Quota system is a principle that was developed and made popular during the military regime in Nigeria when the resources and benefits of the nation were shared on the basis of population and geographical area, with the number of states and local governments which were based on falsified information. 

That was what led to the inflation of the population figures of Nigerian states and local governments.

The government decided to share resources and benefits according to the population of the states of the country, and because the military rulers were always from the north, they had the population of the northern states inflated because resources and benefits were going to be shared according to population, number of states, and local governments. 

That's how you have more states and local governments in the north than in the south till today. 

A typical example of the loop-sidedness of the issue is Lagos state, which was created in 1967 with 20 local governments and now with a population of 15.9 million has a small population compared to Kano state, which is in the north, founded about the same time as Lagos state, and has Jigawa state created out of it in 1991. Now Jigawa has 27 local governments with less than 7.5 million population and Kano state also has 15.5million population and 44 local governments. 

This scenario has been created many times over to the extent that today, no northern state except for Kaduna state can sustain itself because they were created to enrich the individuals.

 The quota system entails that all government activities are under the exclusive list of the federal government. 

And national resources thereof are shared every month to the three tiers of government, which has been planned to favour the north in terms of number, just like the example we gave in respect of Lagos state and Kano state. 

Quota system also promotes public investments above private investments, and all the power is concentrated in the center or in the federal government to dictate policies 

So appointments to public parastatals and businesses were done quotally according to the population of each state. Whereas the states in the north were very poorly educated, they have the highest number of spaces allocated by the Quota system. Not by merit. 

University admissions were made based on a quota system. So many qualified students from the south could not get admission, though they were qualified, and their positions had to go to unqualified northern candidates. 

As it was for admission to higher institutions in Nigeria, so it was for appointments into parastatals. 

It also goes for managerial positions. So parastatals were plundered instead of being managed, and these have become the culture till today, to the extent that those who become heads of state and presidents are mostly illiterates or semi-illiterates. When we have qualified candidates. 

Many times, a northerner not qualified has three appointments or admissions where a qualified southerner has none. When people like this manage a country, the result is what we have in Nigeria today: mindless embezzlement of public funds and senseless wastage of resources. 

Of course, we have accomplices among people of southern extraction, but the story of how Nigeria has become what we have today is the Qouta system created by northerners to hide their obnoxious desires to plunder the nation. 

The story of people like Atiku Tambuwal or El Rufai is like this. There are exceptions, but they are very minimal. 

If power goes back to a northerner, then it is surely a return to nepotism, megalomania. The solution is for the system to be abolished immediately and for the government to be sustained by the resources generated under that regime or within the jurisdiction of that government. Every state has to be made to support itself. This likely eliminates funds mismanagement or limits it.

The government must also be weakened at the center and all its activities removed from the exclusive list.