Perspectives, Perceptions, and Prescriptions for National Rebirth and Sustainable Development
Introduction
When I was first told of the topic of this lecture, I was full of admiration for the organizers. It is so rich, so very comprehensive and could not have come at a better time. Federalism; Perspectives and Perceptions of Restructuring; Prescriptions for National Rebirth and 8Sustainable Development – these are the most pertinent issues which today demand the most urgent attention of Nigerians. They are also the subjects on which I have written copiously and spoken about at various fora and gatherings. They are things that have engaged my mind since the Constitutional Conference of 1994 under the late General Sani Abacha.
From discussions that sometimes follow and questions that are sometimes asked, I have come to realize that most people, including our present crop of leaders, who should be more involved in the rhetoric surrounding these issues, simply do not know and cannot understand what we are talking about because they have never known any other pattern of governance in Nigeria than what we have now. So, if in this lecture, I sometimes appear to be stating the obvious or sound in any way pedantic, it is because I consider it imperative to bring home to everybody the fact that the present political arrangement and governance structure are not what we always had. They were preceded by something entirely different. It is critically important therefore for us to note that there was once a Nigeria in which true federalism was the tenet of governance.
A simple Google search gives the concept of federalism as “a government in which the power is divided between the national government and other governmental units” – in our case, the states. It contrasts with a unitary government “in which a (dominant) central authority holds the power” it further contrasts it with confederation “in which states (the federating units) are clearly dominant”.
THE PRACTICE OF UNITARY GOVERNMENT SYSTEM IN NIGERIA
What we practice in Nigeria today can at best be described as a civilian administered unitary system of government and not a democratic federal system. This unitary system was introduced after the military take-over of government through a coup d’état in 1966. The essential feature of this system is the near total control and dominance of the federal government to which all the other governments – states and local governments – are subordinate. In this system, the central government exercises total resource control, collects all the revenue and distributes it according to an established formula – a formula into which the states did not make any input.
To illustrate how ridiculous this system is, I will tell you an absurd story. After President Obasanjo had taken the government of Akwa Ibom state to the Supreme Court in 2003 to endorse his position that Akwa Ibom was not an oil producing state, he decided to be giving the state a paltry N600,000,000 ( six hundred million naira) as its total monthly allocation. He did not state the basis upon which he determined his fund allocation to the state and this was at the time when the state’s salary bill alone was N800, 000,000 (eight hundred million naira). As the governor of the state, I thanked him for his ‘benevolence’ but I made it clear that I did not understand or accept the basis for it.
So when the time came for me to prepare and submit a budget to the House of Assembly, I wrote to him to please prepare the budget for me because I had no estimate of income or anything whatever on which to base my budget. And yet we were in what was supposed to be a Federation where the elected governor is supposed to be the chief executive of the state. Difficult to believe as this story might be, it demonstrates how far the system that we run can be manipulated to serve the purposes of the federal might. That system continues till today, despite all the clamour by Nigerians to change it.
What we have today, which was described as Feeding Bottle Democracy by the former Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, is capable of causing revolutionary discontent and should be considered as totally alien to a democratic federal system. There is no doubt in my mind that it is this system that has bred all the discontent and the attendant ills that we have in the country today. I will try to show, in the course of this lecture, how the demand for the break-up of this country, the poor economy, poor healthcare, falling standard of education, tribal hatred, poor standard of infrastructure, corruption – in fact all the evil things that we would rather not have, are all traceable to this condemnable system of governance.
CONFEDERALISM
Luckily for Nigeria, there has not been any serious advocacy for confederalism. America had briefly experimented with, but quickly abandoned it. Confederation is like having a loose amalgam of sovereign states rather than one central government with a number of other governmental units sharing a common sovereignty. Without a doubt, it is a step away from a total break-up.
FEDERALISM AND DEMOCRACY
The classic definition of a democratic government is a government of the people by the people and for the people. This definition distinguishes it on the one hand from colonial rule and, on the other hand, from a dictatorship. Most of the world today can be said to have been liberated from colonial rule but there is still widespread dictatorship which, in a good number of instances, wears the false cloak of democracy. Volumes have been written and a lot of literature therefore exists on the concept and practice of democracy. In this brief lecture, I will merely highlight a few essential features.
