- The Southern Governors Forum convened to show how a good idea never dies
It was not a mere photo op. The line-up of governors from the south of the country demonstrated how the past can roar to the future in a moment in time. The host was Lagos State governor Akinwunmi Ambode, but it also harked back to a time a former chief executive crested the top Alausa chair, former governor Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He was the human force of its genesis and backbone of its many great memories. But, at stake, was not just the south but the fate of the federation.
The meeting, enthusiastically attended by virtually all the southern governors, is known as the Southern Governors Forum. It is not new. It was once a Trojan horse of Nigeria’s democracy before tapered into oblivion. It prospered between 2001 and 2005.
Groups rise and fall in democracies to stimuli of history. As Governor Ambode noted in his speech, the SGF rebirth came at an “appropriate time.”
It is appropriate because of the impulse to recalibrate the polity, to make it a state that endorses justice and fairness and erases a sense of regional entitlement at the expense of others. It is a move to bring balance and republican energy to a failing experiment.
It is interesting to look back at the first SGF incarnation and record its triumphs for the country. From its Akodo Beach Resort beginning, it was, first and foremost, a voice of vibrant alternative in the country. While the North had its own presence, the south served a menu of progressive agenda. One of its achievements was to enact a 13 percent derivation formula that gave airings to the agitations of the oil-bearing states. This opened other lee ways for fairness. The federation account was no longer an arbitrary purse for the centre. The controversial first line charge for Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation ( NNPC) projects, servicing federal government’s debts and other such imperatives became illegal.
Also, no special funds to cater to the Exclusive List burdens of the Federal Government. The independence of states in the classic definition of federalism was cardinal in one of the Supreme Court judgments in Lagos that triggered more local governments to come into place. Clearly, big matters begin with one opened door. Governor Ambode has led, through the courts, to state control of such matters as the environment, urban and physical planning, regulation of overhead masts, registration and regulation of hotels, restaurants and events centres. Big matters paved ways for smaller but valuable victories for federalism.
It is the root of the struggle for a fairer federal union. No election in recent history railed at the imbalance as the 2015 polls. The call for fiscal federalism has been the word in the south for years until this year put it in greater context with the call for restructuring.
The regions in the south had coalesced their governors for local needs, like the southwest governors, south-south governors and the southeast governors. The various fora have now coalesced into the SGF without losing their individualities. This is good for democracy and for the progress of the country.
At the end, the SGF resolved that they would push for devolution of powers to achieve fiscal federalism. But that will also come in the context of connected infrastructure and acceleration of economic development in the south.
This is nothing new in the north. With Gov Ambode as leader of the body, it is expected he will continue with the dynamism that Asiwaju Tinubu put into it. It is instructive that he engineered this rebirth with Governor Emmanuel Udom of Akwa Ibom State, which makes the SGF an apparently genuine attempt at a fraternity of progress and not hegemony.
