Indeed, the debate on the matter has been with us since the First Republic and particularly since the end of the civil war. What is however novel is the strindency that the call for restructuring has assumed since the inception of the Buhari administration even from some quite unexpected quarters.
It is rather unfortunate that an important idea that has the potential of becoming a panacea for solving some of our chronic problems of nationhood, like everything Nigerian, has been turned to a mere political gimmick and campaign sloganeering.
The British colonialists who originally created the geographical expression that was named Nigeria did not do so for the benefit of the natives. They did so mainly for their nation’s economic and imperial objectives. Were it otherwise, they would have consulted the ethnically and culturally divergent populace of different tribes and tongues before they were unilaterally lumped together in one country.
This however is not meant to be an excuse for our national dereliction for we already have more than enough time to have corrected whatever mistakes the colonial masters might have made in giving us a nation.
In any case, before the British left our shores at independence in 1960, we had three regions and a duly negotiated constitution of Nigeria and each of the regions had its own regional constitution.
Under the independence arrangement, the regions were fairly autonomous, there was reasonable sharing of powers between the federal centre and the regions. This political arrangement allowed the regions a wide leeway to organise the regional political and socio-economic affairs their own way without any unnecessary control or interference from the central or federal authorities.
That led to a healthy inter-regional competition and the much talked-about cocoa, palm oil and groundnut fame which then constituted the bedrock of the Nigerian economy.
Unfortunately, that regional autonomy with all the positive possibilities vanished with the coming of the military into Nigerian politics. The military, politics not being their natural turf, simply upset the Nigeria apple-cart.
All the carefully negotiated constitutional provisions aimed at sustaining the fragile unity and peaceful coexistence among the diverse peoples of Nigeria and particularly the relationship between the federal and regional authorities were thoughtlessly thrown overboard by the rampaging military.
Gen. Ironsi even toyed with the idea of turning the country into a unitary state by decree before he was checkmated by his more strategically perceptive junior colleagues from the North who retained the federal character of the country only in name though, but loaded the national political dice in favour of the North.
States were created by fiat three consecutive times by the military without any well articulated basis or rationale. Worst of all, 774 local government areas were also created and enshrined in the national constitution without consultation with anyone apart from themselves.
These are the arbitrary steps that the military had taken to deform the negotiated structure bequeathed to us at independence. And the Nigerian nation had been compelled to live with the constitutional and structural deformities ever since.
The debilitating effect of these deformities on our national socio-economic fabric should be quite obvious to every educated Nigerian who is not yet blinded by clannish or ethnic interests.
Given the right calibre of leadership with requisite breadth of enlightenment and vision, the deformities can be easily corrected and the country thereby set on the path of rapid progress and development.
But quite sadly, we do not seem to be blessed with such calibre of leaders in Nigeria. Most of the people in Nigerian public life are ignorant, self-seeking individuals whose political vision does not extend beyond their personal interests or at best their ethnic interests.
Perhaps, this is the reason why the so-called leaders can not appreciate the need to rejig the current Nigerian political architecture as a desideratum to truly meet the national desire for progress economically, socially and politically.
It is from this background that one must view the current loud call for restructuring coming from the East and South-South.
The current agitation from the South-West Afenifere for restructuring is quite understandable since that is the origin of the demand for true federalism in the country. Even at the various constitutional conferences leading to the 1960 independence, the South-West had been unrelenting champions of federalism as the preferred system of uniting the multi-ethnic peoples of Nigeria.
But the current strindency of the Afenifere’s agitation is likely to have arisen from less than pure motive. This is why one is sometimes baffled by Afenifere’s politics. They claim to believe in restructuring and progressivism and yet they are lining behind the PDP ulra conservatism and its presidential candidate in the coming election. What a contradiction! Given the antecedents of that party and particularly the ethnic background of its flagbearer, it is naive for Afenifere to think that restructuring can come to reality through the PDP.
As for the latter-day restructuring agitators from the South-East and South-South, the less one speaks about them the better. From available evidence, these agitators neither believe in nor understand the concept of restructuring.
To them, it represents nothing more than a campaign slogan to win election and then corner national resources and live happily thereafter. If this were not so, why did they squander the best opportunity to address this problem when they held the reins of power?
When Goodluck Jonathan was President for six years, his godfather Chief Edwin Clark did not consider that was a golden opportunity to restructure the country. True, they convoked a constitutional conference but they also had more than enough time to start implementing the recommendations of the confab, but they didn’t, rather they turned the confab to a political gimmick to win the last elections.
But the majority of the electorate saw through their shenanigans and voted them out. So from all this, it can be seen that the current loud agitations for restructuring is nothing more than a clever move to win the coming elections and thereafter continue their business as usual.
For those who truly believe in the restructuring of Nigeria, they are convinced that it is an absolute necessity for the rapid progress and development of our beloved Nigeria. In a digital world in which we currently live, it is an unpadornable error bordering on stupidity for a country to continue to conduct its affairs by the rule of thumb.
Of course it was not as if our nation had never been endowed by God with talented and enlightened leaders in the past who could have taken our dear country to modernity and socio-political emancipation. But like the proverbial prophet who is never recognised by his own people, such rare leaders that had appeared among us, leaders who had been specially endowed intellectually and spiritually to tackle our developmental problems, were rejected and thus denied the opportunity of assuming national leadership.
For instance, as far back as 1966 a notable Nigerian leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, had written a book entitled ” Thoughts on Nigerian Constitution” in which he propounded a political theory which ought to guide our constitutional architecture if we truly and genuinely desire to build a stable and peaceful nation.
He stated his theory in four categorical parts but for limited space and cogency, only the last two parts will be reproduced here thus:
(i) If a country is bi-lingual or multi-lingual, the constitution must be federal and the constituent states must be organised on linguistic basis;
(ii) Any experiment with a unitary constitution in a bi-lingual or multi- lingual or multi- national country must fail in the long run.
And after stating his socio-political laws as quoted above, the author underlined his ex-cathedra proposition in the following words: ” I would like to add that I have arrived at this principles after very careful study and analysis of the constitutional evolution of every state in the world. I therefore regard the principles as conclusive, because the method which I have adopted is that of summative induction.”
In the face of the availability of such clearly stated principles, how have our latter day leaders or rulers approached the Nigerian business of constitution making and state creation? Lackadaisically, carelessly, thoughtlessly and even selfishly one must say. And that in a multilingual, multi- national and multi- religious country like Nigeria!
Is it then any wonder that the country is now daily confronted with all kinds of violent upheavals in the northeast, Kaduna, Plateau, Ogoni, Niger Delta and so on.
So, when we deliberately breach the natural rules of doing things, we cannot escape the dreadful consequences of such breach. As clearly stated in the Holy Writ, “whatever a man sows, that he shall reap”
Therefore if we all desire to build a strong, stable and economically developed Nigeria, both constitutional and physical restructuring become an urgent national imperative without which the country will fail in the long run. And if that eventually happens, it will be to the eternal shame of the current generation of leaders who could not rise to the required occasion owing to their ignorance and selfishness.
- Note: The author could be reached through:
manuelsanmi0@gmail.com
+234 806 662 1203
