The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ropo Sekoni

  • Towards police reform

    Towards police reform

    Citizens’ anger with SARS can be cited as one of many reasons to illustrate that current policing in the country is not working

    There is no way we can continue with the way we are going with policing now. . . For us to continue this old way of policing our country, I don’t think it can work and it is not working. We have to look at other parts of the world, how they are doing it
    -Vice President Yemi Osinbajo
    Community policing which demands effective police-public partnership and trust in crime prevention is the best form of policing…. Even among police personnel themselves, a research carried out in 14 states discovered that if community police strategy is adopted, it could assist to eradicate most of the challenges attributed to the traditional reactive police culture…. There is no debate about the efficacy of community policing model of internal security management
    -Solomon Arase, former IGP.

    The police force in Nigeria is back under citizens’ radar after several years of demands for decentralisation of policing in the country and mounting pontifications from various sections of the polity on the danger of decentralisation of the police to national unity. Theorists of central police as the only way to maintain public order in a federal system continue to pontificate that abuse of police power in states is bound to damage the nation’s unity. Recent cries about police brutality that is now represented by #EndSARS campaign is not exactly about which level of government should be saddled with day-to-day law enforcement, it is about the philosophy of policing as a pre-condition to what type of police system the country needs to stay safe and united. Relatedly, ex-IGP Arase’s call for police reform (though not related to #EndSARS initiative) also interrogates the vision that undergirds maintenance of public order in a postcolonial multinational federation.

    Those calling for an end to SARS base their view on incidence of brutality of this subunit of the Nigeria Police Force, especially the cruelty to humanity of suspects referred to this unit and the corruption that citizens fear to be evident in the special anti-robbery unit. It is intriguing that the police authority has moved faster than usual on reorganisation of the troubled police division. Whether the IGP has always known about the problems of SARS is the common question from citizens to the speed of response on immediate reorganisation of SARS. With the widespread complaints about various branches of SARS across the country, the normal thing to do is not to call for re-organisation before a public enquiry. Undue haste about re-organisation of SARS can give citizens the impression that there is something to cover up on this matter. What is good for citizens and the police force is for the public to know why a special anti-robbery squad should do anything to make citizens perceive it as a laboratory for criminality and human rights abuse.

    The timing of Mr. Arase’s advice on the need to develop and debate a national policy on policing may draw criticisms from those asking why would Arase be calling for a national policy long after he himself had missed opportunities to provide leadership for such initiative. What is more important is not the behaviour of our people in relation to the size or volume of power available to them while in office. If given the opportunity, ex-President Mugabe would be glad to tell the people of Zimbabwe new ways or styles of governing the country. Hindsight is always 20-20, more so among people used to power, particularly in post-colonial Africa. Ex-IGP Arase could have chosen to play the role of a sycophant for the rest of his life, seeing everything that the person in power does as exemplary. It is salutary that somebody who has once served as leader of the country’s police force has chosen to identify with citizens who believe that policing “is not working as it is,” to borrow the phrase from the Vice President.

    Citizens’ anger with SARS can be cited as one of many reasons to illustrate that current policing in the country is not working. But SARS just happens to be the scapegoat at this time, simply because some courageous citizens have chosen to express their anger about unwholesome behaviour of staff of the anti-robbery unit. It is not an exaggeration to say that just about every unit of the force does the wrong thing in its attempt to keep public order. This column had observed in the past that the police force has a flair for acting in manners reminiscent of a colonial police force, a force established as an alien group to repress citizens under the guise of maintaining order.

    Those who use the country’s inter-state highways should not be new to extreme forms of police lawlessness and lack of respect for citizens. Many of the police men on the highways that stop motorists to ask all manners of question do not have name tags. If you asked the average police man on a highway beat for his name tag, you are going to experience insults and terrorisation. I asked one three policemen recently between Ile-fe and Ifetedo for name tag only to be pulled to the curb to produce receipt for a ten-year old washer that caught his eyes at the back of the vehicle. Customs men between Ibadan and Ife (around Asejire) at least 100 miles from any air or sea port even take over citizens’ cars and drive them to ATM to withdraw money for them for having imported cars that the customs officers consider undervalued. It does not matter that such cars have been duly registered and have been using Nigerian roads for over five years.

