We need an impartial body that would proffer genuine ways to properly reconfigure Nigeria from what it presently is – a totally unworkable and, therefore, not working ‘geographical expression’ as Chief Obafemi Awolowo called it.
It could not have been a surprise that the dominant theme of this year’s June 12 anniversary revolved around the matter of restructuring Nigeria. Literally everybody who spoke at the various events marking the day had something to say about the subject and once they had finished eulogising Chief MKO Abiola’s sacrifice for democracy, it was the next important topic they launched into. Restructuring is that important, if Nigeria is ever to get it right, that the Buhari government must ensure it takes it serious enough not to commit the mistakes of earlier administrations especially in the composition of the conference membership. Any attempt to pack such a conference would mean that nothing good can come from it. We need an impartial body that would proffer genuine ways to properly reconfigure Nigeria from what it presently is – a totally unworkable and, therefore, not working ‘geographical expression’ as Chief Obafemi Awolowo called it.
The many flashpoints we are confronted with as a nation today irrefutably confirms that description. Apart from the impossibility of wishing restructuring away, President Buhari’s inelegant claim that the report of the 2014 confab will rot away in the archives, has massively upped the ante of the demand for it. Although I did not support the conference because I saw it as a product of crass political opportunism, I have expected that since his inauguration, President Buhari would have read through the report or be properly briefed about it as the recommendations cannot, in totality, be bad for the country, given the calibre of people at the conference. Arising from the trenchant, negative reactions to his disclosure about how he treated the report , therefore, I think the president should create the time to study it. He should, in fact, thoroughly study, and internalise, the reports of all the conferences that have been convoked towards finding a solution to the national question. He is guaranteed a profitable learning curve about this ‘amalgam of nations’ called Nigeria as doing so will provide answers to many of the demons presently tearing us apart. In case he is too busy to do this personally, the president should empanel a small, but smart group from within his cabinet to do a summary of the reports and, in bullet form, extract the key recommendations, especially those on which all the conferences are ‘ad idem’. These he could effect, via executive powers, and fast track others through executive bills to the National Assembly.
Historically, some parts of the North have constituted the greatest opposition to restructuring, but that position is beginning to change. Before the recent call by former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, suggesting that “restructuring and renewal of our federation will make it less centralised and less suffocating, elder statesman, Alhaji Ahmed Joda, had lent it a ringing support when he wrote as follows: “Our country has passed through difficult times, including a civil war and has survived. We must, however, not mistake the fact of our survival to anything like military might; rather it was because ordinary Nigerians overwhelmingly desire to live together in one united country, but under some acceptable arrangement”.
At this year’s anniversary of June 12, some highly regarded Nigerians, among them the Lagos State governor, Akinwumi Ambode, Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu (retd) and Ayo Opadokun also threw their weight behind restructuring which they said is a must if we want to overcome our national challenges. While the governor said that what “we owe Nigeria today is nothing but true federalism, Opadokun believes that Nigeria will not get out of the woods until it restructures its skewed federal structure. At another event, this time at the 17th Annual Convention of the Igbo Youth Movement, former Vice President Alex Ekwueme; Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Prof. Jerry Gana, amongst others, also vigorously canvassed restructuring and concluded that it is only when we have done this that Nigeria can have peace.
A lot has been written about how beneficial to Nigeria restructuring would be that we need not repeat them here. Our various theatres of mini wars, North and South of the country, have turned restructuring to an urgent matter. However, given our current economic and security challenges – the naira has just been pummelled to submission – I believe that the immediate problems confronting the Buhari administration should be how to fix the economy as well as conclusively rout Boko Haram, not convoking a national conference. The last one, we were told, gulped a princely N9Billion. If that was possible when oil was selling for more than 100 dollars per barrel, our current economic circumstances which has rendered 27 out of 36 states literally comatose, should warn us against any undue haste abut restructuring, important as it certainly is. I wish to suggest, therefore, that President Buhari should not be unduly harangued about restructuring before his 3rd year in office when we expect that the economy should have been sufficiently stabilised and Boko Haram, hopefully, no longer a major threat.
An ideal time to begin the process of restructuring should, in my view, be during the first quarter of President Buhari’s third year in office when he should pronounce the establishment of a Constituent Assembly whose members would emerge from an election to be conducted on a zero party basis. In the Ahmed Joda model, the National Assembly would constitute the .Assembly but I think Nigerians have seen enough of the 8th Assembly to ever leave such a huge responsibility in its hands. As suggested by the elder statesman, “there should be no representation in the Assembly for special interests because of the abuses that could engender, and serving members of any legislative body should not be eligible just as interested public servants must resign their posts and contest.” The Assembly should have full powers to comprehensively review the Nigerian Constitution bearing in mind, as Joda posited, the fact that “there is, in the extant one, too much concentration of power and resources at the centre, thus stifling the country’s march to greatness as well as threatening its unity because of the abuses, corruption and reactive tensions which over-centralisation generates.”
The Assembly should have about six months to work, and present its report to the president. From this point on, in my opinion, the conference report should, at a formal national event, be handed over to the political parties to study and make to their party manifesto for the 2019 general election. This should then be regarded as the respective party’s contract with Nigerians on the basis of which each would campaign for the election. This is about the only way to cure the current constitution’s lie about ‘we the people’. It will also eliminate the controversy about whether the current constitution permits a referendum or not. Whichever party wins the general election should, ipso facto, be deemed to have secured the peoples’ mandate to begin restructuring Nigeria with effect from 29 May, 2019.
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The way forward is Re- structuring, True Federalism.