Category: Femi Orebe

By Femi Orebe

The National Assembly must work towards a  new, truly people’s Constution, de-monetising politics, restoring power to the rightful owners, that is, the federating units,  bringing power back  to the people and empowering them rather than the politicians”. “Until we begin to take pride in our history, our culture, our traditional mystic powers of old,  money will  continue to dominate our lives. The people must be the focus, and the  objective of  our constitution. Most of our political leaders see politics as  business, rather than as service. De-monitise politics and you’d see  most of ‘these merchants’ quit politics, giving room to serious and patriotic Nigerians” – Dr Kunle Olajide on GRAVITAS, an intellectual Whatsapp platform.

Just as the 1999 constitution lied against itself, claiming to be   a product of “we the people”, members of the 9th Assembly made a grievous, and  fundamental error of judgment when, in constituting its Ad Hoc Constitution  Review Committee, you played captive to Nigeria’s  non functional, extant structure, consciously or unconsciously, the former most probably , alloting  not less than  25  of your 52 members, to the North. This might have  been okay only if none of the clauses of the  new constitution will be resolved through voting. That way, you made the National Assembly a slave to a structure which most Nigerians see as most unjust given that the British deliberately made a part of the country bigger than the rest put together.

A National Assembly more alive to its responsibilities, should have ensured a regional balance in the composition of  that very important body.

The constitution you are setting out to review has been variously described, but for space constraint, let us restrict ourselves to that one  by Chief Bisi Akande, former governor of Osun state. According to him, the 1999 Constitution “is Nigeria’s greatest misadventure since Lugard’s amalgamation of 1914. It breeds, and protects corrupt practices and criminal impunity in governance”. Casting further doubt on it,  he said: “It can never be beneficially reviewed, and the ongoing piecemeal adjustments or amendments, can only completely blot out  the essence of national values and accelerate the de-amalgamation of Nigeria. All the angels in heaven cannot make that constitution work for the progress of Nigeria. It should  be scrapped as a bad relic of military mentality”.

The erudite politicians that you presumably  are, we need not go into the history of how that constitution was made but, suffice it  to say  that  after representatives from all over the country had met to put it together, then military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, left it, almost  solely in the hands of an individual, to deal with as he fancied. The mindset that led to that decision, is the reason no document has been more derided than the very GRUNDNORM that is supposed to  cohere the heterogenous  peoples that make up Nigeria.

Nigerians look up to you, members of the National Assembly,  to solve the challenges confronting the country and help stabilise a country that has never been this divided in her long history of forced unity. This they want you to do through devolution of powers, a term which two state governors – Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti state and El Rufai of Kaduna recently defined, and expatiated on,  at  a  recent lecture.

To Fayemi, “our desire to build a more perfect union should be anchored on the principles of devolution of powers, that is, the re-allocation of powers and resources to the country’s federating units. He explained that “part of the focus of such an exercise should be: what items should remain on the exclusive legislative list and which ones should be transferred to the concurrent list? Other topical issues, he went on,  include derivation principle; fiscal federalism and revenue allocation; land tenure, local government creation, and autonomy. He suggested an equitable revenue allocation formula that will speak to the federalism Nigeria has adopted and given more resources to states and local governments which carry more responsibilities. According to him, a review of the sharing formulae to 43 percent for states, 35 percent to the federal, and 23 percent to the local governments will go a long way to devolve more responsibilities to constituent units and reduce the concentration of powers at the center.

He cited the following as reasons: “First is the long years of military rule  which  produced an over-concentration of powers and resources at the centre, to the detriment of the state. Two, the 1999 Constitution  was hurriedly put together by the departing military authority and was, therefore,  not a product of sufficient inclusiveness”. “All points considered, he concluded,  the fiscal burden of maintaining a largely inefficient and over-bloated bureaucracy is a metaphor for shooting oneself on the foot.”

On his part, El Rufai,  who was Chairman of the APC committee on Power Devolution let it be known that “the APC committee on Federalism has recommended a re balancing of the  Federation  with more powers and responsibilities devolved to the states. The committee  he added, also clarified that the federation is solely between the states and the Federal Government and each state should be allowed to operate the kind of local government that best suits its circumstances, culture and diversity”.

Proceeding from these premises,  you already have your job cut out for you. You should now critically interrogate these premises and  dot the i’s as  well as  cross the t’s.

However, Nigeria being a multi- ethnic country with over 250 ethnic groups , and because men’s hearts are infinitely evil, as President Donald Trump has continued to show in a country with supposedly strong institutions, constitutions, qua constitution. but especially that of Third World countries, cannot afford the luxury of  merely putting  trust in their leaders’ good intentions. For this reason, the National Assembly must use this opportunity  to thoroughly  strengthen our laws, especially our electoral laws. Given our penchant  for inexplainable ethnic predelictions, love of money and in the light of  our very  pliable Judiciary, a ‘Nigerian Trump’ would easily  have succeeded in overturning his/ her defeat and stay pat in office.

Also requiring stringent conditionalities  is  the manner of  making appointments to key posts by the President. This and the Jonathan administration has rendered that need an utmost necessity.

The Federal character commission has failed dismally and the National Assembly must now subject the commission’s exercise of its responsibilities  to more rigour and then, go on to  criminalise every default.

But  as we have seen, the commission  is the lesser of two evils  in matters of  appointments especially since the beginning of the  present administration.

Serious, not any obsequous efforts, must be made in this exercise to circumscribe the President’s freedom in making appointments to key agencies of state. While he/she should be free to choose his personal staff, every other key appointment must reflect Nigeria’s diversity if we want justice  and inclusiveness to prevail  in our country.

By this, I mean that the new constitution, though essentially only a patch patch work as against crafting a genuinely peoples’ constitution, no Nigerian President

should ever be able to get away with the oddity presently confronting Nigerians in the near complete Northern domination of the public service; a service run mostly on resources from the South. It is too much in your face. Even where the North does not possess  a third of the embarrassment of riches the South has in all areas of learning and expertise – Health,  Education, Sciences, the Arts, mention it, it so completely dominates  that it is far beyond explanation.

Despite the experiences of Dr Obadiah Mailafia – since we are no slaves in our own country – one must still have the legal right to summarise the contents of a currently trending Whatsapp video on the subject.

It asserts that it is sheer injustice that in a multi ethnic,  and multi religious country like Nigeria, Northernerners, mostly  of one faith,  so dominate the Nigerian  public service that you find among them:  the President ,  Senate President, Chief Justice of the federation,  Defence Minister, Chiefs of Army and Air staff, Director – Generals of NIA, SSS, Customs, Immigration, Prison,  Civil Defence, Code of Conduct Bureau, NPA, NIMASA, NUC, TETFUND, NUC, NNPC where it is rumoured that they literally hold the topmost 20 positions – not to mention the fact that they occupy the headship of most of  the agencies in both the Health and Education sectors.