    Worse still, I was pulled aside by two policemen without name tags and in slippers and T-shirts with no identification. Asking the two about their name tags or any form of identity was met by resistance: “We are a special anti-robbery police and are not supposed to have name tags or identity cards.” I was made to learn a lesson; I was delayed for failing to produce the papers given to me at the Customs when I imported the 2005 SUV with registration materials in my name and a driving licence to match. I am sure every Nigerian has his or her own story of oppression by the police, all in the name of “we are doing our duty to keep Nigeria safe.” God save you, if you are asked to open your car for the police to drive you to his station for whatever reasons. In how many democratic countries do police seize cars from citizens for traffic violation or failure to show current documents? Even the director of operations at DSS, Godwin Etang, said recently that armed robbers and cultists had been recruited into the security service and that many security service staff have been apprehended for selling arms assigned to them to criminals. How much more dysfunctional can things get?

    Apart from the assurance given by the vice president about the fast-approaching policy of community police, the National Assembly is also on record to have given a green light to establishment of community police in the country.  However, the recurrent question on many minds is why not have a reform of the entire police architecture? At a time that the country is in the middle of a nation-wide debate on restructuring of its governance architecture, it does not make sense to engage in selective reform of any of the country’s institutions. This is what restructuring is to achieve. From what citizens get from the media, community policing currently in discussion is largely one that is designed in the image of the existing police force, centrally controlled.

    Now that various regions of the country seem preoccupied with discussion of restructuring is a good time for the police force and many other national institutions to hold off on self-reform and allow citizens to negotiate new models of governance. What if the choice of citizens is to borrow the Japanese model of policing? The police in Japan is not answerable to the executive. It is independent of the executive as much as the judiciary is. What if states or regions prefer such model to panel beating of the existing police force?

    A community police that is divorced from states and is answerable only to the existing central police force is not likely to work, as it is also likely to be managed by an institution that is too distant from citizens. Meanwhile, the government can commence fact-finding about SARS through public enquiry that precedes reorganisation of the special unit that has become a major source of worry for citizens. An inquiry into allegations levelled against SARS is good for growing democracy and enriching trust between citizens and sensitive governance institutions. Leaving investigation of SARS in the hands of the same agency that superintends SARS is likely to becloud objectivity.

  • Education: summits and retreats (3)

    Education: summits and retreats (3)

    Equal opportunity for school children is undermined by establishment of specially endowed schools—Mega, Model, Super, etc.

    Fully implement and enforce the provisions of the Universal Basic Education Act with emphasis on gender equity in primary and secondary school enrollment whilst improving the quality and substance of our schools; targeting up to 15% of our annual budget for this critical sector whilst making substantial investments in training quality teachers at all levels of the education; implement performance based education as against the current certificate based qualification; enhance teacher training and improve the competence of teachers along with vigorous national inspection; develop and promote effective use of innovative teaching methods/materials in schools.
    -APC Manifesto for 2015 National Elections

    That State Government, Philanthropists, Old Students Association, PTA and Corporate Organizations should embark on aggressive renovation/reconstruction of dilapidated school structures to make such schools learners friendly; that Mega schools in the State should be put into more functional, optimal and better use by government to address the current state of underutilization of some of them.
    From Communique at the Ondo State Education Summit

    Last Sunday’s column identified some of the causes of poor quality in the current educational system, such as underfunding, poor teacher preparation, poor infrastructure for teaching and learning, etc.

    At the beginning of this series, we claimed that in the 21st century, citizens in Ondo State and the entire country deserve to have unfettered access to free, compulsory, and qualitative public primary and secondary education. We also argued that those in charge of public service need to be given the right values and training to ensure that they enforce the rights of citizens in this respect by monitoring and promoting access, quality, and equality/equity. The first two pieces have addressed access and quality. This last piece will examine the importance of ensuring equality and equity in the provision of public education.

