The imperative of restructuring Nigeria

Nigeria has failed man and God. She has failed comprehen­sively and woefully. 

Instead of providing a template for good governance to Africa and wiping shames off the faces of blacks, we are leading Africa in corruption and bad governance, and, generating more shame for all blacks! For Nigeria not to go into extinction i.e.

not to cease to exist, we must restructure her and make justice, as fair­ness, prevail in the restruc­tured country. 

Now, what is restructuring Nigeria? 

What does it call for? 

In substance, restructuring Nigeria simply calls for our going back to the ‘’agreed Nigeria’’, that is, going back to the structure or political arrangements of Nigeria, as agreed by our founding fathers - our he­roes past! To that ‘’agreed Nigeria’’, we add all, or some of, the results of the 2014 Na­tional Conference.

This is the A,B,C of re­structuring in Nigeria!!! Ele­ments of the agreed Nigeria are in the independence con­stitutions of the federal and regional governments. 

And the Report of the 2014 Con­ference is readily available, if even in the archives. 

As is well known that ‘’agreed Nigeria’’ was a federal struc­ture, with regions as federat­ing units.

Initially there were three regions: Eastern, West­ern and Northern regions.

 Midwestern region was cre­ated later, making four re­gions: three in the South, one in the North. 

Each region had its own constitution and operated fairly autonomous­ly.

The Federal Government handled issues universally agreed to be federal respon­sibilities - issues like: ex­ternal relations, currency, weights and measures etc.

There was fiscal federal­ism, as the resources for run­ning the Federal Govern­ment came, basically, from the federating units. 

Each re­gion controlled its resources and grew at its own pace. 

The people owned their regional governments, in the sense that people in the regions were, particularly, concerned about how their regions were run and their finances spent. 

That was mainly be­cause the money spent in the regions was basically internally generated - con­tributed by the people of the regions, through taxation, other payments etc. 

That is different from the present situation, wherein revenues ‘’come’’ from the Federation Account to the federal, state and local governments. 

With that agreed structure there was peace and satisfactory progress. 

The agreed struc­ture was rubbished by the Nigerian military in 1967, at the beginning of the Ni­geria/Biafra conflict and was not resurrected after the civil war.

The Rubbishing of the Agreed Nigeria

To win, the Nigeria/Bi­afra war, easily and fast, the military government, under General Gowon, adopted the strategy of isolating the Igbo from the rest of eastern Ni­geria. 

Twelve states were thus created: six in the North, six in the South, with the Igbo bottled up in the Southeast state. 

The running of Nige­ria was also made more fully adapted to military central command system. 

This cen­tral command has given Ni­geria a unitary, as opposed to, the agreed federal, struc­ture of government.

After the war, the mili­tary rulers continued to run the government in Nigeria - making it progressively more unitary and more dictatorial. 

It was thus easy for the mili­tary to, basically dictatorially, create not only new states, but also new local govern­ment areas (LGAs), without considering the fairness of their distribution. 

Today, we have 36 states plus Abuja, sometimes treated as if it were a state, 19 states plus Abuja in the North, 17 in the South. 

The imbalance in the distribution of local gov­ernment areas (LGAs) is, by far, more pronounced. 

For example, Kano and Jigawa (which was created out of Kano) have between them almost as many local govern­ment areas as the whole of the Southeast geo-political zone; Kano has 44 LGAs, La­gos 20, Bayelsa 8, etc.

The North has 419 lo­cal government areas, and the South has 357. Both the federal, states and the LGAs, get allocations of revenue (funding) from the Federa­tion Account. 

The unfairness of these military creations should be obvious and prob­lematic, and should be a ma­jor reason for the clamour for restructuring. 

However it, in­deed, is its consequence that is the main problem. 

As the country is currently struc­tured and run, the country is growing backwards - indeed, taking giant steps backward. 

The Nigerian people, at fed­eral, state and LGA levels, do not police the expenditure of revenues allocated from the Federation Account, and this and other factors, have led to the monumental corruption which has eaten deep into, and permeated, every fabric of the society, leading to the comprehensive and woeful failure of Nigeria.

Restructuring Nigeria and Completing the Unfin­ished Business of 2014 Con­ference.

We note that the very well composed 2014 National Conference approved the creation of additional 18 states.

Those who doubted the wisdom of so many new states, should think of the new suggestion of twelve re­gions and 52 states for only the Middle Belt. 

The prob­lem is that the extent of de­humanisation and suffering to which some Nigerians are subjected cannot be imag­ined by many Nigerians. 

Without taking account of the new information from the Middle Belt, we have 54 states plus Abuja to deal with. 

We should adopt the least controversial and most efficient approach to restruc­ture Nigeria, instead of re­discovering the wheels with attendant new controversies.

The line of least resistance, which can also yield fairly efficient solution, appears to be: to adopt the present six geopolitical zones, which have been used, even if in­formally, for decades now, as the Federating Units, and al­low the states, in each zone, to work out their constitu­tions, with the recommenda­tions of the 2014 Conference and Independence Constitu­tions of the former regions as guides. 

Of course, they may introduce new elements, forced by current realities. One such, is to make the zones responsible for their internal security - with ex­ternal security left with cen­tral government. 

In this case, the coexistence of Zonal and State Police Commands, should be seriously consid­ered, for greater effectiveness and efficiency. 

There is, of course, the option of treat­ing the 54 states as federat­ing units, leaving it open to interested states to somehow cooperate.

Beyond, perhaps, satisfy­ing theoretical completeness, no knowledgeable analyst will take this option serious­ly in the empirical context of Nigerian. 

Whether we want to adopt the above line of least resistance or choose any other approaches, we must be aware that we are running out of time. We should note the following:

(1) The materials/tem­plates for the work of restruc­turing Nigeria, including the 2014 Conference Re­port and the Independence Federal and Regional Con­stitutions are available.

(2) The existing states have their interests which need to be fully accom­modated. 

Members from the states should work to en­sure that, there is not, for any state, a reasonable bases for the feeling of ‘’going back to Egypt’’.

(3) A restructured Nige­ria, with justice prevailing, is in the best interest of every group in Nigeria, large or small.

(4) There is time con­straint.

The progamme for re­structuring Nigeria

A. By mid, or end, of Sep­tember 2017: the Federal Government should set up a body (perhaps Sovereign Na­tional Conference/Constitu­ent Assembly/ Some Other) to work out details of a New Nigeria based on improve­ments to our old durable foundations of the agreed Nigeria, aided by the Report of the 2014 Conference. 

Per­haps, the first month of the body’s work should be devot­ed to the participants from each zone working out their zonal constitutions, which will then go to the State/Zonal Assembly for any fur­ther action.

B. The structure of New Nigeria is adopted by mid-2018. A chunk of the Confer­ence/Assembly time should be devoted to developing an­ti-corruption measures with a view to achieving, as much as possible, a zero-tolerance of corruption in the New Ni­geria. The Body should also work out ways to empower women for electoral offices, in view of their special good qualities. 

This can be done by creating women exclusive constituencies.

C. The new structure is fully implemented before the end of the first quarter of 2019.

Conclusion

We pray to the Almighty God, our Father in heaven, to give us, Nigerians, the mind, the understanding, the pas­sion and the determination, to save Nigeria, by restruc­turing Nigeria, by letting justice prevail in Nigeria, thereby empowering Nigeria to develop into a Super Pow­er, and achieve her Manifest Destiny!!! Amen!!!