Ace comedian and media entrepreneur, Atunyota Akpobome better known as Alibaba, has attributed the country’s underdevelopment to it’s constitution saying some states created by the military regime should be local government areas.
Alibaba, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Tuesday, said the Nigerian constitution remains it’s biggest problem as it hinders the country’s development.
“Our constitution is the biggest problem we hve now; it’s an anomaly, it’s not actually a constitution; it’s something that some people drafted, got some lawyers to knock it together because the constitution doesn’t speak to the growth and national development of our country.
“The truth is if you want this country to grow, let each state generate its own revenue. The Federal Government can assist them if they want to but the funds and revenue that comes from certain states should not be shared to every other person.” he noted.
Speaking further, Alibaba said most most of the states are unable to generate enough revenue to sustain their operations as they depend solely on monthly allocations from the Federal Government should be local government areas.
According to the popular comedian some States ought to remain Local Governments as they were just created by the military to appease some senior military officers.
“Some states were created just to appease some military officers. ‘Oh, this guy is a senior military officer, he comes from this area, we can’t give him a state now, let’s just create a state and take care of those people’.
“Or the issue of: We want to create four states in the north, let’s just balance it with some states in the south so that it will look deliberate because some of the states that were created needed to be local governments.
“Up till now, we have states that if they do not get federal allocations for three months, there will be problem in the state. Meanwhile, those same states have enough natural resources.”
Alibaba also said Nigeria’s multifarious challenges started when the federal military government asked the regionals and the states to bring all their monies to the national purse and then began to give them whatever they think they should get through the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).
