Restructuring Nigeria (I)

Feeling a bit confused about the new national agitation agitating not a few important people in the country, called political restructuring, I decided to consult the latest bible on how to solve the many problems that beset the house that Lord Lugard built more than 100 years ago. Breathe out.

I have reasons to believe, like many, many of my compatriots that the report, the recommendations and the resolutions of the National Conference, 2013-2014 convened by President Goodluck Jonathan, is not touted for nothing as the most radical approach to those unresolved issues that often threaten to blow the roof off the Lugard house. It may not be necessary for me to point out that the conference was convened at a great expense to the country; something rather middling like N12 million per delegate. Not bad for putting the tongue in the upper gear for three months. Well, I point it out just for the record.

Let me also make three important points here before I tell you what I found in the report. My first point is that we should not be surprised that the report now suffers the indignity of gathering dust in the shelf at the National Assembly. Part of the reason for its sad fate is that Jonathan did not believe in the work of the conference. He convened it primarily to keep the nation talking to itself while he oiled his own presidential ambition. His apparent disdain for the work of the conference aches where it should hurt. 

Surprise, surprise. In February this year Jonathan met with the US Congress House subcommittee on Africa and he voiced for the first time, his own take on the importance of the work of the conference. He said if the resolution of the conference had been adopted it could have prevented the religious and ethnic crisis that led to the mindless killings in Southern Zaria, Kaduna State. If he knew that, why did he make no attempts to adopt (?) the report? If he implemented the report, his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari, would certainly have been obliged to continue with the implementation.

I doubt that the former president even read the report. I wonder if he had the good grace to even include it in his hand over note to Buhari. I read his reference to the report with a smirk on my face.

My second point is that the disdainful treatment of the conference recommendations and resolutions by the man who convened it says something about this country’s capacity for moving in circles. It is not that so much money was spent on the conference with no returns but that a nation genuinely in search of solutions to its myriads of political, social, economic and religious problems could afford to so arrogantly ignore the weighty thoughts of the weighty Nigerians who believe in the Nigerian project and went to the conference to exchange views on the steps we must take to perfect it.

My fourth point is that it is neither in the interest of the nation nor of the men and women who attended the conference nor of their recommendations and the resolutions that the conference report itself should be kept away from the public space. The report is not sacrosanct and must not be so treated. I do not believe anyone of the redoubtable men and women who deliberated at the conference would lay absolute claim to absolute wisdom. I do not think anyone of them would be unkind enough to suppose that they have a final say on those issues they deliberated on. 

Putting the report in the public space would encourage the public to interrogate the conclusions of the conference. It would possibly force the Buhari administration to stop pretending that the report does not exist. More importantly, it would, I would like to fervently hope, take us further in our search for a nation where no man or woman is oppressed. What would emerge from this would be the Nigerian narrative. A Nigerian narrative would make the nation do what it hates to do: dialogue with itself.

So, letting my fingers do the walking, I took a short stroll down the 763-page tome containing the recommendations and the resolutions of the conference. I made a brief stop at page 197, and read up on POLITICAL RESTRUCTURING AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. This is the part of the report that contains the recommendations of the conference. What is so radical in the recommendations that affirmed that “Nigeria shall retain a federal system of government”? 

The leaders of the First Republic affirmed it at the constitutional conference in London in 1953.  I pinched myself. Is this what the political restructuring generating so much heat all about? Can’t be. 

So, I strolled down to page 556 and sought help under the same sub-heading. I found the words on page 179 were repeated here. By the way, there is a radical recommendation on page 179 affirmed by the resolution on page 556. Here it is: “Without prejudice to states constituting the federating units, states that wish to merge may do so in accordance with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).” It goes on to stipulate stiff conditions the merging states must meet.

I have tried but still find it difficult to understand the purpose of this resolution. Did the distinguished members of the conference have any reasons to believe that states are talking of mergers? I have heard no such talk. It is unlikely that even the homogenous Yoruba and Igbo states would dream of mergers. A merger would mean that two or more states would cease and a new state would arise from their ashes. There is just no possibility of this happening, even in a country famous for taking one step forward, two backward. Yes, contiguous states can work out the basis for mutually beneficially economic co-operation without seeking a constitutional imprimatur. I do think we should encourage states that are so inclined. This resolution is laughable in the face of the fact that the conference recommended the creation of 18 new states.

(To be concluded)