to go and find your local government chairman. You will seek a situation He's probably living in Abuja or he's somewhere in Lagos That is if he's not on a trip to Dubai or he's in the US, you know, it's it's crazy You know, we keep talking on this program how everything is intertwined and connected So you happen to have a state governor who understands that you need a local government chairman You have one you have a local government chairman who holds him accountable Is it I think one of the governors I think um One of the states in the east do one of the governors made sure he made it a law that every local government chairman Needs to reside in their local government It was working for a while until you know the Nigerian factor came in and people moved on nobody's asking questions anymore But it shouldn't even be something that we need to be talking about. I mean it's constitutional If you cannot say that you're the governor of a state and you're living in Lagos You're living in Abuja. It's not heard of you're supposed to be in the government house And that is how a local government chairman is supposed to be in the local government quarters or something or somewhere But should I just be around so that people can have access to you anyway bio? Well Nigeria needs to relate because the next President is coming the next the next administration Which will include the president and even all the governors because they have to be like the first think tank before any other person So when they come into office, how do we how do we relate? Because we have Asia there. We have We have Europe there. We have other other continents You know now the scramble for Africa is fresh. It's not the old one now. It is a new scramble for Africa What do you think the next administration should do? to set boundaries to set Templates to set everything Of how Nigeria should be relating with other countries, especially outside Africa We've dealt with a course. We've dealt with Africa. But here by way of suggestion. What do they have to look into most? Well, yeah, the the challenge today and I think there was an allusion to that yesterday is that There's going to be a new world system in my view. I I think we will have Some people were saying the world was there was a unit. It was a unipolar world. I never believed that There was a dominant hegemon Okay, uh after the collapse of the soviet union We had the dominant hegemon, which is the united states But I I don't see that as translating into a unipolar world that hegemon dominated for a long time Now through dialectics things that were done in a particular way expecting a particular reserve of getting something else The entire global system is under both change And I think particularly that that change is being triggered by the current conflict between russia and Ukraine And whether that conflict ends soon or not is very likely. We are going to have a trilateral polar world We are the dominant hegemon to defeat united states Russia and china And then how do we relate in this environment? We used to have the non-aligned movements in the 70s When we had russia the soviet union and united states Which was a you know, which was a world dominated by two superpowers, you know, but now With what is happening? I think our foreign policy elites Need to start reflecting on how the next president of nigeria Will have to come up with a policy that can ensure that nigeria navigates This trilateral polar world that is going to emerge in a way that benefits our interests In my view nigeria should not side with any of these three. We should not side with russia We should not side with the u.s. We should not side with china. We should have a constructive Engagement in a way that benefits us now if you look at the trade profile, let's just use 2022 You would see that the trade between nigeria and the united states was just 174 million us dollars Whereas the i mean, okay, we say nigeria and the next president of nigeria and north america Although i'm limiting it to the u.s. North america includes canada and mexico But largely we've been trading with uh with the united states and it's just 174 million dollars If the if the figures i have access to are correct for 2022 our trade with euro for 2022 has been 28.7 billion euros Whereas our trade with asia and when i say asia i'm limiting it only to china and india So i'm not including south korea, malaysia, singapore and all of that our trade with asia has been 41 billion us dollars So you look at the gap between our trade with asia likely china and india and our trade with it It's almost double our trade with euro and what does that tell us The powerhouse is asia And it's not just us. I I often make a joke and say Sometimes when some of my friends tell me oh the chinese are taking over africa And I make a joke and I say you look at the english premiership teams Most people in in nigeria watch english premiership every weekend And you watch all the teams in the premier league and tell me how many of them have chinese Advertisement on their shirts not even in english in chinese Okay, so when people say the chinese are taking over africa and they are being clever by half Because the chinese and the economic better month that they have become Has seen them superintendent over almost all the major economies in the world So the next president of nigeria must be able to harness Our relationship in so many areas with all these major powers In a way that benefits us and does not compromise our neutrality Is not going to be in the interest of nigeria side with any of these major powers because this whole new process is still evolving Now having said that one other thing I feel the next president of nigeria should be doing Is looking at how to harness the nigerian diaspora The nigerian diaspora is massed And I think after the indians we have the largest diaspora in the world At the minimum at the minimum and through formal Transfer channels like banks and western union and moneygram and so on Nigerian diaspora sends back to nigeria every year nothing less than 20 billion u.s. Dollars So you can imagine what even comes into the country informally Maybe you visit u.k. And the relative gives you 300 dollars 300 pounds Say give this to mama when you get home that one didn't come through any bank It didn't come through western union country money grant right So you see the massive influence of the nigerian diaspora the professionals and so on So how do we engage the nigerian diaspora for the benefit of nigeria? And I think the president Warrior administration has done something that by searching of the diaspora commission So like I said yesterday the next president of nigeria must make sure that the diaspora commission Does not take over the responsibility of the minister of foreign affairs Because the dance Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to By all please allow me to coach you short here because if we keep having this conversation we won't read the news today But you know a question that you asked how do we harness the nigerian diaspora along with that when we come back from the news We're also going to be looking at something else that you said because you you mentioned You know when you were mentioning the power blocks and asia and russia and you said nigeria must not take sides I wonder how we cannot take sides When we are only some of these people But this is a conversation we will have when we return from this quick break The news will come up at noon and the run up will come after that. 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