THE chicken has come home to roost. It is time to end the tomfoolery or else… For more than forty years, state governors have gathered in Lagos (when it was still the Federal capital) and now Abuja, to share the federal revenue accruing mostly from our oil resources. It was a military-decreed sharing formula that ensured that the Federal Government would always get more than the states and local governments put together.
Former Education Minister, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, was recently quoted as accusing President Muhammadu Buhari of running a “command-and-control” economy. It has always been so since the civil war ended, even during Ezekwesili’s time as an official of the Olusegun Obasanjo regime as elected president. Buhari is a reactionary-minded member of the Northern Military/Civilian Oligarchy that created the “command-and-control” economy to enable those who fought against the secession of Biafra milk the oil wealth of the former Eastern Region (now Niger Delta). Naturally, he seeks to strengthen the Centre’s hold on the economy (as opposed to privatisation pursued by Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan) in order to gratify, essentially, the North. If you need proof that the centralised economy and federalism was built up to assert Northern control and aggrandisement, you don’t have to look far.
Check the amounts each state collects from the Federation Account every month, and you will see that by far the largest chunk goes to the North (through emphasis on landmass, “population” and the humongous number of local government areas allocated to the Region, especially the core Arewa zones of North West and North East). After the North, the West is given the ‘junior partner’s’ share and the South East (former core Biafra) gets the least. While the oil bazaar lasted, the federating units, weakened as a result of the over-arching power of the centre, lost the hunger, appetite and impetus to grow their economies. This was a total negation of the situation that obtained before the war when the various Regions, empowered to assert resource control, flourished through healthy competition because no region wanted to, as we say in Nigeria, “carry last”.
The North, with its vast land, flourished through agriculture. The West, also through its sizeable land and favourable geo-location, also flourished. The East was not far behind, as its spirit of enterprise and innovation speedily made up for what it lacked in land resources and geo-advantages. But unfortunately for the East, just when it was on the verge of untrammelled prosperity through the impending crude oil boom, found itself caught in the crises, coups and counter-coups of 1962-1967, which precipitated the civil war.
The North successfully allied with the West and the various Minorities, under the supervision of the former British colonial masters and their allies, to edge out the East, capture the oil wealth of the Region and share the proceeds just as they wished. During the past forty years, we have seen three major cycles of oil boom and oil busts (1980-1999, 2008/2009 and 2014 till date). Of the three, the 2008 edition (otherwise known as the “economic meltdown”) was the least hurtful because, not only did Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, under the Obasanjo regime, negotiate Nigeria out of a crippling debt trap, the nation also had through sheer impunity, stored enough excess revenue in the famous Excess Crude Account (over 30 billion US Dollars) to see us through. But all efforts by the Jonathan regime to also save for this rainy day when the prices of oil were over $100 per barrel were thwarted by governors under the abrasive chairmanship of Rotimi Amaechi. Today, 26 states have become virtually bankrupt.
Within the space of nine months, state governors have gone twice to President Buhari for bailouts. Just six months after the over 800 billion Naira Central Bank of Nigeria bailout, they went back for more last week. They demanded for a review of the revenue allocation formula to give more money to states and local governments. Meanwhile, these governors refuse to reduce their opulent lifestyle. Labour Unions are now at the door. They accused the Presidency, governors and legislators of refusing to cut their coats down to size, and tabled a demand for upgrade of the minimum wage from N18,000 to N56,000 (or N90,000). This is the perfect setting for an impasse that will further hurt the economy and extend suffering. The way things are now, even if the governors reduce cost of governance, they cannot pay the new minimum wage. Even if oil prices go back above $100 per barrel, we still cannot afford the wage. Most states barely managed to pay during the last oil boom.
The only way out for Nigeria is to discard in its entirety the post-Biafra war military command-and-control system for the polity and the economy meant to reward some people for defeating Biafra and freeloading on the oil wealth of Eastern Nigeria (now the Niger Delta). To your tents O Israel! We must return to an improved version of the regional structure we had before the war. Instead of four Regions (East, West, North and Mid West) we should have six (South East, South-South, South West, North Central, North East and North West), with each region/zone fully in control of its economic resources and the affairs of local councils. The Federal Government should be the umbrella that covers and protects all of us, guaranteeing the territorial integrity of the country, the constitutional rights of its citizens in Nigeria and abroad and the preservation/promotion of Nigeria’s common institutional heritages (Armed Forces, Police, Customs, Foreign Affairs, Currency and others).
The oil that led the military to establish the corrupt, sectional, unworkable and crisis-riddled centralised federalism in the past forty nine years has lost its ability to sustain Nigeria. We must act now, or else we will be back to General Muhammadu Buhari’s 1984, when we could not see sugar, bread and milk to buy, let alone rice.
VANGUARD
END
Let’s go back to regional government & competition. Nigeria needs a strong and courageous leader to take Nigeria back to the regional government structure.