REVEALED……… Why southern lawmakers lost on power devolution —-Reps

By Adekunle  Ogbonnaiye, Ado-Ekiti


A Federal lawmaker, in the House of Representatives,  Hon.  Kehinde Agboola,  has debunked the allegations  that the federal lawmakers sold out during the voting on power devolution.

Agboola, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, representing Ekiti  North Federal Constituency 1, said the South, which had been
virulent  in the agitations for power devolution lost out in the game owing to the configuration of the National Assembly in terms of numerical  strength.

On the issue of the State Independent Electoral Commission, which Nigerians wanted it scrapped to give Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC,  the power to conduct Local Government elections, the PDP  Chieftain said some stakeholders from states who wanted the status  quo to continue directed some lawmakers to vote in favour of SIEC.

The lawmaker disclosed this in Ikole Ekiti on Monday while flagging off  Agboola Summer School Programme in 10 centres in his constituency to give free holiday coaching to secondary school students.

Agboola said the coaching apart from being part of the ways he could impact  positively on the people was a veritable avenue to train
future leaders  and role models that would give Ekiti a facelift in the area of scholarship.

The lawmaker  added that due to the lopsided formation in terms of representation in the National Assembly that the southern lawmakers
mustered no strength to be able to make power devolution scaled through in the two chambers.

“It will be wrong for people to say we sold out. We did our best but the  South was only agitating without getting prepared for it. Some lawmakers  in the North were well mobilized from their states. Some states  even held retreats for their lawmakers where they brainstormed on how to respond to all issues.

“Aside from this, the number of  lawmakers from the North are more. The  people from the core North never hid their hatred for power
devolution,   the current status only affected the south, this factor also played crucial role.

“We should not be oblivious of the fact that devolution will affect revenue  sharing formula . You can see the aggressiveness in the way
the  North has been searching for oil now, so they love the status quo but they will start supporting it when they discover petrol in large
quantity.

“Don’t let us forget that Nigeria is multi ethnic and religious in nature. The issue of ethnic also played crucial role in determining the  voting pattern. Let me be frank with you, the South didn’t
prepare well for it and the issue of betrayal didn’t arise, we did our best”, he said.

Agboola added that he also nursed the fear that the amendment in favour  of power devolution may not be able to meet the 2/3 majority from the state Houses of Assembly for it to become a law, predicating this on the fact that there were more states in the North than in the South.

Agboola expressed happiness over the favourable court judgment the Ahmed  Makarfi-led PDP Caretaker Committee got over the splinter group
led by Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, saying that saved the party from total destruction.