I am at a complete loss as to how President Buhari wants Nigerians from other parts of the country, and, of course, history  to interpret, and judge all these skewed appointments,  if not his entire administration.

Peace can only reign where there is justice. You should, therefore,  allow only  uprightness, not ethnic or regional  considerations, to dictate whatever amendments you  will come up with because our constitution must aim at  restoring  fairness, equity and sanity to Nigeria, that even if a leader comes tomorrow who can completely disdain the party on whose platfom he/ she came to office, the sanctity of the country will remain.  Or Nigeria will never know  peace unless its constitution guarantees inclusiveness.

Therefore, you must rise up to your solemn responsibility as elected officials, do right by the people, and let history be the judge of your contribution to the rise or fall of Nigeria.

I wish you well.

• “We can’t continue to live like animals. Everyday I receive reports of kidnapping and killings from district heads. It is very unfortunate. I have not seen this kind of country before. How do we live like animals? Nobody is safe now… wherever you are”. – Emir of Katsina, Abdulmumini Kabir Usman

By Femi Orebe

In this  last month of a year multi- award winning journalist, Olatunji Ololade of this newspaper, has appropriately dubbed the ‘Year of The Funeral Pyre’, Nigerians have again  just been treated to President Buhari’s usual absurdities: sending condolences to bereaved families to which Nigerians now hardly pay any attention, and giving orders to  the security forces to fish out   killers long after the deed has been done and the killers have dissolved into thin air.

So many, and horrifying, have these incidents become that even normally reticent royalties from the North, are no longer restrained in  speaking truth to the  President, some of whose personal choices have led Nigeria to the present quagmire.

Take for instance, the President’s insular appointments, disdain for his  party leaders, and his  near total reliance on his North- dominated kitchen cabinet, all of which have rendered his decision making process monocultural; a culture that uncritically treats  leaders  like god – no questions asked – or what in Hausa is called, ‘rankadede’, and the President has, inadvisedly chosen  to deny himself the profundity which would have, otherwise, enriched his actions. Also, when exactly did the President wean himself  of the mindset that once saw him defend Boko Haram on a Liberty Radio Guest of the Week programme, during the Jonathan era, equating them to Niger Delta militants, and proceding, therefrom,  to say that an attack on them is an attack on the North? If  he no longer believes that, how come President Idriss Deby could lead his small Chad to deal a devastating blow on Boko Haram but Nigeria cannot? Why has he not fought insurgency the same way he is taming Covid -19?

Governor Zulum of Borno state  recently suggested that mercenaries be hired  to help as they once did  but were Nigerians ever told why they were summarily sent packing last time even when they were allegedly achieving results?

Nigerians will come to know, one day, the full story of a war that has seen thousands of Nigerians  killed,  more rendered  homeless, and  turned into refugees in their own country. That is not to mention the fortune being consumed. Things are not different when it comes to the Fulani herdsmen, who not only  rape, but  kidnap and kill as, and when, they choose. A Yoruba Oba was recently shot dead in his own domain, an abomination,  while another, His Royal Highness,  Olu Falae, of Ilu Abo, Akure, has become a target of their evil infantuation. I recall once telling some friends who, on learning about a year ago that there are over a thousand Fulani settlements in forests in the Southwest, suggested the use of drones to locate them since these settlements are where their mayhem is planned , that even if drones located the settlements,  this government will never go after them. Now state governors have raised the alarm about the likelihood of insurgency spreading beyond the  Northeast and the Northwest to engulf others; no matter where located in the country. What will then become of the country, as well as President Buhari’s legacy as President of Nigeria? This, unfotunately,  is another consequence of  his poor management of Nigeria’s diversities, and nobody can, as yet, say how far, on the wrong course, his personal preferences will take Nigeria.

The lietmotif for this write up is the shocking slaughter of about

76 farmers on  rice farms in Borno State this past week. This has naturally provoked both His Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto,   Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar , CFR,  and the Emir of Katsina, Abdulmumini Kabir Usman, to come out of their usual reticence to  weigh in on a spate of insecurity which, if it continues unabated,  may very soon turn Nigeria  to a real  hell on earth. While the Sultan has severally inveighed against the fact of the entire country  being  turned to a literal killing field, the Emir of Katsina  has fulsomely said the words quoted at the very beginning of this essay. Whoever  has been following events in Katsina state in the past 2 or 3 years will not but  feel the Emir’s pain, especially given the fact that the state government has chosen to repay blood letting with granting amnesty to bandits. So overawed has the state government become that it can no longer think beyond giving  paliatives to the  bandits who have, in turn, shown no signs  that they will stop their rampage. Nor is the state  alone in this thoroughly dispiriting atmosphere in which life in Nigeria has become so short and brutish that a frustrated governor Zulum of Borno state,   himself alive today only by the grace of God, has now publicly advised the President to consider hiring mercenaries to assist the country in confronting a multi faceted insurgency the military no longer seem  like being able to solve, despite its truly heroic  efforts. This government was apparently  deceived by its initial successes when its spokespersons spoke glibly about degrading Boko Haram. And lest this be mis -construed as a slur on the military, let it be said, that our fighting forces have given of their very best , despite the military  being  spread  thin,  deployed to the many theatres of the mayhem, now consuming the country. Many  have, indeed,  paid  the supreme price and it is our prayer that the Almighty God will grant them eternal rest. Same goes to the service chiefs who should now be allowed to go and rest, not because of nonperformance, but rather,  because you cannot be doing the same thing, over and over, and  expect to have a different result.

This is why it is time the President now  yields to the several calls, the latest coming from the  National Assembly, to let the Service Chiefs go and have their well deserved rest.

I have  personally once argued on these pages that the President might be more concerned with  regime security, and so decided to retain trusted aides, but now in his  sixth  year in office, his confidence should be a lot higher even though his excruciating experience after the coup that ousted him as Military Head of state could not have been treated with levity. However, the sheer weight of  daily killings  in the North, and the country’s general insecurity,  should  now  trump such fears; even  if  some people chose to misdirect themselves into thinking that the #ENDSARS protests were concerned, even remotely, with regime change. The stories coming out  of the state judicial  panels of police brutalities ought, by now, to have blown off such shibboleths.

So what is the way out of  this excruciating insecurity that has put Nigeria in the class  of Syria, at the height of its war with ISIS, South Sudan, during  its war of independence and with  a Somalia, perpetually at war with itself like Nigeria is?