In an unfettered democracy, all the leaders and representatives, at every level of leadership and governance, are seen to have been freely elected by the people whom they lead or represent. Invariably, such elected leaders and representatives will seek always to meet the aspirations and do the will of those who elected them. We know that this is not the case in Nigeria. We must therefore interrogate the system and come up with ways to correct this inherent aberration if we want democracy to thrive. And yet democracy must thrive as an essential under-pinning for federalism which is our main focus.
So what is federalism and how should it be practiced? A very quick answer would be to say that federalism was the foundation on which, at independence, the Nigerian state was founded and how it was to be practiced was spelt out in the Nigerian Constitution of 1960. When we became a Republic, those same principles were re-enacted in the Republican Constitution of 1963. It should be noted that the coming together of the first set of federating units, the three regions – Northern, Western and Eastern – was entirely voluntary. Therefore the claim that Nigeria is a forced contraption of our colonial masters should be jettisoned. The three regions voluntarily came together based on certain agreed terms and precepts of true federalism. Among these were the fact that the governments of the federating units must be co-ordinate with, and in no way subordinate to, the government at the centre; that every federating unit will exercise full control over the resources, naturally existing as well as man-made, within its territory; that each federating unit will be responsible for its internal security by having its own police; that each unit will develop independently at its own pace.
Another cardinal point of emphasis was that of our common citizenship. Everybody was first a Nigerian and could settle and pursue his or her legitimate business anywhere in the country without let or hindrance or curtailment of his or her citizenship rights. As we progress in this lecture, the great benefits and imperatives of these tenets of federalism will become evident.
A look at the two Constitutions cited above – 1960 and 1963 – reveals that the exclusive legislative list, which spells out the functions and responsibilities of the central government contained only a few items. The list covered such areas as citizenship, immigration, customs, currency, foreign affairs, defence, weights and measures. Everything else was the responsibility of the federating units. So the Regions had their separate police formations, they made their own health and education policies, had full control of their resources and developed at their own pace. That way, it was possible for the Western Region to introduce free primary and secondary education while the other Regions said they could not afford it. The Western Region, with money from its main crop, cocoa, also built a stadium and was the first in West Africa to have a television station. People from other parts of the country living in that Region also benefited from these facilities. The rapid development of any particular Region did not arouse envy but rather spurred the others into healthy competition.
The level of autonomy enjoyed by the federating units was such that each Region had its own Regional Constitution. They also had their ambassadors called Agents General in London while the Nigerian ambassador was called the High Commissioner. Resource control by the regions was total and each contributed 50%of whatever it generated to the centre. Of this contribution, the federal government kept only 20% while the balance of 30% was redistributed to all the Regions. All this was by negotiation and agreement. There was contentment, there was development under the guiding principle of equal opportunity but not equal means.
So it was that while Chief Obafemi Awolowo was able to pay five shillings as minimum wage, the other two regions only paid two and three shillings. Uniformity is an undesirable imposition in a federal, democratic system. Those of you who are old enough and were also sufficiently interested would have observed a similar thing in the time that I served here as governor. The federal government of President Obasanjo fixed a minimum wage for the country. I topped it with one naira. I could not accept that the federal government was the one to determine what workers in my state should be paid. The federal government fixed working hours from 7.30am to 3.30pm. I made an early visit to a number of ministries and found the secretariat practically empty. From the questionnaire that I circulated, I was able to establish that most parents, particularly mothers, have to drop their children in school, before coming to work. We therefore conducted a referendum and changed our working hours to 8.30am to 4.30pm. Again I could not accept that the federal government had the right to fix working hours for any state in a federation.
I was very pleased to read just the other day that the newly sworn in governor of Oyo state, His Excellency Engr. Oluseyi Makinde has given notice that his government will not go along with the N30,000 (Thirty Thousand Naira) minimum wage because his government cannot afford it. Labour leaders in this country must develop a clear vision of their roles and map out more beneficial ways of helping their members than the pursuit of what often amounts to anti federalism. In the United States of America the emoluments of the governor of the state of California is many times larger than that of his counterpart in the state of Maine. In fact I read a report which claimed that the wife of the governor of Maine works three days a week, waiting at tables in a restaurant to augment her husband’s earnings. Here we want everything to be the same. Petrol must cost the same in Port Harcourt where the oil is mined and refined as in Sokoto to where it is transported over a great distance. Why do we not insist that house rents must be the same, school fees must be the same, bride price too must be the same. That is not federalism.
