Facing a moment of reality, the Senate asked the President recently to submit the 2014 national political conference report to it for consideration. The conference, organised by the last administration for reasons not altruistic, however, ended up with far-reaching decisions. But unlike the Senate, the House of Representatives is distilling the report, which is already in the public space, aimed at using some of its recommendations to shape various bills in the works, as the National Assembly attempts to amend the 1999 Constitution for the third time in this Fourth Republic.
No doubt, the parliament’s action followed the ongoing clatter of hate speeches, threat of secession by the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra in the South-East, a coalition of Arewa youth organisations’ notice to the Igbo to leave the North by October 1, and another notice from militants in the Niger Delta to Northerners with oil blocks to vacate the region within the deadline given to the Igbo.
At the core of the conference resolutions is devolution of power. There is too much power concentrated in the centre, evident in the 68 items in the Exclusive Legislative List. Conversely, the United States, a federal state like Nigeria, has only 12 in its own list – Enumerated Powers. The conference, therefore, delisted nine items and ceded them to the states. They are police, prisons, airports, railways, price control, trade and commerce between the states, public holidays, copyright and registration of business names.
Besides, the 774 Local Government Areas in the country will no more benefit from the monthly federal allocations. Delisted from the constitution, the states have been given the power to create as many councils as they want, and also fund them. The LGAs have never been federating units in the US, Canada, Australia and other models of federalism. This aberration and more have bred inequality, injustice, mutual suspicion, hatred and rank division in the polity. Governance in Nigeria has, therefore, become inexorably a source of mass alienation and agitation for the country to be restructured for effective service-delivery. Many believe that if the over 600 recommendations, some requiring constitutional amendments, others just executive fiats, are implemented, many of the challenges undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence would be addressed.
Unfortunately, President Muhammadu Buhari is not thinking along this line, given his broadside launched at the conference report in an interview in 2016 to mark his first anniversary in office. He said, “…I never liked the priority of that government on that particular issue because it means that what the National Assembly could have handled was handed to the conference… and I want it to go into the so-called archives.” That was naïve and wrong.
Consequently, it is obvious that the Senate’s demand on Buhari’s Presidency is a clever attempt to stonewall real legislative action on the report. The House of Representatives’ move shows that its counterpart’s request was not only needless but also an attention-seeking gimmick. In fact, there is a sense in which it could be said that the conference itself was a ringing indictment of the legislature, which for 18 years has shied away from dealing with the fundamental issues tearing the country apart. Previous amendments by the Fifth and Sixth National Assembly only scratched the surface.
The truth cannot be ignored any more that Nigeria as an amalgam of over 250 ethnic nationalities is a cosmetic imperial design. Its founding fathers held it together by compromises underpinned by the federal system of government. That political edifice was crashed in 1967 by the military. Since then, there has not been any honest effort to rebuild it. Tafawa Balewa, the first and only prime minister of Nigeria, and one of its founding fathers, was far-sighted with his declaration even before independence that such a system of government was “…the only basis on which Nigeria can remain united.”
But political forces that should guarantee this are indifferent to this reality. What is commonplace today is the dubious ruling elite consensus that national unity is assured, and that Nigeria’s sovereignty is indissoluble. Those who believe in this canard should watch what is going on in the United Kingdom, Spain and elsewhere. National unity and stability are not wished into existence. People work for them. This is why the Middle Belt Forum, in joining the clamour for a restructured Nigeria, in a statement last week, said, “…the current federal structure is unbalanced, unfair, over-centralised and therefore unstable.” We agree absolutely.
Indeed, in the past two weeks, the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, has spent more time meeting with leaders of thought from the South-East and Northern Nigeria, traditional rulers and state governors, than in getting the economy going, as he tries to paper over the political cracks. It is a jumpy endeavour that speaks volumes. His apposite remarks before the Igbo leaders bear repeating: “Burying our heads in the sand and expecting the storms to blow over of their own accord are not options.”
This is where leadership matters. The National Assembly is expected to play a critical role here; the Senate should seize the moment and consider the 2014 political conference report. It does not need Buhari’s acquiescence to discharge this obligation. The problems of Nigeria today transcend what the creation of the National Youth Service Corps, Federal Character Commission and 104 Unity Colleges can solve. In the 2013 global index of failed states, Nigeria occupies the 16th position. This is not a good augury.
Where a citizen’s loyalty to tribe is more than to the Federal Republic, mutual suspicion among ethnic groups spiralling, religious intolerance and growing insecurity gnawing continually at the polity without any determined redemptive effort, then we are all gyrating on the cliff. Time is of the essence.
