“Federalism involves the linking of individuals, groups and polities in lasting but limited union in such a way as to provide for the energetic pursuit of common goals while maintaining the respective integrities of all parties.” — Daniel J. Elazar
If restructuring is to serve any useful national purpose, the first task must be to distinguish structural defects from failures of governance. Nigeria is excessively centralised in several respects. The Federal Government carries responsibilities that might more effectively be exercised at lower levels. The fiscal relationship among the tiers requires reconsideration. Security arrangements must reflect the reality that many threats are local. States require greater economic flexibility, while local government autonomy and accountability remain unresolved. The concentration of political competition around control of Abuja also raises the stakes of national elections to unhealthy levels.
These are genuine restructuring questions. But restructuring will not automatically eliminate corruption or usher in good governance. It will not by itself produce competent governors, efficient local governments, disciplined civil services, effective policing or accountable legislatures. A badly governed region will remain badly governed merely on a larger geographical scale. This is important because constitutional engineering can become an excuse for avoiding the more uncomfortable question of the integrity of leadership. The so-called national question is therefore about considerably more than tinkering with the map of the country.
Nigeria operated a regional system in the First Republic, and that arrangement produced notable achievements. The regions enjoyed substantial autonomy and developed distinctive economic, educational and administrative institutions. But the same period also experienced intense political rivalry, disputed elections and censuses, regional crises and, ultimately, the collapse of the constitutional order. The lesson is not that regionalism failed, nor that it should never be reconsidered. It is that no constitutional arrangement can substitute for political accommodation, institutional integrity and a sound democratic culture. Likewise, later state-creation exercises addressed some minority fears and brought government closer to previously neglected areas. But the multiplication of states also created new minorities, new boundary disputes, fresh grievances, demands for additional states, wastefulness and a high cost of governance. Political structures solve some problems while creating others. That reality should encourage equilibrium and rationality in the restructuring debate. No constitutional design will permanently settle the national question, if indeed it is a “question” capable of final settlement. Countries are continuously negotiated communities. Even old federations periodically reconsider the distribution of authority between their central and sub-national governments.
Nigeria should do the same, but through a process anchored in constitutionalism rather than ethnic hegemony, ultimatum and diktat. The more productive approach may therefore be to move away from the language of a single grand restructuring towards a programme of accommodative federal reform. Such reform could include a deliberate review of the legislative lists, greater sub-national responsibility for policing and internal security, more rational fiscal arrangements, incentives for states and local governments to develop their own revenue bases, stronger regional economic cooperation, protection for minorities and a clearer constitutional framework for intergovernmental relations.
Some functions could be transferred immediately. Others might be shared. Still others should remain federal because the integrity of the Nigerian state requires common institutions, common standards and a shared national outlook. This would make restructuring an institutional programme rather than an ideological or agitational slogan uttered in abstraction or as an expression of irrational fear and unfounded grievance. There is also a deeper national responsibility. Nigeria cannot be restructured successfully if every community enters the process primarily as a litigant, claimant or aggrieved party and none enters as a stakeholder and custodian of the federation.
A durable constitution requires reciprocal sacrifice. The stronger must accept restraints on power. Larger groups must recognise minority fears. Minority communities must also accept that federalism cannot guarantee every community its own exclusive political space. Resource-producing areas deserve fairness, while the federation must preserve mechanisms of national solidarity. Regions or states require autonomy, but the centre must retain sufficient capacity to defend the country, conduct foreign policy, manage macroeconomic stability and protect constitutional rights.
The national question is therefore not simply about entitlement; fundamentally, it is also about responsibility. It is not enough to ask, “What are we entitled to?” It is equally necessary to ask, “What are we prepared to concede so that Nigeria may continue to exist as a shared political community?” That second question is rarely asked because proponents of restructuring often approach the subject from maximalist positions and mindsets. There is another danger in reductionism. When every national difficulty is explained through the prism of ethnic marginalisation, Nigerians may eventually lose the ability to recognise problems that are common to them.
