Re-Restructuring Nigeria

I wrote a three-part column on the restructuring of Nigeria based entirely on the report of the National Conference for this newspaper recently. The third piece appeared here only last week on May 28. So, why am I returning to it so soon?

Blame the former vice-president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. At a function in Lagos last week, he offered what I consider to be a radical approach to the clamour for the restructuring of the country, the new, veritable obstacle to our forward march as a nation. He recommended the states should be abolished and replaced with the six geo-political zones, namely, North-Central, North-East, North-West, South-East, South-South and South-West.

I perked up my ears, intrigued. I can hear state governors, the great lords of the manors, squirming in their seats. Abubakar’s suggestion is not likely to have many people falling over themselves to register their support for it. It, certainly, won’t be a popular thesis on how to best manage this loud and populous country in which the wielding of the tribes into one nation has proved both elusive and illusory. But it does no harm to examine his suggestion if only because yesterday’s panacea has become today’s blinding cloud of confusion.

The former vice-president is not the first man to recognise that the balkanisation of the country into poor and impoverished mini-states in order to de-marginalise the tribes, cannot really make for a nation in which no man or woman is oppressed. Nor would it help in the robust social and economic development of the country. Given the wastage in funding them, the states have become a drag on our national progress and development. What Abubakar is advocating is what I call the backward re-restructuring of the country. 

Perhaps, the late Anthony Enahoro was the first man to see that the creation of more and more states had not become the solution everyone thought it would be. His group once offered us a new constitution. The group suggested that the states should be abolished and replaced with eight regions. Enahoro was one of the great champions of state creation before and after independence. The creation of the Mid-West Region in 1963 owed much to his robust and committed defence of minority rights to own their political turf. Something must have changed and the renowned radical politician saw the light when the rest of us were still groping in the tunnel.

I did a simple arithmetic. I put Enahoro and Abubakar’s suggestions together, and arrived at this sorry point: this country has really run out of breath for its endless engineering and re-engineering in the name of nation building. On the face of it, backward movement as recommended by Enahoro and Abubakar, is not a wise movement for a country anxious to catch up with the rest of the world. But the wisdom here is that you do not, for the sake of movement, move forward when you are standing on the precipice.

See how far we have come in this restructuring business undergirding our new political wisdom. On October 1, 1960, the British left us with a federation of three regions. Three years later, we created a fourth region, the Mid-East Region out of the Western Region, in 1963. In 1967, General Yakubu Gowon dramatically restructured the country into 12 states; in 1976, the late General Murtala Ramat Muhammed restructured it into 19 states; in 1987, General Ibrahim Babangida took the number to 21; four years later in 1991, he restructured the country into 30 states; and in 1996, the late General Sani Abacha restructured the country into the present 36 states. I know of no country in history that has been so restructured so often and still wails over its problems.

There is no end to this form of restructuring yet. The National Conference looked into the huge number of demands for more states and dutifully recommended 18 more new states. Interestingly, the conference also recommended a constitutional amendment permitting states that wish to merge to do so without let or hindrance.

This should give you a fairly good idea of how we tackle our social and political problems. Suddenly, states have become blasé. Suddenly, the regions are beginning to regain their lost glory. We moved from the regions to the states because political wisdom recommended that the more states we have the greater the bond of unity among the permanently warring tribes of Nigeria. Now, we want to move back because current political wisdom suggests that states have become an impediment to our fast forward march. Interesting.

If you find all this confusing, it is simply because it is confusing. We are still earnestly searching for the right formula for restructuring. It is not easy. Should we restructure by creating 18 new states? Should we re-restructure by adopting the Enahoro structure or the Abubakar structure? If we opt for restructuring, we have to deal with the creation of 18 more states, bringing the total to 54. Come to think of it, the United States of Nigeria sounds pretty good. 

If, on the other hand, we re-restructure, we let the states disappear and from their graves will rise either six zones or regions or eight regions. The country would have done a full circle. We started as a unitary state, moved to a federation with three regions and now 36 states and 774 local government areas and we might turn back the hands of the clock and go right back to where we missed the road and begin the journey all over again. 

I am afraid it is not easy to choose between restructuring and re-restructuring. So, do not expect a quick fix to restructuring. Of course, you lose nothing but your fingers if you keep them crossed, waiting for Godot. 

Fact is, the fundamental problems lie outside our repeated increase in the number of states. Our problem, as I argued here and elsewhere, is the nature of our federalism. So, 36 states or 54 states or six zones or eight regions, would avail us nothing as long as we retain, with gratitude to Professor Isawa Elaigwu, the current military federalism. I am afraid those who ought to listen to and critically examine this option choose to stuff plugs in their ears.