I think it will be apposite here, to bring in a friend of the President who is himself  battling insurgency on all fronts,  and is, therefore, in the eye of the insecurity storm. Enter the Kaduna state governor, El Rufai who  has, of recent, suggested some practical , non sectional, ways to stem insecurity in the country.

I quote  him:

“Restructuring is a pragmatic imperative for a more efficient governance structure in our country. It will enable a departure from excessive centralisation, re-balance the federation and locate power and responsibilities in the tier of government best able to effectively discharge them”.

My take away, apart  from the word ‘restructuring’, in that quote is: “locate power and responsibilities in the tier of government best able to effectively discharge them”.

What then is the primary responsibility of government other than securing the life and property of the citizenry? Any government that  fails in this has failed, dismally and abysmally.

It is for this reason that President Buhari must completely rejig the underpinning philosophy of his government which has pointed mainly, and unambiguously, in the direction  of satisfying only a part, and certainly not all parts,  of the country, while believing, and taking for granted, the ruse that the country’s unity is cast in stone.

Yes, unity is such a good thing especially in  a country as diverse, and blessed, as Nigeria, but only equity, inclusiveness and justice, not the mere say so, or any  military might, can ensure it.

It is no ancient history that as recent as ’99, former President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered the police to shoot unruly OPC members at sight.  His words:”The police have acted according to the instructions they have been given – that any criminal should be shot at sight…anybody who calls themselves OPC…should be arrested or if he doesn’t give himself to arrest, should be shot at sight.”

Therefore, to meaningfully, and successfully, fight insecurity in Nigeria, Nigerians must be treated equally, irrespective of where they come from, or their religious  affiliation. It must not be the new normal that a Divisional Police officer (DPO) must promptly release a Fulani brought to his station for  committing one crime or another even before diligent investigation as has been severally alleged while differently handling cases involving other Nigerians .  Only equity, and fairness, will solve our national challenges.

“A second objective factor in the structure of the First Republic which is, this time, a draw-back, was the lack of equity in the delineation of its constituent parts. The North was too large compared to the other regions and it was, in reality as well as perception, preponderant and overbearing”- Former Emir of Kano, Lamido Sule Lamido, in ISSUES IN RESTRUCTURING CORPORATE NIGERIA, a paper delivered when he was Assistant General Manager, Credit Risk Management and Control Division, UBA PLC, September, 1999.

 

I am currently updating ‘SIMPLY A CITIZEN JOURNALIST’, which, to  the glory of God, shall be published next year, and came across the article you are about to read below, published 7 February, 2010. It caught my fancy because of the continuing obfuscation surrounding restructuring, the epitome of which was a disingenuous Alhaji Buba Galadima saying the following in a recent newspaper interview: “I don’t  understand what restructuring is . If you define restructuring to me, I can give you an answer. Nobody was able to define what restructuring is all about in all the three constitutional conferences I attended. Whoever defines restructuring, defines it from his point of view; from his personal interest, group interest, regional interest; that should not be the case. There must be a universal definition of restructuring so that we can now agree either to work towards it or against it”.

Both calls came in fast, and furious, as early as 7am and were designed to mock me; believing as the callers did, that Sam Omatseye’s article of Monday, February 1, 2010, was a case against restructuring, a subject which has been the focus of this column in the last fortnight.

For those who may not know, Sam is the linguistically resourceful, if combatant, Chairman of The Nation’s Editorial Board, a journalist as good as any you would find anywhere on the face of the earth, and the immediate past ‘Journalist of the Year’ in the country. Sam takes no prisoners; rather he says it as it is, minding not whose ox is gored. He actually is, without a doubt, one of the best in the business.

Not knowing how punishing  my  usual night regimen -which includes: viewing the Ekiti-dissecting, 10pm Galaxy Television newscasts, CNN’s Situation Room at midnight, Anderson Cooper’s 360 degrees at 4 am and reading my mails, especially those from the very robust Ekitipanupo web portal, as well as reading  many of the serious columnists in some newspapers online is, the callers told me that my case for restructuring now stands on nothing, having been dismissed as the fancy of those who ‘do not understand history’ by a journalist of Omatseye’s pedigree.

So what did Sam say in ‘Balance of Terror?’

Obviously an adaptation of the more historically famous ‘Balance of Power’ concept in International Relations, I believe it is more profitable to discuss first, the concept, Sam’s views and then conclude with how it only merely tangentially, if at all, affect my position on restructuring.

While Hans J. Morgenthau in ‘Politics Among Nations’ saw Balance of Power simply as the aspiration for power on the part of several nations, each trying to maintain or overthrow the status quo, Gathorne-Hardy in his ‘Short History of International Affairs’, defined it as the maintenance of a just equilibrium between competing nations which will prevent any one of them being in a position to dominate the rest.

As should naturally be expected, the doyen in these matters, Henry Kissinger, was more explicit in ‘Diplomacy’, his 912 – page Magnum Opus on International Relations. Recalling that Balance of Power dates back to the collapse of Europe’s medieval dream of universal empire and the emergence of a host of states with more or less equal strength, he says it then became necessary that a system be put in place to keep dissatisfaction below the level at which an aggrieved party will seek to overthrow the status quo.

In his view, Balance of Power did not purport to avoid crises or avert wars, concluding that, indeed, while Great Britain elaborated the concept in the eighteenth century, Metternich’s Austria came with the Concert of Europe, while  Bismarch’s Germany dismantled it all, and in its place gifted Europe the k cold-blooded game of power politrics.

What then are Sam’s essential view points?

In an article I see as the product of an agonised mind, and who wouldn’t be, considering our country’s dire straits, Omatseye came to the conclusion that unless the composite ethnicities square it up, bazooka for bazooka, pump action machine gun for another, there was no way Nigeria can achieve any modicum of sustainable peace. I see that really as the cry of an agonising patriot who had waited in vain for this 50 year old wayward ‘toddler’ to grow up

His story, put succinctly was as follows: He recalled a frantic call from one of his editors relating the extreme danger facing some students at the University of Jos in front of whose hostel some Islamic phalanges had massed whilst soldiers drove in and out to pluck out into safety, the children of the rich and mighty,  not paying the slightest attention to the safety of the caged students, nor interceding with the killing mob.

He saw this as a sign of collusion between the killing gangs and the authorities, and surmised that this was why, not only Igbos any longer, but all ethnic groups now routinely flee Northern cities when things go awry, with the Yoruba pointedly saying they will never ever return to Jos again.

Naturally, he adverted to the fate of Youth Corps members who are always caught in between. Personally, as this is one subject about which I have written copiously in the past, I believe the time has come for Southern parents to refuse their children, and wards, honouring any posting to the North. Let government take away its miserable jobs -how many, anyway -but save the lives of these young ones. Only then will our deaf and dumb government do the needful concerning the scheme.

