Category: Saturday

Segun Ayobolu

IT is not surprising that Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s political thought and praxis continue to feature prominently in any debate on the appropriate constitutional arrangement and political structure as well as socio-economic system for Nigeria and Mr. Femi Falana’s lecture also dwelt at some length on the sage’s political ideas. Awolowo thought deeply and rigorously as well as wrote extensively on these matters. Unlike many of the most vocal advocates of restructuring today, however, who claim to derive their inspiration and model from the great man’s ideas, Falana  demonstrates that Awo’s ideas were not as narrow, restricted, static and rigid as often portrayed even by those who were his close associates.

Thus, Falana traces the dynamism of Awo’s political thought noting a shift in the sage’s preoccupation and emphasis from his description of Nigeria as “a mere geographical expression” in his book, ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’ published in 1947, a book written in pursuit of the anti-colonial struggle for the political emancipation of Nigeria, to his views two decades later as expressed in ‘The Peoples Republic’ and ‘The Strategies and Tactics of the Peoples Republic of Nigeria’. As Falana put it, “At that stage of his remarkable political life, Awolowo was thinking of how to develop Nigeria and push the frontier of human progress in this part of the world. He was not on a mission to preside over any Oduduwa Republic or to lead the Yoruba alone to “develop at their own pace”, unmindful of the realities of the Nigerian political economy”.

Falana continues, “Little surprise that 32 years after the publication of ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’, Awolowo sought to be Nigerian President (not Aare of Oduduwa Republic!) His platform was the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). The word ‘unity’ in the party’s name was instructive and deliberate. More significant is that the cardinal programmes of the UPN were free education, free healthcare, full employment and rural development”.

Here, Falana must not be misread. Federalism remained a cardinal feature of Awolowo’s political and constitutional thought. Yet, the centre of gravity of the sage’s universe of ideas if I may put it that way had shifted from a preoccupation with federalism to developing Nigeria’s immense human capital potential for the liberation of the country from the grip of underdevelopment as well as her rapid modernization and transformation. Thus, restructuring was not part of the four cardinal programmes of the UPN in the Second Republic.

Awolowo vigorously pursued his ambition to be President of Nigeria in the Second Republic under the 1979 constitution. The meticulous and thorough sage would never have done so without having studied the constitution carefully and concluding that, whatever its shortcomings, it could not hinder a visionary, competent and determined leader from achieving the task of rapidly transforming Nigeria and actualizing her potentials. And the 1999 constitution is essentially a mirror image of that of 1979 with only minuscule differences.

I agree entirely with Falana that at the time that he sought to lead the country as elected President in 1979 and 1983, “Federalism was no more Awolowo’s preoccupation. His position was to the effect that if every Nigerian child in Maiduguri, Yenagoa or Ado-Ekiti had access to quality education, Nigeria would be on the part to reducing inequality. Similarly, if every woman and her children in Kuje, Badagry or Akampa had access to quality healthcare services, maternal and infant mortality would be ended and thereby tackling an aspect of poverty at that level. In his later years, Awolowo was more concerned about the social democratic development of Nigeria rather than limiting himself to the struggle for the phantom “true federalism”…So let the advocates of restructuring quote Awolowo not only on federalism; they should also quote him on his programme of social democracy as a basis of Nigeria’s sustainable development”.

There are those who advocate the devolution of more powers, resources and responsibilities from the centre to the sub-national units, particularly the states, as the key and essential element of the demand for restructuring in Nigeria. At a recent lecture in Kaduna in honour of the first Premier of Northern Nigeria, the late Ahmadu Bello, for instance, the Ekiti State governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, who was the guest lecturer as well as governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, in his prefatory remarks, both made the case for greater devolution of substantial powers, responsibilities and resources to the states. Calling for an equitable revenue allocation formula for Nigeria that will give more resources to states and local governments, Fayemi specifically canvassed a review of the revenue sharing formula to 43 per cent for states, 35 percent to the federal and 23 percent to the local governments.

But bringing a sharp ideological and class focus to the debate, Falana argues that “With respect, it is submitted that the adoption of the equitable allocation formula suggested by Governor Fayemi can never solve the crisis of poverty in the land. For instance, the 2020 budget of Nigeria, a country of 206 million people is $30 billion whereas the budget of Brazil, a nation of 208 million people is $650 billion. Instead of rushing to Abuja every month to share poverty by distributing the dwindling revenue from the sale of crude oil in the Federation Account, the people of Nigeria should be mobilized to create wealth. Apart from demanding a new revenue allocation formula, the fiscal and monetary policies of the nation ought to be challenged as its exclusive control by the federal government as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank has continued to undermine the national economy”.

All too often, the restructuring debate is pursued as if it is a matter that should be addressed and effected only at the federal level thus ignoring the excessive concentration of powers in the person of state governors at the sub-national units of governance, the emasculation and crippling of local governments, state legislatures and even the judiciary by all powerful state executives. To devolve more powers, responsibilities and resources to the states without addressing this problem can only worsen the flaws and dysfunctions of federal practice in Nigeria. Hence Falana submits that “…the power devolution to the states from the centre without the democratization of the said powers will not promote the development of the country. In other words, restructuring without the equitable redistribution of the commonwealth will not engender unity as unity is not an abstract phenomenon”.

