A fresh crusade to restructure Nigeria based on the 2014 National Conference is gaining momentum. Various groups and top political figures like former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Emeka Anyaoku, and former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, have entreated President Muhammadu Buhari to open the report with a view to implementing the salient recommendations within it that can foster national integration and drive economic development. However, the President is not yet persuaded, going by his dismissal of the report during the first anniversary of his government. The advocacy of these groups is noble, and the President should not shut out the implementation of the report.
Sadly, Nigeria has missed several opportunities to reform its fatally flawed federalism after the Civil War (1967 to 1970). One such opportunity was offered by the June 12, 1993 presidential election annulment crisis, which 23rd anniversary is being marked today. The election was convincingly won by Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party, who defeated Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention. The poll was adjudged the freest in Nigeria’s political history. Although the annulment eventually presaged the return to democracy in May 1999, Nigeria has yet to recover from the cascading conspiracy masterminded by the then military president, Ibrahim Babangida, because a section of the country did not want Abiola to take up his legitimately given mandate.
Yet, 23 years after, several nationalities in the country still feel aggrieved because of the way they are being unjustly treated. Take the case of Fulani herdsmen, who are destroying farms and killing people with impunity in the North-Central and Southern states. This year alone, they have massacred hundreds in Agatu, Benue State; Ukpabi-Nimbo, Enugu State; Oke-Ako, Ekiti State; and Oke Ogun, Oyo State without any penalty. The Niger Delta, which produces oil, Nigeria’s major revenue earner, is environmentally degraded.
But, to Buhari, the conference, convoked by the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency to discuss Nigeria’s skewed federalism, was “nothing more than a waste of N9 billion.” He admits that he has not bothered to touch the report, saying it is likely to end up in the archives. Although it is not a perfect document, there are over 600 suggestions there to pore over and choose the ones to implement. In reality, the socio-political problems assailing the country should convince Buhari to reconsider his position. You don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Nigeria need not descend into internecine war like the former Yugoslavia, Sudan and Somalia, which disintegrated violently.
The sentiments that Jonathan himself should have begun the implementation of the report, particularly the proposals that needed only executive attention, should not becloud us from seeing its inherent advantages. Most of the issues discussed at the confab – which are still raging – are based on an unworkable federalism that offers no hope to the over 250 ethnic nationalities in the country. Resource control, an overbearing centre that appropriates 52.6 per cent of all revenues, centralised police, and the anomaly of local government areas as federating units, are pertinent issues begging for attention.
There were practical proposals from the conference that could help reduce economic and political tension hobbling our polity. The most critical among them is making only the states federating units. This is the global norm in federalism. It would leave states to have as many LGAs as they desire since they would no longer be funded from the resources of other states. The other vital proposals include the creation of state police agencies, and placing electricity and railways on the Concurrent Legislative List.
All these recommendations are in tune with the vision of the founding fathers of Nigeria, who campaigned for independence from British colonial rule, and negotiated the regionalism of the First Republic that paved the way for competition and rapid development of the three original federating units. In truth, no Nigerian should have problems with these proposals.
Before the current economic distress occasioned by the crash in oil revenues, the confab’s proposal to cut down on the cost of running government was a breath of common sense. It had proposed limiting the number of federal ministers to 18, three from each of the six geopolitical zones, and the merger of states for those wishing to do so. It also recommended the submission of the budget to the National Assembly at a date not later than the September of the preceding year. This would have addressed the delay witnessed in the passage of the 2016 budget in May this year.
The proposals that states should be empowered by law to exploit the mineral resources in their domain, the legal recognition of the Excess Crude Account/Sovereign Wealth Fund and the progressive increment of the slanted derivation principle are brave and consistent with the tenets of federalism as being practised in the United States, Canada, India and Australia. In all these countries, the constituent units control the bulk of their resources and contribute a proportion to the centre.
In spite of 55 years of independence marked by huge oil revenues, Nigeria is still not a nation. The reason is obvious: our twisted political system, which has entrenched mediocrity over merit, “federal character” over efficiency, ethnicity over patriotism, and religion over hard work.
The truth is, Nigeria’s political structure is collapsing. The agitations in different parts of the country are a sign that there is a need to quickly tackle the issues at stake. Before the opportunity fades away, and jeopardises the chance to re-work Nigeria into a true, united and economically viable nation, Buhari should act on the report, now.