I digress.

It was from this point on that Omatseye came to the meat of his essay and I quote: “When one group tries to exterminate another, the answer is for the others to arm themselves, and return fire for fire… When the aggressor sees the countervailing prowess of the other, they will understand that the meek does not inherit the earth. They can now go to the negotiating table and talk peace. It is then that the meek is blessed”.

He went further to say, and I quote him again: ‘Appealing to dismemberment is a lazy and unthinking short cut…’

This precisely is where my callers missed it. I have never called for the dismemberment of Nigeria. There is no way you can remotely conjure restructuring to mean dismemberment because the truth really is, rather than dismember, restructuring will further cohere the nation since it would guarantee considerable peace during which the new structures would aim at meaningful development. Restructuring was not what happened in the Balkans when NATO had to send thousands of its soldiers and U. S President Bill Clinton had to unilaterally arm the Muslims against the rampaging Serbs.

Indeed, the import of Sam’s prescription of balance of terror with all its bloody possibilities- remember Kissinger said that the more superior Balance of Power did not guarantee against wars- is a recipe for dismemberment and a plus for restructuring.

I made the point here the other day that my idea of restructuring is targeted at strengthening the country as a whole and not an Odua agenda, expected to profit only the Yoruba,  which position drew considerable stricture from some who would rather see me as an ethnic jingoist.

Again, I say this. I am not fighting for Yoruba alone. Rather I am cognizant of the resources and strengths embedded in other ethnic groups which I believe really command more strength than they themselves think or believe.

Can you imagine what big a step we would have taken if the Hausa-Fulani, the Kanuri, the Ijaw etc, would begin to discuss the real and potential strength of their own sovereign region? The greatest obstacle to an intellectual effort of this type is the systemic limitations to discussion in Nigeria which inheres first, in the general feeling amongst us that some things should not be talked about at all ( the future of Nigeria); second, that the government has the right to clamp down on people who say certain things, etc.

All these are mere myths and shibboleths but, of course, the average Nigerian is held back by them and so is our development.

It’s our bounden duty, as patriotic citizens, to blow away these myths.

Femi Orebe

 

Within the past decade, especially since 26 January, 2010 when I wrote the article:  ‘More Case For An Urgent Restructuring’, not to go all the way back to 2006 when I started writing for  this stable,  then called Comet, I have written more than 25 articles canvassing restructuring.  For two main reasons, however, I believe that Dr Fayemi’s recent Kaduna lecture must have been more impactful on restructuring than my over a million words, put together, on the subject. First, in Nigeria, columnising is more like a dialogue with the deaf, but  much more importantly, the governor, by giving that lecture, where he did, and to that audience, was like daring the lion in its lair.

I say this because in spite of restructuring being more of an anathema to the Northern power block, he still spoke so lucidly, and forthrightly, holding nothing back. Instead, he copiously laid down the  ingredients of what a genuine  restructuring of Nigeria should entail. His candour, I suspect,  must be the reason His Eminence, the Sultan, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, described him as an adopted son of Sir Ahmadu Bello who, not only spoke impeccable English, but was  acclaimed as a man of truth.

Incidentally, this happens not to be Governor Fayemi’s first contribution to the now renewed debate on  restructuring. Not too long ago, he informed the Nigerian public, through a newspaper interview, that the recommendations  of the APC’s El Rufai committee on Power Devolution has now been remitted to the National Assembly.

Expatiating  on his topic,  he said it rests on the core assumption that there was a ‘greatness’ or at least a journey towards ‘greatness’, which has remained unfinished and now requires building a more perfect union to accomplish.

What then are his prognosis for  achieving that greatness which would guarantee for Nigeria her  rightful place in the comity of nations?

He is in no doubt that Nigeria would record no development, whatever,  as long as it is not a nation, properly so called. To overcome this problem it is his view that Nigerians must resolve what he calls the “fundamental challenges” of  nation-building which inheres in “elite consensus”, without which Nigeria will, forever, remain only a country of nations. With regard to our differences, Dr Fayemi is convinced that our diversity,  if properly harnessed, could actually be a source of strength for the country and help in building a virile nation.

Unfortunately, successive Nigerian holders of power have forgotten Uthman Dan Fodio’s admonition that one of the swiftest ways to destroy a country is to give preference to one particular tribe over others. In like manner, Northern leaders, some of them present at the event, have chosen to discountenance the research conducted by the Arewa Research Development Project which concluded that in the contemporary world, issues of nation-building are increasingly being centred around  rights and equality, and access to these rights without any modicum of favouratism -a fact which, unfortunately  has now ceased to be the  experience of Nigerians from certain parts of the country, even though equitable access would have  facilitated  political integration and development.

This unfairness was one of the reasons which predisposed the Nigerian youth to the #ENDSARS protest even though  alongside the sheer bestiality of that arm of the Nigerian police.

These shortcomings must have led  the lecturer into advising that “we must appreciate the responsibilities which  our destiny has imposed on us. We have to start, he suggests further,  by first conquering the demon of mutual suspicion and distrust which has poisoned our politics and subverted our will to forge the necessary consensus that is so crucial to marching confidently towards our  manifest destiny as a great nation. If we do this, he went on, we would have scaled the major obstacle to forging a great nation out of this colonial creation…”  However, to hold that all Nigerians are complicit in committing  these shortcommings,  would, in my opinion, not be true. Successive Nigerian governments, especially the military, which was almost completely  dominated by the North, as well as  the civilian Heads of government, largely coyly rigged into office by the North,  did everything to perpetuate iniquity.

For instance, while General Babangida and his North- dominated Executive council  gave Kano state 44 Local Government Areas, oil producing Bayelsa state  8, and Lagos state, with its huge port facilities, and accounting for not less than 55 per cent of the total Value Added Tax  revenue, a miniscule 20 Local Government Areas, so miserable it has been pleading, like forever, for a special grant to fix its infrastructure, being daily ruined by huge trucks from everywhere, to no avail. What then can be more iniquitous than what we have presently for structure  in Nigeria?

Under an equitable arrangement, Local Governments should be a complete state affair; indeed, a state’s most potent tool for policy implementation  and, ipso facto, for impacting its publics.

This patent inequality, amongst several others, is why many doubt that a Nigerian leader of Northern extraction can ever sincerely want Nigeria restructured from its present, highly unproductive one.

As we all know, several half -hearted attempts have been made to restructure Nigeria but, as should be expected, nothing concrete ever came out of  them  simply because they were actually designed to fail.