In any case, are state governors doing as much as they can under the extant constitution to strengthen the sub-national units of government and deepen federal practice in Nigeria? Falana does not think so. In his words, “Advocates of restructuring should not only put pressure on Buhari to lead the process of restructuring. They should also push the state governors to take advantage of legal openings to deepen Nigerian federalism as Lagos State has done. Some Supreme Court decisions from which all states now benefit were as a result of cases pursued by the Lagos State government against the federal government. In other jurisdictions, court pronouncements have also helped to recast the structure and mechanisms of federations”.

Nowhere does Mr. Femi Falana suggest that he is averse to the adoption of a new constitution if that is the will of the majority of the Nigerian people. But is the extant 1999 constitution utterly worthless and of no enduring value whatever? Falana clearly does not think so and he makes his case unequivocally. According to him, “Doubtless, there is a lot of critique to be made of the 1999 constitution. But it is strange when critics dismiss the whole document as “useless” because it does not give expression to “the will of the people”. The nucleus of the 1999 Constitution was taken from the 1979 Constitution. It is pertinent to ask: Is the Chapter 11 of the 1999 constitution not in the interest of the people? Should that chapter also be dismissed along with the problematic clauses in the constitution?”

He continues: “As I said earlier, the 1979 constitution was a product of a vigorous debate, the Great Debate of 1977/78. One of the enduring products of that process was the Chapter 11 of the 1979 Constitution which has been replicated in the 1999 Constitution. It was the concession the majority of the report of the committee, headed by Chief Rotimi Willimas, SAN, made to the radical views of the two historians who were members – Bala Usman and Segun Osoba. It is the chapter entitled the “Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy”.

Noting that Chief Awolowo lauded the adoption of the fundamental objectives and made a strong case for their justiciability, Falana explains that “The chapter is the people’s content of the constitution. Enshrined in the chapter are basic elements of socio-economic justice in the areas of education, health, environment, social protection, mass transit, mass housing etc. They remain the national goals. It is noteworthy that some Nigerians including scholars crafted these social, economic and political goals four decades before the United Nations came up with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which look more like a copy of the chapter of the Nigerian constitution. If the provisions had been implemented, Nigeria could have been greater than some of the countries that some of our elite point to as models of development.”

• To be concluded next week

Segun Ayobolu

THE Coronavirus pandemic and its toll both on lives and the economy, the #endSARS protests, which were hijacked by murderous hoodlums, as well as the pervasive insecurity were the defining elements that made life ‘nasty, solitary, brutish and short’  across the country in 2020. Yet, there was a little noticed flicker of light towards the end of the year that portends hope for the future even as Nigeria continues to contend with severe, mostly manmade, existential challenges. That was the decision of the Ekiti State University to invite renowned human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), to deliver its 2020 Convocation lecture on 16th December, 2020.

This seemingly insignificant but important event offers signs of future hope because the resolution of any society’s problems, no matter how seemingly intractable, lies essentially in the realm of ideas and the intellect and the Ekiti State University has led the way in demonstrating that our universities can once again be the arenas for vigorous articulation and interrogation of ideas that can lay the basis for national transformation.

Titled ‘Restructuring and the Liberation of Nigeria’, Mr. Femi Falana’s cerebral offering did not disappoint. It was pungent, incisive, ideologically informed and the lecturer, characteristically, took no prisoners in engaging a subject that has been at the forefront of public discourse in recent times often, unfortunately, from utterly ill-informed and misleading perspectives. Right from the opening lines of his lecture, Mr. Falana takes issues with and firmly opposes the manipulation/exploitation of ethno-regional sentiments and emotions by those he describes as ‘ethnic warlords, demagogues and clairvoyants from their declared “territories” with captive audiences”. Many of them can best be described as ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’.

Falana does not disagree with the need to restructure Nigeria. But he contends that no less important, perhaps even more so, is the imperative to urgently liberate the country from the ‘shackles of poverty, inequality and gross socio-economic injustice’. He insists that at the top of our national agenda must be the determination to ‘banish hunger, disease and ignorance’ from these otherwise richly blessed shores. Thus, in his words “These vertical and horizontal steps are important ones to take simultaneously for the development and progress of Nigeria. The implication of the foregoing is that the debates on restructuring should be reframed in the interest of social justice, geo-political equity, genuine freedom and the unity of the people of Nigeria”.

But what exactly is the radical lawyer talking about here some may ask? Is restructuring not a necessary condition for achieving the goals of banishing hunger, disease and ignorance? Unfortunately, the most vocal and ardent voices on the pro-restructuring  platform give the impression that restructuring is essentially about fundamental adjustments and rearrangements in the ethno-regional and administrative superstructure of the Nigerian polity while largely ignoring the no less important and critical inequities and injustices that define the country’s economic substructure.

