At a time when some political stakeholders are agitating for the creation of additional states and local government areas in the country, the governor of? the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, yesterday questioned the rationale behind the creation of 36 states, saying “as a country we did not need 36 states, 774 local government councils or the number of ministries we have today to drive home a stable and sustainable economy”.
He also called for a state of emergency in the education sector to control the rate of Nigerians traveling abroad for studies. Sanusi said that the tuition fees paid by Nigerian students in Ghana is more than the entire budget for education in Nigeria, which, he said, is not helping the economy.
The CBN governor who stated this in Kaduna at the presentation of a book entitiled“Against All Odds,” an autobiography of the former vice chancellor of? the University of Benin and Nassarawa States University, Professor David Adamu Baikie, said, “We have created states and local governments and ministries structures that are? economically unviable, and the result is that we do not have funding for infrastructures; we do not have funding for education, we do not have funding for health.”
The CBN Governor’s comment came at a time when the Senate expressed fear over of the emerging bankruptcy indications in the states and suggestion of remedial measures to avoid collapse of the economies of the affected states.
Sanusi, in his paper entitled “Re-invigorating Education in Nigeria: An Essay in Honour of Professor Adamu Baikie”, said: “Ultimately we will have to be confronted with the task of taking very difficult steps in looking at the political structures that we have. Do we need 36 states? Do we need the number of ministries that we have?
“It is an economy in which states spend 96 per cent of their revenues to pay their civil servants salaries, an economy that is likely to be developed in the long term. These are difficult questions that we need to ask; we have created states and local governments and ministries structures that are? economically unviable, and the result is that we do not have funding for infrastructures, we do not have funding for education, we do not have funding for health. I don’t know how many people know that 70 per cent of the total revenue of the federal government is spent paying salaries and over head, and leaving the remaining 30 per cent for 150 million Nigerians.”
Sanusi added that “in emerging economy like Nigeria, a well- designed education policy should be an integral part of its development strategy.” The present economic strategy should include measures to invest in human capital that facilitates upgrading of industries, and ginger the economy to attain utmost resources utilization, he stated.
“It is not enough to simply lament the tragedy, let alone treat it with kid gloves. We completely agree with the House of Representatives that a state of emergency should be declared in our education sector now”,? he stated.
“Further procrastination on this very matter will inflate impracticable and irreversible damage to the nation. In addition, teachers should be accorded due respect as important stakeholders in nation building.