Beginning with the 1999 constitution which Chief Bisi Akande once, very aptly, described as “Nigeria’s greatest misadventure since Lugard’s amalgamation of 1914, breeding  and protecting corrupt practices and criminal impunities in governance”, through Obasanjo’s one ups man ship, which was  aimed at making him a life President, which he denies,  to Jonathan’s opportunistic 2014 Constituent Assembly which was designed to guarantee his re -election with help from our highly regarded Afenifere elders  all came to nought since they were, in reality, efforts in self help. None was aimed at making a better nation, out of Nigeria.

How then did Gov Fayemi frame what he described as “building a nation, where peace and justice shall reign”?

“Imperatives for a ‘More Perfect Union”, he called it, and declared, unapologetically, that “the path to nation-building is peace, the path to peace, he said, is justice, and the path to justice is equity and inclusion” –  everything Nigeria currently lacks.

It is his opinion that through the #ENDSARS protests, the youths of Nigeria were saying that the older generations have failed them by not creating a system that supports their hopes and aspirations. Rather, they feel pushed to the fringes of the country’s socio-political and economic structures.

He  then comes to the heart of the lecture and, here, I shall have to quote him, mutatis mutandis, as a way of concluding this piece.

Said Fayemi: “The more contentious parts of our quest for a more perfect union revolves around devolution of powers – that is, the re-allocation of powers and resources as well as reconfiguring the country’s federating units. Long years of military rule, according  to him, has produced a concentration of powers and resources at the centre to the detriment of the federating units. The 1999 constitution, for instance, was hurriedly put together and  so was not a product of sufficient inclusiveness. He believes that reconfiguring Nigeria should majorly concern what items should remain on the exclusive legislative list and which ones should be transferred to the concurrent and residual lists. Others should  include the derivation principle; fiscal federalism and revenue allocation; land tenure, local government creation etc. Genuine efforts, he said, should be exerted in strengthening the sub-national units in the re-allocation of powers and resources.  This means that assignment of functions that would be consistent with a devolved but strengthened federal system must have a short, exclusive federal list to include defence and security, macro-economy, foreign affairs, customs and excise and joint responsibility in certain functions currently assigned exclusively to the federal government (internal security and policing) and primary responsibility of the sub-national governments in respect of the other functions in the second schedule of the 1999 constitution whilst the remaining powers devolve to states.

The position of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, which he chairs,  on revenue collection and sharing, is that the sharing formula should be reviewed in favour of the states, as follows: 42% to states, 35% to the Federal and 23% to Local Governments. It is  also his opinion that reconfiguring Nigeria has now become a sine qua non for purposes of  peace and development. In support of this, he quoted, extensively, as follows from the former INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega: “By working hard, rationally, and scientifically, to remove the distortions in our federal system, we would have a better functioning federation with only states as  federating units; with conscious commitments  to zonal cooperation among contiguous states, with local governments subsumed under states…with substantial devolution of power, responsibilities and resources from the federal government to the states, and with mechanisms of ensuring greater equality of opportunity for all and affirmative action for inclusion of the marginalised, minorities and groups discriminated against in the country…”

What I believe remains to be added is a plea to those whose opposition to restructuring presently seems cast in stone, to put nation above all ethnic, and regional consideration, and see Nigeria blossom, beyond their wildest expectations, to the benefit and admiration of all. Every part of this country is so blessed of God that, with hard work, meticulous planning, and far less corruption, no part will lack.

 

Victoria acerta.

 

By Femi Orebe

As I did last week, I once again commiserate with families that have lost loved ones while also praying that the Almighty God will grant the dead eternal rest.

To this list we must now add the hundreds, if not thousands of innocent souls who have needlessly been made to lose their means of likelihood, many of who must have borrowed hugely to set up their businesses, small or large.

It is time to make the miscreants face the full weight of the law because not even hunger can justify the humingous amount of brigandage witnessed in the country in the last two weeks.

Having said that it must quickly be mentioned how, apart from the Lekki shootings which was the last straw that broke the camel’s back and set Nigeria straight on the road to Golgotha,  many  security vehicles were seen on video ferrying thugs and most of the  looters and arsonists now being aggressively bundled together, to the various sites where they accomplished the incomparable mayhem we saw especially in Lagos.

There is no way the Nigerian security forces can wash their hands clean in this total fiasco and it is hoped that they will not escape their well deserved comeuppance.

Having said that let us now proceed to see how various arms of our unrighteous governments, through gross injustice, which last week we described as intrinsic to all we just witnessed, laid a solid foundation for the fiasco which set back Nigeria by trillions of naira, not to mention vital documents that have become completely irrecoverable and legacy buildings incinerated beyond recognition.

Most irritating of these is the totally insensate National Assembly whose members have been crawling all over the place , claiming to be sympathising with state governments whose capitals now look more like war theatres. Gallivanting all over the place are both Senate President Lawan and House Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, neither of who made the ‘mistake’ of referring to their loot- like salaries and allowances even when it  formed a critical part of the ENDSARS brigade demands , in a country which not only went into recession in the past five years but which those who should know now say is, unerringly, going into another, as it is guaranteed to borrow more than half its total annual ’21 budget to be able to fund it at all.

Just in case these legislators, about the highest earning legislators anywhere on the face of the earth,  are so unconscionable, and insensitive they dont know, we have to let them know that their lootocracy can no longer be sustained. I capture below how the respected Dr Dele Cole, who you cannot accuse of being flippant, captured what these locusts unconscionably take home annually in a September 20, 2020 article in the Vanguard:

“Breakdown of what a Nigerian senator earns:

Running cost

Newspaper Allowance – N1.24m

Wardrobe allowance – N0.62m

Recess allowance – N0.25m

Accommodation – N4.97m

Utilities – N0.83m

Domestic staff – N1.86m

Entertainment – N0.83m

Personal assistant – N0.62m

Vehicle mtce allowance – N1.86m

Leave allowance – N0.25m

Total running cost – N13.58m/month. This adds up to N162.96m annually

Consolidated salary

He goes home with N750,000 monthly. This sum up to N9m annually. He claims he is entitled to N200m annually to execute projects which are the duty of the Executive.

Summary

Salary – N9,000,000 per annum

Running allowance: N163,000,000 per annum

Constituency projects : N200,000,000 per annum

Total: N372,000,000 per annum. This amount is over N1,000,000 every day, including Sundays when he is in church/mosque.

He also gets these:

Severance gratuity – N7.43m

Furniture allowance – N7.45m

Motor vehicle allowance – N9.94m

Total: N24 million plus

Nigerian House of Representatives Salary: The basic salary of a House of Representative member receives include: Personal assistant, constituency, vehicle fueling/maintenance, domestic staff, entertainment, recess, newspaper/periodicals, utilities, houses maintenance, vehicle loan, furniture, wardrobe, duty tour, accommodation, etc.

