Nigeria running a bastardised federalism – Oyegun



The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, said on Wednesday that Nigeria is practicing a bastardized federal system of government that is tilted more toward a unitary system.

He said if the country must practice federalism, it has to be a true federalism.

Oyegun, who spoke at a public presentation of APC committee report on true federalism, said true federalism entails devolution of power to the federating units, while states are allowed to determine the nature of local government they want.

The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Bolaji Abdullahi, said the party spent about N150 million to fund the activities of the committee on True federalism.


He, however, added that the money came from the party coffers and not from the government.

The APC Chairman said that past national conferences were flamboyantly organised and ended up without any positive contribution to the debate on true federalism.

He said the APC has gone beyond such flamboyance to aggregate the opinion of Nigerians on the matter.

He said: “This is going to be the beginning of a historic event for this nation. It is historic because we have not been at this point before. We have held series of conferences before on how to restructure this country and each time, we always end up with nothing.

“Today, we have moved from show piece of these conferences to the beginning of a new Nigeria. Today, we are going to be partners to the construction of the basic fundamental foundation of where this country truly belongs.

“There is no doubt at all that where we were and where we are today is basically a bastardized kind of federal structure, more like a unitary system. What we are going to present to the nation today are the considered views of the critical mass of this nation who participated strongly in the results that is being presented today.


“When the issue of restructuring cropped into the public domain last year, the main reason being one more issue with which to trash the Buhari administration. At that point, it was clear that this nation was facing a major issue that needed to be straightened out and we need to find a new reality.

“For President Buhari, the reality was the economic wellbeing of this nation based in the strength of our people and what we can produce and based on the productivity of Nigerians themselves. Right now, work on that very foundation is virtually complete and this nation is now set on the part of gradual growth.”

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