One other major point of departure was in my administration of local government. Even at this level of governance, we were expected to operate the presidential system. But all the laws for the local government, according to our constitution, are made by the State House of Assembly. So, effectively, the local government does not have its own parliament. If therefore we do not assign the elected councillors roles as supervisors, I wondered what their responsibilities would be. Was it just to gather at the end of the month to share money? So I abolished the election into the office of local government chairmen. Everybody was elected as a councillor from their respective wards. From among themselves they elected a Head of Council while all others were assigned roles as supervisory councillors. I was accused of disobeying party directives but I was adamant because I knew that in a federal system the central government deals only with the federating units which, at independence, were the three regions and now the 36 states. The creation and administration of local governments, on the other hand, belong exclusively to the state. Any departure from that is a departure from federalism.
Let me point out that it is the overarching influence of an interfering federal government that caused the listing of local governments in the federal constitution. It is also this crass maladministration of the federal government that gave Kano State 44 local governments while Lagos State, with a similar population and a much larger revenue base has only 20. Similarly, Akwa Ibom State with a comparable size and population to Ondo State has 31 local governments to Ondo’s 18.
As part of our discussion on federalism and nation building, let us look at the issue of our common citizenship which I have mentioned. It is clear that today we have elevated tribe above nation. This should not be. There was a time in America when two Bush brothers were governors of two different states at the same time. We may think that such cannot possibly happen in Nigeria but that is only because we no longer acknowledge the fact of our common citizenship as Nigerians of different extractions. There was a time, and it was not so long ago, that Mallam Umaru Altine a Nigerian of Hausa extraction, and a Muslim for that matter from Kano, was elected, not once but twice as the Mayor of Enugu. Mbonu Ojike, a Nigerian of Ibo extraction, living in Lagos was elected the Deputy Mayor of Lagos. Mrs Margaret Ekpo, a Nigerian of Ibibio extraction living in Aba was elected to represent what is now Abia state in the Eastern House of Assembly. Indeed there was once a country called Nigeria of which we were all proud and happy to share a common citizenship regardless of our tribal extraction.
It was this same sense of common citizenship that made it possible for us to establish, in a tsetse fly free area of the south, what today must be the most expansive and by far the best known cattle ranch at Obudu in what is today Cross River State in the Niger Delta. Similarly, Malu road in Apapa was named after the fact that it was a cattle route, malu being the Hausa word for cows. So what went wrong? In my considered opinion, only one thing went wrong, and that is the destruction of the democratic federal structure upon which Nigeria was erected by its founding fathers.
RESTRUCTURING – PERSPECTIVES AND PERCEPTION
If I am correct in the assertion that Nigeria’s harmonious existence was predicated on the hallowed principle of democratic, fiscal federalism and that all the ills which we suffer today are rooted in the unitary system which we practice now, then there is no wonder that the public space has been so flooded with rhetoric on Restructuring.
Most regrettably, the rhetoric on this topic has degenerated into a cacophony all because its most strident advocates have continued to present divergent perspectives and perceptions of the subject, particularly on the issue of what should constitute the federating units.
At independence, the three mega blocks – the Northern, Western and Eastern regions – were the federating units. But there was internal friction. The ethnic minorities in the various regions had mounted vigorous agitation for regions or states of their own. The best known of these was the Calabar,Ogoja, Rivers state movement, popularly called the COR state movement. These agitations started during colonial rule and led to a number of Commissions to find a solution to the problem of the minorities. Interestingly, the only such region to be created was the Mid-West, later on called Bendel state out of the Western region covering the area which today constitutes Edo and Delta states. The agitation continued with greater vehemence and today we have a total of thirty six states and a Federal Capital Territory, with continuing agitation for even more states.
It is this that has given scope for the formulation of various perspectives and perceptions on the issue of federating units. There are those who insist that the states, some of them at least, cannot function as federating units. A further argument is that far too much money is being spent to administer 36 state governments in addition to the federal government. They therefore advocate various configurations that they believe would not only cut cost but would also result in what they claim would be larger and therefore viable federating units. I disagree. I believe that even the smallest and the least endowed of the states that we have today has enough resources, enough manpower and all it takes to be viable within a larger federation. In this matter of size or resources, I am convinced that the cassock does not make the Bishop. It is more a matter of leadership and ingenuity. I further believe that any attempt to merge or whittle down the autonomy that the states enjoy today would fail. The call for new geographic entities that would combine states or impose a new super structure on any group of states, in my opinion, is uncalled for and does not add value to the debate on true federalism.