Speaker, House of Representatives: The head of Nigeria’s lower legislative chamber, the speaker, receives N4,954,220:00 (N4.95m) annually and N412,851:66 monthly, excluding allowances.

Members of the House of Representatives: Members of the lower legislative chamber, according to RMAFC, receive N9,529,038:06 (N9.5m) as annual pay and N704,086:83 every month as allowances

Nigeria’s healthcare budgdet is N46 billion for 200 million people: Nigeria’s Education budget is N48 billion for 200 million people, Nigeria’s legislators budget is N125 billion for 465 people”.

Rather than publish here a nebulous comparison of parliamentarians worldwide, let us press  BudgIT– a  highly reputable, local start-up focused on making budgetary information accessible to Nigerians,

into action in an analysis it did just before  the  beginning of the Buhari administration.

It wrote as follows: “Nigerian legislators, among the world’s top paid, receive annual salaries of between $150,000 to $190,000 per annum depending on exchange rates. At current exchange rates Nigerian lawmakers, would earn around $160,000 more than British MPs who make around $105,000 according to data from The Economist. In fact, until plunging oil prices started putting pressure on the Nigerian naira earlier this year, the Nigerian lawmakers were the second highest paid lawmakers in the world. The average legislators’ pay is more than 50 times Nigeria‘s GDP per capita. In a country where millions live on less than two dollars daily and minimum wage is set at $90 a month, the legislator’s bumper pay has been described as outrageous. The campaign for a cut in the National Assembly’s funds as a new government comes in is fitting as President Buhari, who will earn less than the lawmakers, has a reputation for being modest and austere”.

The main thrust of the #OpenNASS campaign is for the National Assembly to open its books to allow for an assessment of its finances and possibly advocate for cuts particularly in a period of financial uncertainties which has seen the country struggle to pay salaries”.

“Between 2011 and 2014, the National Assembly received N150 billion yearly but will receive N120 billion in 2015 according to the recently passed 2015 budget. BudgIT’s estimation also shows that since 1999, the National Assembly has received about N1.26 trillion yet there has been little accountability.

But all that could change soon as the #OpenNASS campaign has won significant support from Bukola Saraki, the popular choice to to takeover from David Mark as Senate President. He even tweeted his support”.

All that was in vain.

The yearly allocation for the National Assembly, which has less than 10,000 individuals on its payroll, surpasses the annual budgets of 21 of Nigeria’s 36 states including Katsina, Benue and Jigawa all with populations of more than 4 million people.

While the country deals with financial issues which can be traced back to the slump in global crude oil prices, the National Assembly experiences few problems as its fund is in a special category called statutory transfer which mandates the federal government, after receiving revenues, to make the legislators’ funds immediately available before other considerations. ”This campaign is not about an individual, rather it is about instituting a culture where public finance and accountability are inextricably linked; it is about leaders’ responsibility to taxpayers,” says Stanley Achonu, operations lead at BudgIT. The National Assembly only managed to pass 106 bills out of the 1,063 it reviewed in the last four years”.

“The calls for accountability from the National Assembly will resonate with millions of Nigerians who are keen to see public service holders live less luxurious lives while the majority of their countrymen wallow in poverty”.

We would stop here today but in the meantime let us ask a few questions:

Are these people so conscience dead they cannot self adjust?

Must they wait for another #ENDNASSPAY protest which might see a rehash of all we just saw before they come to their senses and realise that today, Nigeria literally survives on Chinese loans?

And finally, is the Buhari government so helpless, unconcerned or simply so  clueless it has no answer to this absolutely nauseating matter?

Is it so afraid of the National Assembly it cannot think a way out of this national embarrassment?

What exactly is it this National Assembly sits down full time to do with hardly a third of its members ever present at its plenary sessions and why in the name of God dont we adopt a unicameral legislature as in Nigeria’s First Republic?

Must a literally sleep walking arm of government that lives in indescribable profligacy be allowed to consume more resources than Education and Health in a  country of 200M people? Did we as a people, in twice electing him,  outrageously over estimate President Buhari’s capacity to rule us with equity and justice?

No. Baloney!

Am not suggesting that the President is a military Head of state. But we trusted him to do right by us. After all he is the leader of the APC which controls both chambers of the National Assembly. He appointed the members of the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal commission. Even assuming he cannot do anything unilaterally, what of by moral suation?

This obviously is one of the negative consequences of President Buhari giving the party no space in his government but rather relying so heavily on his self serving kitchen cabinet which many prefer to call a cabal. How on earth can President Buhari be comfortable living with such an extravagantly expensive arm of government, earning higher than their counterparts in countries which do not need to borrow, home and abroad to survive, and do nothing about it?

This is one of the many questions that baffle Nigerians about the Buhari administration.

TO BE CONTD.

By Femi Orebe

My sincerest condolences to families who have lost any member as a result of the #ENDSARS protests and eternal rest to the young Nigerians who have unfortunately paid the supreme price.

The protests were with complete orderliness until some people with agenda infiltrated thugs into the mix  and took it off the hands of the hardheaded youngmen and women who were at the helm of affairs. I suspect there is now a deliberate attempt to demarket some people ahead of 2023. This could be a personal or regional agenda but  we would get to know more about this as time goes on.

In all my years, suffering has never been a stranger to Nigerians; we never had all round electricity, water  didnt always flow from our taps. Youth unemployment is a constant  just like  insecurity.

Notwithstanding all these,  nothing provoked the Nigerian youth to the level of  protests we have seen these past 3 weeks. But no thanks to the unbridled excesses of SARS we experienced unprecedented killing of these young people as well as a  massive destruction of properties this  past week.

While the bestiality of SARS is the primary cause , there can be no disputing the fact  that this crisis has been hugely exacerbated by the level of injustice which Nigerians have seen in the Buhari administration.

Fairness, equity and justice appear to  have all kissed our country goodbye.

And to imagine that the President was  well warned against the consequences of injustice right at the very beginning of his administration.

The President could not have been luckier than having one of Nigeria’s most respected statesmen give him what has since been described  as the ‘Voice From The Grave’.

The following are the words of Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, of blessed memory, when in May, 2015  he  led a delegation of the Northern Leaders Forum to congratulate the President  on his election.

“It is the same Buhari that gave this country a sense of direction when he was a military leader.

This time, I’m sure, Allah has brought him to correct the ills of the past, to reform. But sir, it is easy – and you know it was easy while you were there as a military leader – and with justice, you can rule Nigeria well.

Justice, is the key.

