OPINION: The Need For True Federalism In Nigeria, By Tony Osborg

No matter how fat the federal government annual budget is, the FG can never get Nigerians out of poverty nor solve their basic problems like education, health care, water or electricity.

The only government that can get Nigerians out of poverty and solve their basic needs problem is the locality governments. Unfortunately, under the present skewed unitary feeding bottle system, there is no locality governance in Nigeria.

A locality government is a last tier of government that exist in the community and has constitution authority to take care of the most basic needs of the community/city/town. This tier of government is created by the community, funded by the community, managed by the community and loyal to the community. It is the most empowered tier of government and it has the constitutional power to generate and spend as much revenue as it can generate and  without external influence.

Don't come here to tell me that our present LGA system is a locality government. It is not!

It is only through this locality government that we can confront grassroot poverty and provide the most basic needs for Nigerians.

We can only bring the government and governance down to our various localities if we #RestructureNigeria and entrench #TrueFederalism

The present top-bottom skewed unitary feeding bottle system has not helped anybody both in the North and in the South. We must restructure if we want sustainable development at the grassroot level.

How can there be no government in the places (localities) where REAL Nigerians live, and we want to fight poverty with federal budget? Impossible