Juliana Taiwo
6 November 2007
Abuja — Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, has identified poverty and frustration arising from lack of access to resources as a major threat to federalism, especially in Africa.
He also underlined years of military rule in most African countries as a factor responsible for weak foundational federalist principles and structures.
Giving the Nigerian experience at the 4th International Conference on Federalism (ICF), yesterday, in New Delhi, India, Jonathan said the federal structure has been continually threatened by contests over scarce resources and declining natural resources.
This he said has been compounded by ravaging climatic conditions.
According to him, this situation, including the problem of land, waters and space, have ignited primordial fears of domination and political denial, leading to words like settlers and indigenes in the nations vocabulary."
Jonathan, is attending the conference with other Heads of Government of participating Federations, including Mr Ahmed A. Sambi, President of Comoros and Ms Micheline Calmy-Rey, President of the Swiss Confederation.
Others include Mr Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia and the Host Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh.
He noted that part of the solution to these myriads of problems is the proposed review of the 1999 Constitution, which flows from a military tradition with its inherent problem of power relations between federal, states, and local governments.
While calling on the world leaders to urgently come together to solve the phenomenon of global warming, which according to him, has had negative impact on vital resources, he emphasised the administrations' commitment to its promise of quality life for all Nigerians.
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