If you do justice to all and sundry –  and I say all and sundry – because Allah says if you are going to judge  between people, do justice, irrespective of their tribe, religion or even political inclination; justice must be done to  whosoever deserves it. Power can remain in the hands of an  infidel if he is just and fair. But power will not remain in the hands of a believer if he is unfair and unjust. Behind EVERY CRISIS anywhere in the world is INJUSTICE and the solution to that crisis is JUSTICE.

The world itself can never be governed by force, never by fear, even never by power. In the end, what governs is the  mind. What conquers is the spirit. And the weapons of governing the mind and  conquering the  spirit are justice and fair play.

Justice!

I have always known you to be a man of justice. I ask you, please, to continue. Don’t change, don’t compromise justice with any thing”.

May Allah help you! Mr. President sir, you know what we have  gone through. I am not asking you – and I know you will not – to discriminate against any part of  Nigeria. But I am asking you to do justice to all parts of Nigeria. Justice will bring about peace. Peace and stability are the pre-requisites of development. Development will bring employment. With  employment, you will not have idle people. An  idle mind, is the devil’s workshop. An idle  mind thinks nothing but evil, it plans nothing but evil, wants to do nothing but evil. Justice, justice, will do away with all these. I know you can do it. DO JUSTICE TO US , DO JUSTICE TO THEM, do justice to EVERYBODY. Allah will reward you for that. There are certain things that people may say, perhaps, political consideration. Well Mr. President, it is God that you should always have at the back of your mind. For you believe that one day you will stand before God to  account for all that you have done. I would rather that you will disappoint people than disappoint your great creator. And may God grant that you will do that which will please God. Sir we have come to congratulate you and  congratulate ourselves because this is what we have been looking for. We have been looking for a  Nigerian – and whatever anybody may say, you are a Nigerian – but a Nigerian with a sense of justice and fair play and by past records, you have that sense of justice and fair play. We are looking for a Nigerian that would be committed, dedicated and you are such a person. We are, therefore, expecting much from you. We are expecting much from you. We, on our side, are prepared to give you whatever support, in form of advise or anything, that will enable you to succeed in your task. Insha Allah, you will succeed. Insha Allah, nobody will laugh at us. Insha Allah, we will… my goodness, my goodness (waxes emotional). By the grace of God, this is a potentially, the greatest Nigerian leader that we have ever had”.

So Mr President, what happened?

I dont know how it happened. Was it because  the  President battled with illness for a considerable length of time? Could  it be because of his well known respect, and loyalty to those around him,  those who are reputed to have  been with him through thick and thin,  especially during his political odyssey and have since transmogrified to the famed  mafia, and whose opinions he might not have been able to controvert? Was it  a momentary  loss of concentration, which  Nigeria’s multitudinous challenges could very well induce or is it  simply a love of one’s erhnic group? President Buhari should always have treated this advice like a PNEUMONIC- that is, an aide to memory – never to be forgotten,   for even a fleeting moment.

All that is wrong with this country today, these protests inclusive, that is fast turning Nigeria to the likes of Afghanistan, are  the  consequences of injustice in its governance. President Buhari has not ruled Nigeria as if he knows it is a country of over 250 ethnic groups. This, in essence, means that he  disdains  the place, and importance, of Justice in his governance of a multi ethnic country like Nigeria thereby, either deliberately or unconsciously, bringing all these problems upon a country that should be the pride of the entire Blacks on the face of the earth. It is for reasons like this that President Donald Trump of the United States of America could justifiably call Nigeria a shithole country and even Ghana, nearby, could start to poke fingers in our eyes, not to talk of South Africa which treats Nigerians far worse. Back home, separatist groups are mushrooming and rearing their heads and even  people of the same region, as we see in the North, think nothing of  horrendously killing themselves absolutely for nothing.

These are all consequences of lack of justice in our polity on a scale hitherto unknown. For instance, what justice is in senators earning N36M monthly when 50 percent of the Nigerian youth are unemployed? There was this.chat on Whatsapp the other day which  reads as follows: while 10,500 University Professors earn N4.8B annually, 469 mostly sleeping, National Assembly legislators  earn N128B  for the same period and that is not  factoring in what comes to them via budgetary ‘envelopes’ and from their so – called oversight functions. What justice is in Fulani herdsmen raping, killing and burning  villages, all over the country, and not being as much as arrested, not to talk of being hurled before court for justice to take its turn? Or I ask: is there any justice when the President packs Nigeria’s  entire security apparatti with more than 90 percent Northerners and near all of the same religion? What of  the entire headship of agencies in the ministries of Health and Education.  How many of them come from outside the North?Which reminds me of writing as follows in “ MR PRESIDENT, WHAT IS HAPPENING, 15 December, 2019: “This time around, Your Excellency, I am in a complete  fix, and so do need help. In order to taunt me maximally, my traducer – knowing how much I, a Southerner supports you, wrote: “Finance, Customs, Immigration, FIRS, NPA, NNPC, AMCON, NDIC, Federal Mortgage Bank  are all  now firmly in the hands of Northerners. The Executive, Legislature, the Judiciary, Police, DSS, Armed Forces, minus the CDS, Oil, Airports and Seaports, are  all in the hands of Northerners.

The rout is complete”.

The Nigerian youth, well educated, many of them with higher degrees, citizens  of the world, absolutely  tech savvy, and who know what is happening in other parts of the world , see all these mindless injustice  and more.They know that while they are unemployed, many years after graduation, children  and relations of these privileged people are surreptitiously recruited into  all these organisations even when there were no advertisements placed for any vacancies.

 In the same country?

Those of these young men now being needlessly slaughtered, out looking for how to keep body and soul together, are the  same ones being subjected to all manner of  innanities, illegal detentions, even outright loss of life  through the wicked, unchecked  instrumentality of SARS.

Need anybody then be told  that #ENDSARS#  is a mere shorthand for far many national inadequscies?

Going forward, it is our  hope and prayer that the President uwould become much more appreciative  of Nigeria’s diversities.

 

Femi Orebe

 

The Fragile States Index for 2020 ranks Nigeria 14, with a point of 97.3, and in the group of countries placed on the “alert” status. This position places Nigeria four positions away from sliding into the “high alert” status with countries like Afghanistan, Sudan, Chad, Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And it is dangerously nine positions away from the “very high alert” and failed states like Syria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. These statistics has the advantage of bringing the fundamental significance of local debates about politics, governance and development down to earth. For many years, and since independence, Nigeria had been standing at the precipice of national calamity. There have been several tipping points that we have miraculously overcome. And we seem not to have learnt from history in order to rethink our national path. Unfortunately, we are still in the eye of the storm” – Professor Tunji Olaopa.