Any governor today who wants to say that he cannot develop his state with the resources available to him, is merely confessing that he is unfit to be a governor. As I have said, in those evil days of Obasanjo’s onshore-offshore dichotomy, I was given a mere six hundred million naira every month with which to develop this state, which then was classified as a non-oil producer. Despite this, I was able to build an airport which, thanks to His Excellency Gov. Udom Emmanuel, is today named after me; an airport with a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility with the best runway in the country. I built an independent power plant (IPP) of 191megawatt capacity. I built the Le-Meridien Hotel with a marina and an acclaimed golf course which today is considered a tourist delight and the place of choice for conferences, retreats and business meetings. I built housing estates, hospitals, schools; I built roads; I gave people pipe borne water and rural electrification; I started a unique University of Technology and an Information Communication Technology (ICT) Park with a major incubation centre; I initiated the design for a deep sea port at Ibaka in addition to establishing new, and rehabilitating a number of moribund industries. In the process I took Akwa Ibom state firmly into the Nigerian federation where its voice was heard and respected and I projected the state positively to the world. I set enviable standards of development and above all I made Akwa Ibom state into a peace haven in the turbulent Niger Delta.
I can think of a good number of things that can stop a state from effectively functioning as a federating unit but certainly size or lack of resources would not be included. The truth is that the resource does not have to be located in your state for you to benefit from it. In the eighties, Kaduna state where I lived, invested profitably in Calabar Veneer and Plywood Company (Calvenply). A company based in Calabar that exploited the rich forest endowments of Cross River state. Similarly at the turn of the century Akwa Ibom State government invested in the novel global system of mobile telephone company, ECONET and reaped bountifully. Nobody can say that it is only Ogun state that will benefit from the mega oil and petrochemical complex that the Dangote Group is putting up today in that state. All we have to do is to think outside the box, use our imagination and ingenuity with a determination that, whatever the odds, the state must survive, must develop and progress.
Those seeking to form regions in whatever combination of states should bear in mind that the states we have today are the closest thing to the wishes of the people. Though created by the military, they came as a result of vigorous campaigns by the people with convincing evidence of their viability. Remembering that all the states were created from larger formations to solve various problems, particularly the problem of internal conflicts, any attempt to recombine them should first make certain that those conflicts no longer exist. There will still remain the big question of the mechanism by which such regions will be formed.
Another major argument that is sometimes put forward in support of regionalisation is the reduction in the cost of administration. For instance, the entire Northern region at independence had only one regional government at Kaduna, today we have nineteen, very expensive state governments. On the surface, this concept of cash savings appears very plausible but, in my opinion is fallacious. While it is true that the cost of governance has become astronomically high, I do not attribute this merely to the number of state governments that we have but rather to the unbridled, extravagant consumerism of the various governments. Besides we should not lose sight of the fact that any attempt to recombine even two states would result in throwing an unthinkable number of civil and other public servants of all grades into the pool of jobless people. That would be an unmitigated disaster.
There are those who do not want to abolish the states but want to create federal regions under which there would be a number of states. For me the concept is so woolly that I find it difficult to comprehend and therefore unable to effectively comment on. Already we are complaining about cost so I see no purpose in creating yet another administrative super structure. Is it the federal regions that will then be considered as the federating units; if so, what will be the status of the states; who will control and administer their resources? What will be the fate of the local governments? Sometimes I fear that this may be a veiled attempt to break up the country by recreating those mega blocks any one of which can successfully threaten our corporate existence.
Those who genuinely believe that regions would make better federating units than states must show us how such regions would be formed to attain legal, or should I say, constitutional status. They must also clearly define the new federal structure given that we would be dealing with four levels of governance – federal, region, state and local government. I am just afraid that, however well-intentioned they may be, and however strongly they may wish, like the rest of us, to see the country restructured, the regionalists may just end up delaying the process or infact, creating a stumbling block.
