Emeka Anyaoku, former Secretary General of Commonwealth, says Nigeria should be restructured to solve its increasing security and economic challenges.

“We should have no more than eight federating units,” Anyaoku told The Nation in an interview.

“These will be better able to plan their development, benefiting from healthy rivalry and competition between them, and check corruption, which has been one of the greatest drawbacks we have had in the country.”

He recalled that when Nigeria had a true federation of four regions, the country was doing better, as there was greater security, greater development and less corruption.

Anyaoku noted that the current structure is not sustainable because as much as 80 per cent of the country’s revenue is spent on administration.

He pointed out that the country is already having the negative impact of the bloated federal system, as most of the states cannot pay their civil servants with many being owed their salaries for many months.

“Instead of focusing on producing, we now go to share allocations from the federal government. I believe that in this country, given its character of multi-ethnicity, multi-religion and multi-cultures, we need a true federation where the federating units should be more viable than what we have now.”

He said Nigeria was doing well at the time of independence but began to derail in development strides since oil became the mainstay of the economy.

“Now the countries that were at par with us at independence are way ahead of us. South Korea is more than one generation ahead of us. Malaysia is very much ahead of us. If you look around in virtually all sectors of our national life, we are underperforming.”

Anyaoku expressed hope that the upcoming generation would restore the country to its glorious past.

He also lamented the wanton destruction of lives and property across the country, saying: We are gradually losing consciousness of the sanctity of human life.

“There is general insecurity and the value placed on human life seems to be going down and down. It saddens me because most of my working life was in societies where if one human being dies under questionable circumstances, the government, the law enforcement agencies, will rise to action.”