At the best of times, Nigeria has always been on Tenterhooks. This, for instance, is how amazon.com introduced Walter Maier’s ‘THIS HOUSE HAS FALLEN’ , published 13 July, 2000 to its clients on the website:”To understand Africa, one must understand Nigeria, and few Americans understand Nigeria better than Karl Maier. This House Has Fallen is a bracing and disturbing report on the state of Africa’s most populous, potentially richest, and most dangerously dysfunctional nation. Each year, with depressing consistency, Nigeria is declared the most corrupt state in the entire world. Though Nigeria is a nation into which billions of dollars of oil money flow, its per capita income has fallen dramatically in the past two decades. Military coup follows military coup. A bellwether for Africa, it is a country of rising  ethnic tensions and falling standards of living, very possibly on the verge of utter collapse — a collapse that could dramatically overshadow even the massacres in Rwanda,”.

If that was 20 years ago, the Nigerian condition has since gone worse, especially in the past five years when the management of its diversity has been abysmally woeful with several parts treated like they are inhabited by some conquered, non citizens.

This is how, cryptically the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Acting Publicity Secretary,  Chief Uche Achi-Okpaga  described the suppurating cataclysm:

“If you are talking about federalism, it is a collection or agreement that exists among federating units and in the case of Nigeria, the federating units have to do with the Federal Government and the 36 states, and the Federal Capital Territory as is captured in the constitution”. “But here, the Federal Government lords it over states and the Federal Capital Territory. “Virtually everything is on the  Exclusive List and you are still calling it a federation”. “What has a federation got to do with education? What has it got to do with agriculture? What has it got to do with water resources among others? “The federation should concern itself with foreign affairs, the economy and  some specific issues but here everything has been  taken over by the Federal Government.  “We are not observing any federal character in Nigeria. In practice, it doesn’t exist. Do you know that appointments are no longer advertised? Check key agencies and parastatals, you can hardly see them advertised. Nigerian Ports Authority; when last did  you hear them advertise for jobs? But they employ every time. The only one you see is the police recruitment. Customs only advertise  for junior officers and in the course of recruitment, people just go and lose their lives. “At the top echelons, you can’t hear them recruit. You can’t see the adverts because one particular section of the country will fill all the vacant positions.

Though scathing, and withering,  nothing can be more factual than  the Editorial opinion of The Punch of Thursday 1 October,  2020 from which we shall be quoting at some length.

In its opening stanza, it declares: “SIXTY years after independence, the abject condition of the Nigerian state is everywhere in evidence; rancour, distrust, fear of implosion and deprivation are the talking points. Hitherto sanguine believers in the myth of “unity in diversity” are joining the majority to agitate that the country reverts to genuine federalism. In the borderlands and rural abodes where insurgents, bandits and militias hold sway, facts on the ground are outpacing polite debate. The country has been taken over by sundry criminals and society is in excruciating pain. A toxic mix of ethnicity, religion and corruption drives public sector affairs. Femi Mimiko, a political science professor, once said: “Ours is the textbook definition of state capture, where a tiny governing elite runs the system in its own interest and for its own good. It is a system of political and economic exclusion, which fuels anger, and a feeling of marginalisation.”

That is not its most ascerbic, though  very true description of the Nigerian condition, as the editorial further states, matter of factly, as follows: “The purposes of a state — security of lives and property, welfare of citizens, actualisation of individual and group potential — are in short supply, with the situation deteriorating by the day. Built on a foundation of injustice, fraud and a rigged administrative structure, unity and inclusion have always been elusive. Never since the run-up to, and the Nigerian Civil War, have the ethnic nationalities and major faiths been so mutually antagonistic. Political inertia cripples everything: crime has become monstrous, featuring an 11-year-old terrorist insurgency, heavily armed and organised bandits, Fulani herdsmen-militants converging in the country from all over West Africa, kidnappers, cult gangs and violent thugs. Unlike its peers, Nigeria has no clearly defined national goals, no future and no hope. The country has lost the capacity to deliver medium or big-sized infrastructure projects. In 2011, a presidential committee found 11,886 abandoned projects, costing N7.78 trillion. More have piled up since then. The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Second Niger Bridge, the Ajaokuta Steel Company, the East-West Road, the Mambilla Power Project, rail and road projects and the seaports in Apapa are conspicuous indices of a failed state.

Corruption is an untameable monster. The Human Environment Development Agency said Nigeria lost $600 billion to sleaze between 1960 and 2019. Efforts by succeeding regimes to combat graft have failed woefully. PwC concluded that corruption could cost Nigeria up to 37 percent of GDP by 2030.  In 2018, Nigeria, with 20 per cent of its population, overtook India as the extreme poverty capital of the world”

All these have culminated in  the Fragile States Index (formerly failed states index) report published by the US think tank, Fund for Peace, stating that “based on factors like weak or ineffective central government that has lost control of part of its territory, lack of public services, widespread corruption, criminality, refugees, and persistent economic adversity, Nigeria is rated the world’s 14th most fragile state. All the social, economic and political factors cited by the FFP are amply present. Politically, the state is being de-legitimised”.

Dire will be inadequare to describe the Nigerian condition today.

Fortunately, all is not lost. 

While eminent Nigerians from all parts of the country have called for restructuring, an eminent Northern statesman, and leader of the Northern Elders Forum, Professor .Ango Abdullahi, has returned to the old call for a sovereign National Conference (SNC)  when he, a professor of Agronomy and one-time Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, who attended four constitutional conferences on the way forward for Nigeria said as follows in an interview with the  Sunday Sun: “The North is ever ready for the dissolution of Nigeria and the way to go about it is through the calling of a formal meeting with complete powers to terminate the legal relationships between the constituent parts in Nigeria. According to him, If we agree that we should live together as a people and as a country, so be it, but if the general consensus is that Nigerians want to go their separate ways either on the basis of ethnicity, culture, history or religion, why not; why not, adding, “if anybody tells you that the large informed opinion in the North is against the dissolution of Nigeria, he is telling you lies.”

Continuing, he said:”the only thing we have not done which I prefer we do is a Sovereign National Conference where the decision of the people will determine whether Nigeria stays as a country or people will go in as many separate ways as they choose.”

Rather than delay and allow the various calls for separation lead to  bloodletting of any kind, I believe that the President should move, pro actively, to address the various problems mitigating against peaceful and healthy being of the country, on top of which is the inequitable  manner of  appointments, both by him and some of his top appointees, which non Northerners see, and can only marvel, almost on a daily basis.

Unless President Muhammadu Buhari is ‘ad idem’ with the Miyetti Allah people who daily claim that Nigeria belongs to Fulanis, who arrived the country only in 1804, working towards achieving a peaceful resolution of all contentious issues in the country is what should now concentrate his mind. And that requires no robotic science.