Indeed, it is the relentless deepening of poverty and the attendant ever escalating inequality between privileged and deprived socio-economic classes that has sharpened, ironically, the saliency of ethnicity as a tool of group manipulation by largely self-serving elites who mask the naked pursuit of power for socio-economic aggrandizement under the guise of protecting the interests of particular ethnic and/or regional groups. The fact of the co-existence within one geographical space of plural ethno-cultural groups is not the fundamental problem with Nigeria and the reason for the protracted non-realization of her immense potentials. Rather, Nigeria remains a ‘crippled giant’ six decades after nominal independence because of the persistence in power, through its various factions and fractions, military and civilian, of a mindlessly corrupt, inept, visionless and ideologically as well as intellectually vacuous political class.

No ethno-regional faction or fraction of this political class along with its business wing has demonstrated any higher sense of patriotism or standard of ethical integrity than the others. Much of the loud clamour for restructuring by vocal sections of the political class in parts of the country is thus no evidence of a more elevated altruistic commitment to the best interests of the vast majority of the people either of Nigeria as a whole or the parts of it that they purport to be fighting for. In the same vein, those who contend that ‘Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable’ just to preserve wholesale an unjust and inequitable status quo that profits them are actuated by selfish, self-centered motives.

The sense I get from Mr. Falana’s lecture is that restructuring is not a magic cure-all prescription, a once and for all exercise, that resolves a society’s contradictions and challenges for all time. Despite the indisputably radical ideological cast of his take on restructuring, Femi Falana adopts a far more practical, pragmatic and realistic approach to the issue that contrasts sharply with those who call for the total jettisoning of the extant 1999 constitution and the creation of a new one ex-nihilo. Yet, those who make such outlandish suggestions in the name of restructuring ignore the fact that there is no reasonable consensus on what a restructured Nigeria should look like or which of the contending ideas or models of restructuring should be adopted as well as why and how this will be legitimated.

Falana’s approach entails building on the merits of what exists, identifying its weaknesses, failings and shortcomings and systemically working to eliminate these in such a way that a more efficient, effective, functional and democratic as well as federal polity ultimately emerges. I am sure his audience would have been more enthused if he had emotively and excitedly advocated the wholesale shredding of the extant constitution and the revolutionary adoption of a totally new document of constitutive and regulative rules governing relations in the Nigerian polity. Falana takes an eminently more sensible if not particularly populist position which adheres with what is perceived in some quarters as the correct conventional wisdom.

His words: “Restructuring alone will not automatically answer the menacing question of rising youth joblessness and hopelessness plaguing Nigerian society. To reframe the question, some myths should be exploded. First, stripped of all obfuscation, restructuring is basically about making the Nigerian federation work better for the purpose of governance and development. That should be the objective of restructuring rather than the elusive pursuit of “true federalism”. There is nothing like a true federalism. Every federation is structured for the specific purpose of each country. That is why the Indian federation is not identical to that of Australia or America. The Swiss federation is operated differently from that of Canada or Brazil. The German federation is working not because it is “true” but because it meets the specific historical need of Germans. So we should stop mystifying the debate by calling for a “true federalism” instead of asking for a workable federation for Nigeria”.

Is Falana then not defending the status quo and thus by his position making the fundamental structural changes advocated by many exceedingly difficult or impossible to attain? The answer most certainly is no, in my view. Rather, he approaches the question of restructuring not from a fixed, rigid position of an ideologue but from the prism of the pragmatic and methodical constitutionalist. Let me quote him at some length again, “As a matter of fact, making a federation to work, building a nation or promoting national integration is never a finished business. As the experiences of countries defined by diversity and complexity have shown, the business of a functional federation is actually a work in progress. After all, what’s federalism if not a system of continuous negotiation and compromises? That’s why it is a gross misnomer when some people pronounce arrogantly that “Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable”. That’s wrong. Federations are, of course, subject to negotiations when the need arises in any generation. What is to be is to accept the reality of negotiation and compromises so as to give everyone a sense of belonging. This will invariably spur a sense of commitment to the nation.”

After exhaustively situating the advocacy for restructuring in Nigeria in historical context right from the colonial intrusion through the first, second and aborted third republics, including the various military dispensations, to the present, Falana concludes that there now appears to be a reasonable consensus around the implementation of the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference “as a way of addressing the lingering questions of Nigerian federalism”. This is against the background, which he notes, of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s inexplicable reticence in taking any positive action on restructuring or federalism despite the provisions of the All Progressives Congress (APC) manifesto as well as the total neglect of the recommendations of the governor Nasir el-Rufai panel on modalties for giving effect to the party’s manifesto in this regard.

Since the el-Rufai panel’s recommendations reportedly was submitted complete with draft bills to be forwarded for processing into law by the National Assembly to effect necessary constitutional changes to strengthen federal practice, is the fundamental problem then not that of lack of the leadership with the requisite will to act rather than any inherently irremediable defects in the 1999 constitution?