In this I have a strong ally in the esteemed personage of Alhaji Balarabe Musa, popularly known as the voice of the people, who, in a recent interview said:
“True Federalism and Restructuring are different things entirely. Those who talk about true federalism, in reality are talking of true federal system of government where power is shared between the centre and the states and various units. Those who are calling for true federalism are honest but the issue is the problem of the regions”
I urge the regionalists to please drop the idea, accept the states as they exist today as the federating units and let us move on. If any cluster of states should choose to come together for economic reasons or reasons of shared facilities or any other reason of commonality, they could of course do so following the example of DAWN
(Development Agenda for Western Nigeria) initiated by the six governors of the South West. The fact that those states, at some point were governed by governors from different political parties did not hinder their cooperation. There is also the BRACED (Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo, Delta) Commission in the South South. I know that the South East is working on a similar thing – SENEC (South East Nigeria Economic Commission). There was always NNDC (New Nigeria Development Corporation) which was formed to encompass the entire North, but whose assets have since been shared. Recently the governor of Kaduna state bemoaned the fact that Nigeria consists of two countries – a backward north and a developing south. There is no doubt in my mind that, if NNDC could be revitalized, along with resource control and the financial support of the Bank of the North now Unity Bank which they own, all that could be reversed. Better still if NNDC could re-emerge, not as one but three Development Commissions for the three zones in the North. This for me is a much superior option in every respect to the formation of formal regional entities as federating units.
Fortunately the cacophony ends there and the good news is that there is a general agreement that the only real meaning that we can give to restructuring is the reordering of the polity by way of resource control and devolution of power to reflect true fiscal federalism. In other words, to go back to the ideals of our founding fathers which stand in direct antithesis to the unitary form of government that the military introduced and we are practicing now.
Restructuring must not therefore be seen as a demand for a previously unknown Nigeria; what is being demanded is a return to a Nigeria that we have had before; a Nigeria that worked for human progress and development.
Let me give you a few quotes about restructuring from some eminent Nigerians:
“We cannot continue to live in denial of the need for restructuring”
By Emir Lamido Sanusi of Kano
“The centralization policy framework that drives the federal system in Nigeria is incongruous with federalism, and is therefore responsible for all the ills presently plaguing the country directly or indirectly. Restructuring is the response to the anti- federalist diversion, seeking for the reordering of Nigeria by granting more power, autonomy, resources to the states and local governments and creation of new centres of growth and prosperity through regional integration”
By Dr. Ebebe Ukpong
“ I have no doubt in my mind that we, as leaders need to do a lot more work; we need to carry out analysis and research to be able to pick the substance from the sentiments. I say this because during the last Constitution Review, there were items that were rejected. For example, devolution of power. But upon reflection, we realised that it was actually not inimical to the interest of the people…on the economic front, whatever it will take to bring about growth and development is what must be done. Economic diversification is not just a buzz word; it is a real life transition that must be made if we are to deliver the dividends of democracy to our people”
By Dr Olubukola Saraki, President of the 8th Senate.
“The idea that the North is against restructuring because it benefits most from the current state of things is circumscribed and patently false. Let us be clear, the North wants restructuring as much as anyone else. However, as a people we do not easily jump unto the bandwagon… I think we should first, as a country, agree on a mutual definition of the term restructuring”.
By Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal, Governor of Sokoto State and erstwhile chairman of Northen Governors Forum.
“I am happy to note that throughout these discussions, there has not been any opposition to the issue of re-examining our constitution and seeing how best we need to redesign it with our existing situation. If recommendations of the 2014 National Conference had been subjected to a white paper committee by either the previous or current administration, the conclusion of the El-Rufai – led committee could have been arrived at much earlier, and it could have moved the country forward in our search for a convenient constitutional arrangement which will satisfy the yearnings of the majority” By Alhaji Tanko Yakassai,
“Let us dialogue, let us search for a solution which lies in the re-enactment of federalism with the existing states as the federating units. Nigeria must fashion out its own version of Perestroika or perish”
By Obong Attah, Former Governor of Akwa Ibom State and Past President of
Nigeria Governors Forum
“Your Excellencies, it will be belabouring the point to say that true federalism is necessary at this junction of our political and democratic evolution”
By President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR. January 2019.
All the quotes above lead to only one inescapable conclusion – in order to survive, Nigeria must go back to true federalism. I feel pained when I hear people say they will not be intimidated by the demand for restructuring. Restructuring is not meant to intimidate anybody. It is meant instead to give everybody a sense of wellbeing by re-establishing us as a fair, just and productive nation of contented people. A nation of equal opportunities even as we admit that equality of opportunity does not suppose equality of means.
NATIONAL REBIRTH FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Indeed Nigeria is ready for true federalism and since it is something that we have had before, I suggest that we drop the word RESTRUCTURING and adopt NATIONAL REBIRTH, – the coinage provided by the organizers of this lecture. This and only this can lead to SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. How we ever sunk into such depth of imbecility as to think that a single commodity – oil – could feed and develop this vast country is something that I can never fathom. Having deceived ourselves to believe that it could, we should have realised that any such development could not be sustained because oil is a wasting asset. Not only would it dry up sooner than we think, its use is being curtailed to ameliorate the devastating effects of global warming and climate change. Soon therefore it will change from a wasting asset to a worthless asset.
