Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says if he emerges president in 2019, he does
not mind giving oil-producing states all the revenue from crude oil.
Abubakar said this while
responding to questions on restructuring in an interview with The Africa
Report.
He, however, said he would tax
the states to maintain the federal government.
Asked he was in favour of states
having control of their resources, Abubakar said “for now, it’s not advisable
at this stage of our development”.
“That will depend on negotiations
between them and other parts of Nigeria. But I know they can get more because
in the First Republic the regions had 50/50. I don’t mind giving even 100% […],
but I would tax those states to maintain the federal government,” Abubakar
said.
“Even during the First Republic
there was this derivation sharing between revenues and resources, or between
the regions and the federal government. So I think we could have a middle
course. It would be unfair to ask me for specifics; that will depend on
negotiations.”
Speaking on how he would tackle
the number of out of school children, Abubakar said he would make education
compulsory.
“There is no will on the part of
the Nigerian government, at federal and state level, to see that the standard
of education is improving. We introduced free primary in 2004. We omitted to
provide penalties for state governments that did not meet [those demands],” he
said.
“If I had the opportunity again,
I would introduce a penalty clause, to make it not only compulsory, but if you
don’t meet the target then you are penalised.
“You make education compulsory –
if you don’t send your child to school you are punished for that – and you
increase your educational budget to train more teachers, build more
classrooms. I tried to do it as a vice-president because I realised how
backward the north was. You know that we have an educational tax?”
On the insecurity crisis in the
country, Abubakar said he knows how Boko Haram came to be and how to curb their
activities. He also proposed the building of grazing reserves in each state to
curb farmers and herders crisis.
“I happen to know how Boko Haram
came into being. They were offshoots of political thuggery. Politicians used
those boys in Boko Haram to win elections and then abandoned them and then
there were no jobs for them. It was the same thing with the Niger Delta. In
1998, I saw it myself and I warned people,” he said.
“It’s going to be a multifaceted
approach. It will involve negotiations. It will involve military action.
“In each province in the north,
we used to have a grazing reserve. During the season, the cattle are in the
reserves. When it is off-season, when farmers would have cultivated all their
crops, then the cattle move out to the areas where the farmers have cultivated,
allowing the grass in the grazing reserves to grow. These grazing reserves have
been abandoned over the years.
“One way is to make sure that we
give local leaders the power to resolve disputes between farmers and grazers.”
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