INFLEXIBLE as ever, the Presidency recently once more flippantly, and unwisely, dismissed the agonising cries of Nigerians for restructuring. It also labelled separatist agitators as “enemies of the country.” Shortly afterwards, the National Economic Council, a statutory advisory body of the Vice-President as chairman, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the 36 state governors, joined in the retrogressive charade when it rose from a virtual meeting to “unanimously affirm the unity of Nigeria.” It asked the governors to hold “wider consultations” in their respective states on the issue of state policing and other power devolution matters. These moves demonstrate a detachment from reality and a wide distance between the country’s leadership and the people.
While the leaders carry on leisurely, Nigerians are being killed in scores, hundreds of thousands are displaced with some taking refuge in neighbouring countries, and the government has lost control over pockets of territory and its monopoly of the instruments of coercion. The unitary “federation” has failed, and the mass of the people are bearing the brunt. Amalgamation and independence since 1914 and 1960 respectively, legislations and slogans have failed to forge unity and a sense of common nationhood. Most Nigerians want a restructured country to reflect its diversity and unfetter its component parts to realise their potential and overcome poverty and insecurity. Others, despairing of the inherent injustices in the system, desire outright independence. These views are being forcefully canvassed, mutual antagonism has spiked and blood is being spilled.
However, the leaders live largely in denial and resist change. The President, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), represents the most egregious. He, his inner circle and far northern elite, arrogantly dismiss calls for restructuring; they demonise separatists and label self-determination calls as treason. Swiftly, the regime proclaimed the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, a South-East separatist group, as a “terrorist organisation.” Repeatedly, Buhari contemptuously bats down any suggestion to remake the country along rational lines.
His spokesman, Garba Shehu, reaffirmed his obduracy on Arise TV, re-echoing the President’s oft-repeated boast that he would “not be bullied” into accepting calls for restructuring. “You can’t intimidate Buhari, you can’t bully him,” Shehu declared. He condemned separatists and accused them of being “the problem of Nigeria.” To many, however, Buhari is viewed as the main problem. Leader of Afenifere, a South-West group, Ayo Adebanjo, said his rejection of restructuring was actually the trigger for separatist agitation. Separatists have become militant, and self-help is taking root.
The governors should demonstrate the sense of urgency required to combat the country’s increasingly brittle fragility by leading the agitation for restructuring. Their acquiescence in the NEC resolution for “consultations” is time-wasting and diversionary. Nigerians went through such discussions in national conferences in 1994/95, 2006 and in 2014. The reports are available.
All stakeholders need to overcome Buhari’s intransigence. As this newspaper has consistently argued, Nigeria is negotiable and belongs to all its 206 million people; it is not the exclusive preserve of Buhari and the far Northern elite. It is the responsibility of all genuine lovers of freedom and democracy to resist their presumption of a veto power on the popular will. Nigeria is a natural federation and can only prosper when organised as one. Our founding fathers and even the manipulative British colonial overlords recognised this and negotiated constitutions along federal principles. What is wrong is therefore known; fiscal federalism, resource control and state police, without which insecurity will worsen, are essentials. There is nothing to debate except to urgently work to accomplish them before the economy collapses and the current anarchy implodes into complete state failure. The argument that parliaments are already in place is self-serving; they are creations of a perverse, unproductive constitution and need to give way to genuine products of the people’s will.
Three options remain to save this edifice: continue with the unitary charade; restructure via a constitutional framework suitable for a federation or watch the country collapse, possibly violently. Let Buhari know that there is no amount of state power that can stop the agitation. The Patriots, a group of eminent statesmen led by the legal luminaries, the late Rotimi Williams, and Ben Nwabueze, prepared a workable federal constitution for debate.In the 1990s, PRONACO, led by the late nationalist, Anthony Enahoro, had painstakingly prepared a federalist political map and structure.
Across the world, self-determination and devolution of power have peacefully taken root. Formerly outlawed Basque separatists and the IRA of the Northern Ireland are now legally recognised negotiating partners in Spain and Britain, respectively. Neither the Scottish and Welsh nationalists in the United Kingdom, nor the separatist agitators of Quebec, Canada, have been demonised as “terrorists.” Instead, referendums have been held in both countries with strong campaigns to persuade them to remain.
No area of national life is working, and ethnic animosities have spilled over into wanton bloodletting. Renewed agitation and separatism are the results of this failure. Nigeria must be negotiated. Government is the outcome of the sovereign will of the people, not its dictator. Czechoslovakia separated peacefully into Slovakia and the Czech Republic; obduracy led to the violent fragmentation of Yugoslavia into six countries at a huge cost in human life. Avoiding that fate demands overcoming Buhari’s bullheadedness.
Drastic solutions are needed; instead of the time-wasting expensive charade of “consultations”, governors should seize the initiative, mobilise federal and state lawmakers to rush through constitution amendment to facilitate state policing, fiscal autonomy, and resource control to halt the raging anarchy and avert economic collapse. This should be a prelude to dumping the 1999 Constitution altogether and its replacement with one formulated by the people and federal in all ramifications.
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