The cry now and the acknowledged panacea for this rebirth is diversification but that demands hard work and creativity. Which governor will agree to diversify so long as, at the end of every month, he can go to Abuja to collect his share of the oil booty? The only reason a governor would diversify is if he knows that the sustenance and the development of his state depends on it. We have such vast areas of fertile land but we have refused to revive our agriculture. We have allowed our tourism facilities to decay and other potentials to remain moribund; governors of states with vast solid mineral deposits are not interested in their exploitation or, if indeed they were, they couldn’t because the law says such minerals belong exclusively to the federal government. Governors of oil producing states cannot stop the oil theft because they do not have state police and in any case the federal government has appropriated everything. Occasionally we hear news that the money so appropriated has been swallowed up somewhere else by gorillas and snakes or has disappeared into private bank accounts. The incentive to produce has effectively been killed hence the need for a rebirth.
If we produce, we persuade ourselves to be content with what we are able to produce but sharing brings out the worst in us because we always go home with a feeling of having been cheated, a feeling that we should have got more. So today we quarrel, we fight, we indulge in all sorts of destructive contrivances because we want to device ways of getting more from the federal purse. We fail to realise that all we are doing is sharing poverty and that is the reason for our lack of development. We bicker over our population figures, we fight over the number of states in our zones, we quarrel over the number of local governments in our states – quarrels and disagreements that highlight our differences and cause unnecessary tensions and mistrust, but indeed quarrels that will not abate but rather escalate so long as we continue this anti-federal system of sharing rather than generating money. In the process we ignore the education of our children, the health of our citizens, we close our eyes to the decay and inadequacy of our essential infrastructure, the states and local governments fail in their functions and duties and are content to blame everything on the federal government, and when the tension gets too high or the situation becomes intolerable, we threaten secession. And yet the answer is simple – namely, the practice of true federalism with appropriate devolution of power and resource control.
Those who accuse us in the Niger Delta of preaching Resource Control because we want to keep all the oil to ourselves or, to be more absurd, that we want to secede know that they are just being mischievous because nothing is further from the truth than that. In fact the contrary is the position. The recklessness with which the gas is flared, the aggressiveness with which the oil is being exploited, the reticence towards the exploitation of other revenue sources, the refusal to clean up the polluted environment resulting from oil and gas activities leave us in the Niger Delta with the palpable and justifiable fear that these wasting assets are being exploited to our disadvantage and that after the place has been raped, despoiled and devastated, we will be abandoned with nothing to show but lamentations for our participation in the union. We have often asked for assurances that this will not be the case, but no such assurance has ever been given. It is issues like this, which can instantly be cured with true federalism that have continued to provoke and heighten the risk of unsavoury action from the creeks.
We must accept that the issue of Resource Control will not go away. It is something that we must return to because it is the cornerstone upon which true federalism is erected.
The question may then be asked, how can we bring about this rebirth? The answer lies in our ability to carry everybody along and we have to start by engaging the National Assembly. In a very recent interview, the respected Senator Jonathan Zwingina had this to say “I would like to call on Nigerians, especially our older elites who feel that restructuring is a presidential affair, to have a rethink. It is not a presidential affair. If the necessary cooperation is there, the National Assembly can achieve it. They can create the kind of balanced federation that we are looking for.” Prior to that, the President of the 8th Senate had said that members of the National Assembly are crucial to the call for restructuring. In fact he insisted that no restructuring could happen without the National Assembly. I could not agree more. I also agree wholeheartedly with the Right Honourable Speaker of the 8th House of Representatives who said that as elected representatives of the people, they were bound to fulfil the wishes of those who elected them. To do otherwise would be to create a situation in which the servant is greater than the master or the tail wags the dog.
At a recent event in Lagos, I listened to the President of the 9th Senate, Senator Ahmed Lawan, and I heard him say that “No country has ever developed without trust among its citizens” He went on to affirm from a popular line in our abandoned national anthem that “Though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we must continue to stand”. This trust, this brotherhood which we had and lost, this new beginning which we so fervently desire can only be realised through REBIRTH. It is therefore my fervent hope, and I am sure I express the hope of everyone who wishes this country well that the 9th National Assembly will stand with the people, seize the moment and rise to such height of patriotism as will not only facilitate but expedite the attainment of this rebirth.