An unemployed young person in Kano and another in Aba may belong to different ethnic communities, but their economic predicament may arise from the same failures. A farmer threatened by insecurity in Zamfara and another displaced in Benue may experience the crisis through different communal narratives, but both require an effective state to protect them. An entrepreneur in Maiduguri, Enugu or Ibadan confronts many of the same problems of electricity, affordable credit, infrastructure and regulation. The Nigerian condition therefore contains both group grievances and shared national challenges. A mature national conversation must be capable of acknowledging both.
Restructuring should not become a mechanism for converting every Nigerian into an ethnic litigant before the federation. Its purpose should be the opposite: to design institutions capable of reducing the importance of ethnic competition in everyday governance. The ultimate test of federal reform is not whether every historical grievance is vindicated or resolved, because that would be impossible. The test is whether Nigerians, wherever they live, can exercise citizenship with dignity; whether communities can govern meaningful aspects of their own affairs; whether minorities are secure; whether resources are distributed fairly; and whether the federation possesses sufficient legitimacy to command voluntary loyalty.
That is a more demanding objective than redrawing a map in the name of ethnic chauvinism, regionalism or federal retrenchment. Nigeria certainly needs a new federal conversation. The present system contains contradictions that cannot indefinitely be ignored. But that conversation must resist the temptation to reduce the national question to a competition among grievances or the establishment of priorities among entitlements. History should inform it, but not imprison it, just as identity should be recognised but not weaponised. Consent should legitimise political arrangements, but it must not become a formula for perpetual fragmentation. Restructuring should strengthen the federation rather than merely rearrange the geography of dissent and dissatisfaction.
The essential challenge is to convert what has too often been a debate of accusation into a programme of institutional reform. That requires practical questions rather than rhetorical ones. Which powers should remain federal? Which should be devolved? What fiscal responsibilities should accompany devolved authority? How should sub-national policing be supervised? How should minorities be protected within larger regions or states? How should disputes over boundaries and affiliation be settled? What safeguards are required to prevent regional majorities from reproducing, at lower levels, the domination they complain of at the centre?
These questions are less dramatic than vacuous declarations about restructuring, but they are far more important. They also reveal why restructuring cannot be treated as a single event. Federal reform is better understood as a process of continuous adjustment. Nigeria may require greater devolution in some areas, stronger national standards in others, and new mechanisms of intergovernmental cooperation where responsibilities overlap. What matters is not ideological purity, but institutional effectiveness. The federation should be judged by whether it enables Nigerians to govern themselves better, not by whether it reproduces a preferred historical arrangement shaped towards a particular ethnic interest.
Nigeria’s problems cannot all be blamed on centralisation, nor can all national tensions be resolved by regionalism. Some problems are constitutional. Others are administrative, economic, social or political. Some arise from the conduct of leaders. Others arise from institutional weakness. Still others are brought about by poverty, insecurity, demographic pressure and uneven development. A serious national reform agenda must therefore be broad enough to recognise complexity where it exists.
Federalism is not merely about dividing power; it is about creating a durable political community in which diversity can coexist with citizenship. Devolution must be accompanied by responsibility. Fiscal autonomy must be accompanied by accountability. Regional or state authority must be accompanied by minority protection. Local control must be balanced by national standards where fundamental rights and citizenship are concerned. Nor should restructuring become a substitute for democratic legitimacy. Constitutional change must proceed through lawful, broadly accepted and nationally legitimate means. A new federation cannot be created by undermining the democratic foundations upon which the existing one rests.
Perhaps the most useful question for Nigerians today is therefore not simply whether the country should be restructured. The question should be: Are we seeking a constitutional settlement that enables different peoples to live together more successfully, or merely constitutional language through which old grievances can be pursued by other means in order to fracture the country? The answer will determine whether restructuring becomes the foundation of Nigeria’s renewal or merely another chapter in the unfinished argument over who owns the country.
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