Ondo State Governor, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu,SAN, has said the hue and cry about restructuring which has pervaded the entire country is about devolving power to the states to make them function effectively.
Governor Akeredolu, who declared that he doesn’t believe in the disintegration of the country, said the fiscal policy and over-centralisation of power in the hands of the Federal Government has turned the country into a unitary nation.
The Governor spoke on Tuesday while playing host to officials of the National Senior Secondary Education Commission, NSSEC, who are in the state for a One-Day Advocacy and Sensitisation Workshop on the establishment of the commission with Education Stakeholders in Southwest States of Nigeria.
Lamenting that putting many items in the exclusive list has concentrated too much powers in the hands of the federal government, Arakunrin Akeredolu noted that the unity of the country is based on sustainable true federalism.
He identified over centralisation of structures of governance as a major reason for the unending agitations for restructuring.
Arakunrin Akeredolu therefore called for devolution of powers to enable the states function effectively as federating units within the federation.
The Governor advised the NSSEC to limit its operations to curriculum formulation, monitoring and implementation rather than wholesale take-over of secondary schools administration in the country.
Earlier, the Executive Secretary of the Commission, Dr Benjamin Abakpa, said the sensitisation to the geopolitical zone was to get policy makers acquainted of reasons why the commission was set up by the federal government.
He said regulation of Secondary School Education, intervention on areas of needs and setting minimum standards are critical objectives before the commission to actualise, in a bid to strengthen the post-primary level of education in the country.