Since it is the wishes of the people to have a rebirth, I strongly urge the National Assembly to quickly make a law to convoke a National Dialogue. The law should spell out who should attend; the method of election/selection of the conference delegates; the time frame and manner of conduct of deliberations. Such a law would guarantee the legitimacy of the conference. With that, further attempts to amend the present constitution should cease. When the conference has concluded its deliberations, its findings, without any alterations must be subjected to a national referendum the outcome of which will give Nigeria a new constitution made by Nigerians for Nigeria. Such a constitution is what is needed to give Nigeria a new birth. The function of the National Assembly at that stage will be to repeal the decree that had brought the 1999 constitution into existence and make a new law that will promulgate this new constitution as the supreme law of the land. That way, sovereignty would have been bestowed without any conflict or dispute about roles.
Attempts to panel beat the 1999 constitution have so far failed and will continue to fail. The compelling need for a new constitution is therefore something that is acknowledged by all of us in this country. The imperatives for such a new constitution were given by the then President of the Nigerian Bar Association when, in August 2013 he said; “the constitution as it currently operates does not reflect the people’s yearnings and aspirations. Ordinary amendments to its provisions may not necessarily cure the fundamental flaws in it. There is therefore a dire need for a people-oriented constitution which will be subjected to a national referendum and will be self-enforcing”. To this I should add something that I had said earlier; “Nigeria must fashion out its own version of perestroika or perish”
PARLIAMENTARY VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM
Now I find it necessary to turn my thoughts to the system of governance that our new constitution should prescribe. Have we ever stopped to wonder why the great Sarduana of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, chose, in disdain of the central government, to remain the Premier of his federating unit, the Northern Region of Nigeria, in preference to being the Prime Minister of the Federation? It is because in a proper federal system, it is the governments of the federating units, the state governments, that matter most to the people. This being so, I want to strongly advocate that we go back to the parliamentary system which we had at independence.
A dissertorial analysis of the two types of government would require another lecture so I will try only to highlight some essential differences. Since we are already familiar with what obtains today, I will dwell essentially on the contrasting features. Whoever wants to be a governor today has the entire state as his or her electoral constituency while the presidential aspirant has the entire country. There is no denying the fact that success in such a contest tends to give the winner a sense of conquest that has often brought out the worst dictatorial tendencies in us. The financial demands of the exercise, particularly in an unregulated environment such as ours are enormous and again, we would be less than honest if we try to deny the sad fact that it is state funds, the people’s patrimony, that is being deployed. This has resulted in paucity of funds for development and other demanding dividends of democracy.
The presidential system that we operate today has also resulted in the abasement of the high offices of Governor and President. Today people become governors not necessarily because they are competent or even have a manifesto for the development of the state, but merely because they are somebody’s “boy” meaning that they have some powerful godfather that pushes them into that position. On leaving office, he too wants to push his own “boy” to take over. So we now have a situation of “boy-boy” governors with no ideas or any form of competence for the office they occupy. While this may be particularly true of the office of the governor, we are witnesses to how a president successfully imposed his choice of successor on this country. Only in our warped presidential system can this type of abomination occur.
This “boy-boy” syndrome has robbed the various Houses of Assembly of any independence and the ability to provide any checks or balance for the proper running of government. They cannot therefore perform any oversight functions over the executive even as, to the last one of them, they have been put there by the governor. At the federal level we have the wasteful layering of the Senate over the House of Representatives in addition to the Federal Executive Council. Three very expensive conglomerates each with an array of special and personal assistants all in the name of running a government. Conglomerates that often cannot find a common ground. So we hear of such evil things as budget padding and the sinister introduction of fraudulent constituency projects with the promotion of parochial above national interest. The result is that mediocrity and wastefulness rule the day.
Another invidious perfidy of this system is the rigging of elections. Rigging starts with INEC and is then transferred to the courts with bizarre results that effectively rob the electorate of what should be an inalienable right to elect their leaders. The consequence is imposition of the worst kind and a complete thwarting of the people’s will. Even when it gets to happen that the people actually succeed in electing who they want, we find that Mr. A defeats Mr. B and gets elected by his people; overall Mr. B’s party wins the election and Mr. B gets appointed as the Commissioner or Minister for a constituency that had rejected him at the polls. What an absurd irony! I will show that it is almost impossible for such anti-people perversions as I have illustrated above to occur in a parliamentary system.
