Members of Nigeria’s club of elites, like former military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, who insist that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable, obviously did not reckon with God, through Pastor E.A. Adeboye, General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God.
Though he didn’t say, “Thus saith the Lord,” when he suggested that Nigeria must restructure or break up, you can’t ignore him. The usually taciturn cleric is responding, months after civil society groups stood before the Redemption Camp gate to demand his intervention on raging issues of Nigeria’s polity. Pull has finally come to shove.
Some, however, think his suggestion that Nigeria should merge the American presidential system with the British parliamentary system of government, like the French did, could lead to deadlocks: He wants the president to oversee the military and mineral resources, and the prime minister, the police and taxation.
After acknowledging “people (who) feel that all our problems will be over if Nigeria should break up,” he stated categorically, “We all know that we must restructure. It is either we restructure or we break up. You don’t have to be a prophet to know that one.” He however, admonishes: “We don’t have to break up.”
To which Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, responded in a manner suggestive of the notion that anyone who asks for restructuring is waging insurrection against the Nigerian state.
Shehu said, almost menacingly, “The presidency responds to the recurring threats to the corporate existence of the country,” and declared that, “Such unpatriotic outbursts are both unhelpful and unwarranted.”
He then warned, “The government will not succumb to threats (which threats?) to take any decision out of pressure at a time when the nation’s attention is needed to deal with the security challenges facing it at a time of the COVID-19 crisis.”
In an opinion piece in The PUNCH newspaper, Prof Benedicta Egbo argued that what obtains in Nigeria is oligarchic democracy, where the ruling class access and retain power by coercion, oppression and hegemony.
Whereas the rule-of-thumb definition by American President Abraham Lincoln describes democracy as government of the people by the people and for the people, Egbo defines oligarchic democracy as government of the few, by the few and for the few.
Nigerians, of lesser or nil political clout, show their own oligarchic tendencies, either by asking anyone engaged in altercation with them, “Do you know who I am?”, or simply display an army insignia, beret, “koboko” or horsewhip on the dashboard of their vehicles. Much lesser compatriots are expected to get the message and behave accordingly.
Those who pretend they do not know what restructuring means should take a look at the following: Because the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), concentrates nearly all top military and security posts in the custody of an ethnic group from two geopolitical zones, other Nigerians are scared to death.
No one saw the red herring when the government of the First Republic scrapped the Local Authority police forces resident in some regions, retained and consolidated the federal Nigeria Police Force that appears to be overwhelmed these days.
The military, security and police forces are clearly overstretched with the general insecurity of insurrection, herdsmen and farmer clashes, banditry, kidnapping and ritual killing, in the country. You can imagine how much peace Nigerians would enjoy with the introduction of state police.
The recently disbanded elite Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police, that lost its bearing by arresting Nigerian youths, sometimes because they have iPhones and laptops, are symptoms of power that is overly concentrated.
Recruitment of personnel into most senior civil service agencies, public corporations and government-owned enterprises is decidedly skewed to a section of the country despite the concept of federal character enshrined in Nigeria’s Constitution.
Instead of directing resources to remedy the deficiency in the so-called educationally-disadvantaged states of Nigeria, the federation introduces policies that hold down the states that are said to be more advanced educationally.
Those who thought they would appropriate University of Ifè, University of Benin, University of Nigeria, Ahmadu Bello University and Bayero University, to the Federal Government, in order to level up admission into Nigeria’s tertiary institutions have now seen that the policy rather downgraded tertiary education throughout the country.
The centralised admission into tertiary educational institutions, which prescribes differential admission requirements to candidates from different states is not helping anyone. The Yoruba say that a man who insists that another will not progress will himself have to stay static and stationary.
The idea of federal character has been routinely disregarded despite the position of Nigeria’s Constitution. It has also been implemented when it is absolutely absurd and inexpedient. Its handmaiden, the state of origin concept, has become a tool for discrimination and, maybe, oppression.
The reversal of the revenue allocation formula, from regions remitting 50 per cent of their internally generated revenue to the central government, to the obverse, where revenue from mineral resources, like petroleum, and taxation, like Value Added Tax, first go to the federation account, before it is divvied to the three tiers of government, allocates too much to a central government that is both slow and lopsided in policy implementation.
States from where the revenues are derived end up getting a disproportionately low return despite their contributions to the common purse. First, some sections of the country lose out on the basis of population, and number of states and local governments that are derived from doubtful census figures.
They also lose out when the central government makes it a matter of deliberate policy to appoint more personnel from, and execute more projects in, one section of the country over the others. Remember Jim Yong Kim, former President of the World Bank, who disclosed that Buhari requested him to execute more World Bank projects in Northern Nigeria.
There are reports, which one hopes is fake news, that the Central Bank of Nigeria plans to buy N5 billion worth of gold from a section of Nigeria, whereas petroleum, found in other sections of the country, is regarded as a national resource.
How can revenue from gold exclusively belong to the producing states, while revenue from petroleum, another mineral resource, accrues only to the federation, with a paltry 13 per cent retained by the producing states? Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has yet to deny that he is miffed by news of this strange, skewed, arrangement.
Some Nigerians are asking for a return to the original three, or four, regions because each of those regions, which could have been a country by itself, had a strong and vibrant economy. The Federal Exclusive Legislative List, that keeps expanding, is daily draining energy, resources and initiative from the states.
You can only imagine how much damage redheaded and wilful “Tiyamiyu Adárípón,” better known as American President Donald Trump, would have wrought against Nigerian citizens were he vested with the excessive power, and limitless resources, available to the Nigerian President.
The Nigerian Constitution, federal in name, but unitary in practice, has an exceedingly cumbersome amendment procedure which makes changes nearly impossible. That leads to frustration and adds to the desire of citizens to either migrate to other countries, or make separatist agitations.
If only Nigeria’s city fathers will restructure the nation now.
Twitter @lekansote1
