“I advised against the issue of national conference…I never liked the priority of that government. That is why I haven’t even bothered to read it (the 2014 National Conference) or ask for a briefing on it and I want it to go into the so-called archives”
– President Muhammadu Buhari, May 29, 2016”
In the wake of the recent insurgent challenges to the Nigerian state, several elder statesmen, politicians and civil society organisations have renewed their calls for the restructuring of the country. One of the most recent is that of a former Vice-President and perpetual presidential hopeful, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Speaking on Tuesday at the public presentation of a book entitled, “We are all Biafrans”, Atiku went on record as saying, “Nigeria as it is structured today, is not working…In short, it has not served Nigeria well and at the risk of reproach, it has not served my part of the country, the North, well. The call for restructuring is even more relevant today”.
As the opening quote sourced from an interview granted by President Buhari and published in Sunday PUNCH suggests however, the growing chorus for restructuring and for the implementation of some of the resolutions of the 2014 National Conference are unlikely to meet with official approval at least under the tenure of the current administration. Buhari says disdainfully that he has neither read the conference report nor asked for a briefing on it. Left to him, the report should be given a decent burial in the archives.
This is an unfortunate remark to the extent that it debunks or rather dismisses the Confab Report because of the circumstances of its inauguration. Worse still, no creative alternatives are offered to the Report at a time when the National Question has been raised intently and intemperately. Obviously, no one expects Buhari to have waded through a document running into thousands of pages and featuring 600 resolutions. But, it is hard to justify his contempt for a conference which, whatever its weaknesses, summoned the best and the brightest to debate and deliberate upon how best to restructure Nigeria.
The complaint about how much was spent is valid but should be an argument for the nation to derive some value from its work rather than throw it into the dustbin. If as one can imagine, the country cannot afford to spend another N9bn or even half of it for the same purpose, is it not all the more compelling to make do in one form or another with what exists? At any rate, when did the cost of a project become a yardstick for assessing its quality or essence? These issues are raised in the light of the recent violent clashes between law enforcement agents and youths based in the South-East campaigning for the resurgence of Biafra Republic resulting in heavy casualties on Monday, May 30. That apart, the ongoing militarisation of the Niger Delta partly because of the activities of the Niger Delta Avengers with heavy losses in men and materials points to the fact that the nation cannot be described as healthy. Apart from these, the recent murderous rampages of the Fulani herdsmen and the alleged indifference of the government to the spiralling escapades have further complicated an already mercy picture. For what it is worth, some analysts have read meanings into Buhari’s inability to be present at a scheduled Lagos trip and at Thursday’s Presidential launch of the Ogoni Clean-Up. At both events, he was represented by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.
Before developing the discourse further however, I digress, characteristically, to offer a short take. Lagos State continues to show, under Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, the possibility of competent administration at the sub national level. In a context in which the states in most parts of the country are becoming irrelevant to the people and the centre is struggling to find its feet, Lagos tends to stand out.
Of course, it has far more resources than most other states but it must be set on record that Ambode has within the short space of 12 months lived up to the pace set by his predecessors, especially, Bola Tinubu and Babatunde Fashola. Agreed, it is premature to coronate Ambode as an instant success as some of his publicists are doing, bearing in mind that he has three more years to go to complete an electoral cycle, but very few will contend that he is off to a good start. Consider the rising number of effective interventions in road construction, his “Light up Lagos project” which has assisted in fighting crime and imaginatively a programme under which the state produces rice based on partnership with the Kebbi State Government.
It is also good to know that this is at least one place where the wails of workers and pensioners about being owed salaries do not fill the air. The type casting of Lagos as an example of developmental democracy would seem to have found justification under its current leader who is admonished to maintain the ambitious pace he has set for himself. Needless to say that the careful husbanding of resources will be germane to the actualisation of current initiatives.
To return to the main discourse, it should be obvious from the events of the last few weeks that the fundamental problems of the economy and a ravaged social sector cannot be resolved in the absence of close attention to the need to renew the federal bargain which is currently under assault. No one doubts that Buhari is well-meaning but it takes more than being well-meaning to govern Nigeria. For example, try as he would to downplay the National Question or the need for restructuring his own action and inaction have been interpreted in some cases as deriving from his Fulani ancestry. Even his pattern of appointments has been interpreted by some as skewed and at variance with what Prof. Rotimi Subaru recently described as the “Integrative mandate of Nigerian federalism”.
There is a good reason to believe that Nigeria and its constituent parts will gain rather than lose from a major restructuring. Take for example, the issue of security and the weak performance of a centralised police force. As The PUNCHeditorial persuasively argued on Thursday, the issue of state police has now become a logical and required response to the inability of an over-centralised police to cope with rising disorder. Connecting back to the 2014 National Conference, those who have read the Report will remember that this is one of the key recommendations.
Another dimension of the National Question repeatedly advocated by a former General Secretary of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, relates to the reconfiguration of the federation with respect to reducing the number of states to an economically manageable size. This of course is controversial considering that political entities once created are difficult to be abolished. There is no doubt however that the virtual paralysis of the states put on the table out of the box solutions.
Whatever one thinks, we can no longer afford to conduct conversations on the National Question as a dialogue of the deaf which it has so far remained under Buhari. It is time to face up squarely to it.
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