In a parliamentary system everybody gets elected from their State House of Assembly constituencies at the state level and at the national level the constituency is that of the Federal House of Representatives. The party with the highest number of members in the various Assemblies will be called upon to form a government and the members will elect from among themselves a Premier at the state level and a Prime Minister at the Federal level. Some of the other members will be selected to head various ministries as commissioners or ministers. The opposition will in turn form a shadow cabinet to provide stringent oversight functions that will effectively monitor government activities. Now let us examine what that means.
Starting with the elections, we can see that with the shrunken constituency, campaign funds, which have proved a drawback to many, will crash. The electorate knowing that their representative could in fact be elected the Premier or Prime Minister as the case may be, failing which he or she could be put in charge of a good ministry as a commissioner or minister will make sure that they put forward their best candidates. There is no doubt that the electorate will know unquestioningly who it is they want to represent or lead them and that rules out imposition and the consideration of rigging. The state House will remain one per state as now, and the commissioners will be picked from among theses members, while at the federal level, the Executive Council, the House of Representatives and the Senate will be combined into a single Assembly with the resultant savings in billions of naira.
While indeed we cannot play down the phenomenal advantage of reducing the costs of running elections and running the government that this system has over the presidential, its greatest attraction lies in the undeniable fact that only quality people, people with integrity and purpose, can scale through in this system. Without a doubt therefore, the parliamentary system will give Nigeria the one thing that we all agree we need most – namely quality leadership.
Add to this the fact that the emergent leadership will also be contributive and collective. Given the proliferation of parties that we have in Nigeria today, it will not be possible for any one of those to win a clear overall majority of seats in any Assembly. So there will be negotiations; horse trading; coalitions between parties that believe they have similar ideologies or should I say points of view, and the results will be a close approximation to an inclusive people’s government. Even if we succeed in bringing down the number of parties to two with the possibility therefore of any one of them at any given time gaining an overall majority and therefore being able to form a government on its own, the shadow cabinet, mounted by the opposing party is bound to keep it on its toes. Greater accountability will be assured and corruption will be largely curtailed.
An additional beauty of the parliamentary system is that a truly efficient Premier or Prime Minister can be re-elected again and again as was the case with Dame Margaret Thatcher. On the other hand, one tragic policy error or a general perception of incompetence may be all that is required for one to be removed from that office as has just happened in Britain. This happened without the trauma of impeachment that the presidential system entails.
CONCLUSION
Today Nigeria is faced with the question, to be or not to be and we must answer unequivocally. As in the affairs of men, so also in the affairs of a nation, there is a tide which taken at the flood will spur us to unprecedented growth and development but, omitted, we court disaster and total disintegration. President Muhamadu Buhari must count himself particularly lucky that he is the one positioned to answer that question and to take the glory. He has said, without prompting, that he would be belabouring the point to say that true federalism is necessary at this juncture of our political and democratic evolution. That evolution must end in a rebirth for the country.
Having acknowledged this fact, he must, with determination and a sense of urgency, take the required steps to bring it about. Even though certain actions of Mr. President appear at times to belie his avowals, I nonetheless call on the sceptics to bury their doubts, come out strongly in support of the president and task him this time to stand firmly by his word. After all he is the first president ever to add his voice to the demand for true federalism which has now reached a crescendo. The needed rebirth is one that will give life back to the country; a rebirth that will regenerate our sense of productive enterprise and self-reliance; a rebirth that will re-establish our self-respect and respect for one another; that will turn anomie to bonhomie; that will change vicious, destructive envy into healthy rivalry; a rebirth with its internal mechanism to fight corruption. A rebirth that will lead us to fix our decaying infrastructure; uplift our falling education standard; provide the needed health care services for our people; restore human dignity and provide adequate security for the lives and property of our people. A rebirth that will bring about much needed sustainable development and re-establish us as respectable citizens with dignity in the comity of nations.
Should President Muhammadu Buhari succeed in bringing this about, he will be our nation’s greatest hero and the acknowledged father of modern Nigeria; but should he falter or fail, the consequence will be a disaster of such magnitude that would inexorably lead to the total disintegration of this country.
May God guide him and give him glory.
Obong Victor Attack, former governor of Akwa Ibom state, presented this paper at the the 21st Obong Sampson Udo Etuk Biennial lecture series of Mboho Mkparawa Ibibio in 2019 but still relevant in today’s discourse