Elections, with some serious crimes of ballot snatching and burning, terrorizing voters, have passed. Sadly, several have died during the exercise-a mere election. Those who sent the criminals are alive with their own children. No answers for the dead or their mourning families?

Where are the voters?  Over 60% of 87-93m registered voters were nowhere at the elections.

A party protested that Governor Seyi Makinde had been ‘bribing’ the citizenry by paying the backlog and current salaries and pensions. Governor Makinde who said correctly that he was doing his duty as governor to his employees and his elders. A party or persons not paying salaries and pensions are committing a crime and should not stand or should lose elections. Citizens’ welfare is first and foremost because with no salaries and pensions, the family, the bedrock of the state, and its hierarchy are destroyed, children rise against and ridicule parents and guardians, the extended family fabric is torn and the state disintegrates from within.

Seyi Makinde has won re-election in a state where citizens do not grant second term easily. He reached across to other parties in neighbouring states to achieve interstate cohesive development – an almost unheard-of progressive strategy in the past and the recommended way forward. Congratulations to Governor Makinde who will continue to shine through concrete achievements because he, with the G5 governors, have experience crossing party lines fighting for North/South rotation and electing our president-elect. Expect great things from Seyi Makinde through interparty collaboration and people-focused performance. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu also won re-election in Lagos and Governor Dapo Abiodun in Ogun. Congratulations. More great things ahead??

A warning: The electorate must stay involved. Politicians are our employees. We need a ‘NO STANDING LAW’ demanding we sit when they enter and leave a room except for the president.

The president signed into law 16 constitutional amendments. Too little too late at the end-of-term-LastMinute.Com?’ But any devolution of financial and development power is progress needing incoming government expansion. Is there a president’s strategy, including the cashless election and non-interference in elections process in expectation of Mo Ibrahim Good Governance Prize of $5m? Will any decisions require budgetary allocation changes in the supervisory federal ministries? And a revenue allocation formula change.

Hurray, among the most widely significant constitutional amendments were the removal of electricity, railways and correctional services from the exclusive list, sadly, the jealously guarded federal government preserve. It has cost Nigerian development years of backwardness. These items were inserted into the Concurrent List meaning now shared with states and local governments. The journey has been long and tremendous kudos have to be given to all those Nigerians, both federal and states, civil servants, political office holders and social activists who have contributed to the struggle against the ‘Exclusive List Lovers’ objections.

The impact on the psychology of most Nigerians will be very positive as most believe that the federal government is overbearing, underserving and incompetent precipitating  a massively and unapologetically ‘failure to deliver’ to a country requiring at least 100,000Mw power.  The country is affected by the cost of alternative energy sources especially petrol and diesel generators and the noise and environmental pollution effects caused.  Every family is affected by repeated power failure suffering educational, health, food, business and social losses and financial costs of incalculable magnitude.

Every state governor leads a state population larger than 20 or more other countries each of which proves uninterrupted power. Our governors are equivalent to heads of state in their states and responsible for citizens’ basic needs especially 24/7 power supply. Now that this is a shared responsibility perhaps results of 100,000Mw power supply will be achievable in our lifetime? However, there is the recent federal Siemens Masterplan to be accelerated and upscaling renewable energy especially maximizing solar energy use and the quagmire Mambilla Hydroelectric problem needing liberation.

But above all, we need honest governors who introduce executable plans and projects within their tenure to avoid the evil ‘Abandoned Project Syndrome’ in their states, the bane of development in Nigeria.

Railway development has suffered and created year-round traffic jams kilometres long while the railway systems rotted. They are now beginning to be upgraded and becoming useful to the citizenry. The strangulating federal government grip has finally been lifted with transfer of powers for intrastate railways to states, though interstate rail appears to remain on federal exclusive list. Half bread is better than none.

Prison is also changed to Correctional Services and also moved to the concurrent list allowing states to have their own state prisoners and confinement structures. Of course, this will be abused by politicians and those with connections, but it is necessary and long overdue. This is presumably a prelude to the much-awaited State Police Law being enacted early in the life of the next government.

We are seeing a form of piecemeal devolution of power to the states to reverse the damage to democracy inflicted by the military since 1966. How long will the whole devolution process take? Forever?

President Buhari and the outgoing National Assembly can take the belated ‘glory’ for kick-starting this devolution of power and reduction in the exclusive list, so debilitating to Nigeria’s development and for not kicking the ball down the road into the next government.

The constitutional amendments law now makes it compulsory to name ministers and commissioners within 60 days to counter the sometimes one year plus delays by some governments.