Not unlike many other observers of contemporary events in
Nigeria, I had presumed that the conversation on whether or not Nigeria’s
architecture needs restructuring has been laid to rest when President Muhammadu
Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) committee on the sensitive matter
returned a verdict in support of restructuring, until recently when Aso Rock hosted a group of Delta State
traditional rulers. Buhari was reported to have told his royal guests that
those calling for restructuring of the country are parochial(!) While still
trying to figure out what that unexpected pronouncement might come to mean, let
us recall that even though Candidate Buhari had in 2015 made a great play of
the fact that APC’s Manifesto accords priority to restructuring, President
Buhari, with equal measure, pretended to be ignorant of the contents of
selfsame Manifesto on which he had ran for office. Buhari’s benumbing pretence
only succeeded in heightening the nationwide call for restructuring.
Pressed to pay appropriate attention to the inevitable matter,
and perhaps acting with an eye on 2019, Buhari hurriedly set up the APC
committee which pronounced in favour of restructuring. It would also be
recalled that in receiving the committee’s report, Buhari assured Nigerians
that the report will be diligently implemented. What then informed the implied
change of heart in Buhari’s recent surprise statement on the issue? Has Buhari
been dissimulating on the matter the while? Is consummate dissimulation an
essential trait in the Daura born general? We shall return to these questions
presently.
Now, in adjudging the calls for restructuring parochial,
Buhari was also reported to have invoked the time-worn excuse that those calls
are not focused – restructuring means different things to different people,
etc. That excuse is nothing short of being economic with the facts. No national
conversation in decades has been more focused than the calls for political
restructuring of Nigeria. And no national conversation has been more
substantiated by history. That need to restructure Nigeria became evident no
sooner than the conclusion of the 1967-70 Civil War. The creation of 12 states
from the post-independence 4 regions (Eastern; Midwestern; Northern; and
Western) at the start of war in 1967, was targeted at strategically breaking
the backbone of the Eastern region which had just seceded from Nigeria. Though
the jury is still out on how the decision contributed to the Civil War efforts,
but it smacks of inverted logic to observe that the solution to a country’s
unity would be sought by breaking it up. What is more troubling was that
successive federal governments since 1970 to the late 1990s seemed to have
looked to states creation as a ready political masterstroke. As a consequence
Nigeria grew from 12 states to 36 states in less than 30 years. The
petro-dollars that accrued to the national coffers in those years completely
blinded the respective leaderships of the country to the critical need to make
economic viability a basis for states creation. Funding of state governments
thus became the sole responsibility of the federal government – a novel concept
in Nigeria’s financial management since 1967. But the equally blinding gales of
petroleum oil gluts at the turn of the century ruthlessly exposed the rump of
the mother hen. Today, 20-odd of the 36 states have been officially declared
non-economically viable. As they say, the rest is now history.
It is also now history that the calls for politico-economic restructuring
of Nigeria is unwavering focused on both economic viability and financial
autonomy. Furthermore, it was observed that the resultant
dependence-orientation in the states and the appropriation of mineral rights by
the federal government have negatively impacted the entrepreneurial inclination
of the states. This is reflected in Nigeria’s virtually stagnant Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) per capita of approximately $400.00 for decades – a mere fraction
of those of many less-endowed countries than Nigeria. This unacceptably low
figure indicates that the bulk of the citizenry does not actively participate
in adding value to the economy. All of these constitute the essential argument
for restructuring. Restructuring strictly defined, is a call for the reversal
of the experimental decision to break up the 4 regions into smaller states in
mid-1967. That experiment was decidedly not properly thought through; this was
to be expected in a war-induced emergency.
But the Civil War lapsed over half a century ago; it’s time
for reason to hold sway. The call for restructuring eminently qualifies to be
classified as a voice of reason. Virtually every leading Nigerian patriot has
lent their weight on the side of restructuring the country – the 2014 National
Conference provides the proof. So why is Buhari apparently feet-dragging of the
matter, even in the light of compelling reason? Could that well-known spirit of
dissimulation that has wreaked havoc on Project Nigeria since the First
republic, presently playing a wicked trick on Buhari’s mind in the Fourth
republic? Recall that the first indigenous federal government was formed by a
coalition of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, (NCNC) and the Northern
Peoples Congress, (NPC), with the understanding that the NCNC would produce the
prime minister; but NPC’s dissimulation introduced a crack in the coalition
that prematurely terminated that republic. Following the partially successful
January 1966 coup d’etat, Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi in Lagos,
and Chukwuma Nzeokwu in Kaduna had reached an understanding, with Yakubu Gowon
and Olusegun Obasanjo among others present at the Lagos end, on how to move the
country forward. But Aguiyi-Ironsi’s apparent dissimulation got the better of
that agreement. Nzeokwu went from wielding the command of one half of the
country to being Aguiyi-Ironsi’s prisoner within minutes of arriving in Lagos.
(Yet some persons insist on propagating the fallacy of an Igbo January 1966 coup d’etat) Aguiyi-Ironsi was
overthrown six months after.
In 1975 Gowon dissimulated on his pledge to handover power to
civil authorities. He was forced from office few weeks after. Ushering in the
Second republic in 1979 Obasanjo would cover his own dissimulation with the
sophistry of arithmetic (two-thirds of 19). The Second republic barely lasted
one term. Ibrahim Babangida didn’t spare a thought for sophistication in his
own dissimulation in bringing forth the Third republic. He shamelessly annulled
the June 12th 1993 “free and fair” election even with the
international community looking on. Sani Abacha was to borrow a leaf from his
mentor; he dissimulated on his late-1993 promise to MKO Abiola’s fellow Social
Democratic Party (SDP) stalwarts – he never handed over power to SDP. The
infamous Third-term bid was another
version of Obasanjo’s sophisticated dissimulation. Unusual presidential humility
compelled the former shoe-less Otuoke boy to break that cycle of dissimulation
in 2015.
Is Jonathan’s successor now making to resume that cycle of destabilizing
dissimulation in 2018? Incidentally, Buhari’s latest vacillation on the topical
matter of restructuring lends a measure of credence to my recent suggestion
(The Guardian, June 13th, 2018) that the taciturn general could end
up in history as a curious quantity. This brings us back to the earlier set of
three questions; but before we attempt to proffer answers to them I should
suggest we ponder the reported words of a man who ought to have an inkling of
the right answers, the veteran journalist-turned-politician, Segun Osoba:
“Nigeria was built on deception and corruption; restructuring is the only way to
make progress…”
Hopefully, Buhari would eventually command the presence of
mind to heed the voice of reason on Nigeria’s political restructuring.
Afam Nkemdiche is an engineering consultant; June,
2018
No comments:
Post a Comment