Osinbajo stated this while speaking at the 59th anniversary of Independence Conference in Club Island, Lagos, on Friday and was contained in a signed and sent by his aide de Medios, Laolu Akande statement.
The vice president, who titled his lecture, “the whole is as great as the sum of the parts,” he said Nigerian population and various ethnic groups has required states in the country strengthened so that they can contribute more to productivity and national development.
Osinbajo indicated that this can be achieved with “the strongest and autonomous states that are able to generate and control over their resources.”
According to vice president, the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is to ensure that states work more closely with the Federal Government in various initiatives to improve the visionary government in the country.
“The most important transformational change we can make in Nigeria is to raise the majority of our people of deprivation by creating wealth and opportunities quickly leads to poverty eradication.
“The nation can not be rich when its components of States parties – – are poor. The standard of living of the federation depends on the living standards of people living in the states. In other words, the federation can only be as rich as the richest and as strong as its strongest state. Our national indices simply add the realities of our weaknesses and strengths that are present in all our constituent units. Consequently, we can only build a stronger and more prosperous nation by building stronger and more prosperous States.
“Building stronger states means ensuring the return of more power to the states, allowing them control over their resources and make their own management decisions such as the creation of local governments, the establishment of forces state and community police and state correctional facilities; creating courts of the equivalent of high special courts jurisdiction. The point I’m making is that states should have more powers and rights.
“The challenges we face are about to increase coherence and internal cohesion now. It is moving from the statements of unity to achieve synergy in which the sum of our strengths is superior to all of our constituents.
“Opportunities abound intelligent and visionary government. Thus, for example, while states may not be able to establish now their police forces, which can cooperate with the federal government on initiatives such as community policing also revolves around the idea of ??making the law localized meet. Our administration is currently conducting this option. When we set our mind to solve problems, we will find that what is truly possible, is not so distant from the ideal we seek “.
Osinbajo also indicated that Nigerians, despite the differences, must be inspired by the story of a shared common belief, in order to achieve the pursuit of collective progress and continued the drive.
He said:-
“To do this, we must draw on deep wells of our history. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi Awolowo – the founding fathers of our republic. These three differ in many things, but they shared a clear belief in the unlimited capacity of Nigeria as a united country. Regardless of its high level of rivalry, they agreed on the crucial need for Nigeria, remaining united despite the many centrifugal pressures Buffeted the young nation. In this issue of unity, their differences were of degree rather than of category.
“Each of them occupied different niches in the spectrum of national integration, but they all shared the view that the ideal situation was one in which a united and prosperous Nigeria took its place in the world as the black country most populous Earth and
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