    It is gratifying and not surprising that the final response of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu to the communique issued at a recent Ondo State Education Summit is, contrary to recommendation of the summit that free public education be ended at primary school, that the state government will continue to provide free qualitative education at the primary and secondary levels. Congratulations to Arakunrin for responding promptly to clear expression of citizens’ aspirations to live in a state that abhors creation of Knowledge Underclass, i.e. citizens without understanding and skills to survive in the information-rich environment of today.

    Just as the underlined quotation above from the communique indicates, the problem facing public education in Ondo and other states is beyond provision of free primary and secondary education. It includes finding the right policy to sustain equal opportunity for all citizens and a level playing field for all children in public schools. Even with the governor’s assurance on provision of free primary and secondary education in Ondo State, without making primary/secondary education compulsory, the state is still at the risk of breeding a knowledge underclass. An insurance against such possibility is for the state to make sure that all children of school age are in school and parents of children under 18 are prosecuted for failing to enroll their children and wards. It is important for every child to complete secondary education and be awarded certificate of completion on the basis of performance, as distinct from obtaining five credits in subjects that include English and mathematics. Even those who fail to have qualifications to enter tertiary institutions will still have functional literacy to participate in a modern society.

    Equal opportunity for school children is undermined by establishment of specially endowed schools—Mega, Model, Super, etc. I admit that all the schools referenced as extraordinary in many parts of the Yoruba region are beautiful and capable of attracting children and encouraging them to want to learn, but such schools undermine the principle of equality of opportunity. Since such schools require payment of fees that most parents cannot afford, whatever advantage that comes to children whose parents can afford special fees charged by such schools stands denied to other citizens whose parents cannot afford to pay the special levies to enter or remain in specially endowed schools. All public schools should have similar facilities and standards.

    It does not serve the interest of equitable allocation of resources to school children to create school buildings and facilities for just one or two schools out of hundreds in each local government. The government needs to create a new policy on design of school buildings and facilities. Such policy should ensure that whatever improvement the government can make for existing schools should be uniform, to give children the impression that “what is good for the goose is good for the gander”, a cliched way of expressing the principle of equal opportunity. For instance, the recommendation at the recent summit that “Mega schools in the State should be put into more functional, optimal and better use by government to address the current state of underutilization of some of them” illustrates that mega schools in the state are fast becoming white elephant projects because of poor patronage by parents. Many new public-school buildings across the country may not be as eye-catching as Ondo State’s mega schools, nevertheless, they look good enough to compare with schools in many other countries. It is not the flashiness of school buildings that matter as much as quality of teachers, adequate facilities for teaching and learning, motivation of students to benefit from education, and cooperation of their parents and guardians.

    The sudden recession and the fear about the future of petroleum may be enough to scare any government about funding free and compulsory public education. But governance is not for the faint-hearted as Mr. Akeredolu’s announcement of continued commitment of Ondo State Government to provision of free primary/secondary education has demonstrated. It is also too late in the day for any government to find excuse to abandon its responsibility for modern governance under the excuse of lean government and withdrawal from social subsidy. Not at a time that the United Nations is recommending that developing countries spend at least 26% of annual budgets on education, should any state or country find reasons to escape from this important social burden, unless they want to become ready sources of cheap slaves for people in Libya and other countries.

    Like everything else about the human condition, education and funding of education remain part of the inevitability of change. Responsible governments will continue to look for means to provide the type of education that the time demands. One thing that seems to have remained constant for long in this respect is that governments encourage citizens to pay taxes, especially education taxes to prevent their children from drawing water and hewing woods for other countries. Just as no responsible parent can abandon looking for ways to feed their children during famine, so must responsible governments resist abandonment of their duty to provide free public education that can emancipate citizens from lifelong illiteracy, deprivation, and poverty.

    Public debates on the future of education should be encouraged; this is the only way to get answers to crucial problems about individual and national progress. Issues such as what level of government should fund and regulate education, what should be the role of central government in regulation of education in a multinational and multi-religious federation, which level of government should be responsible for curriculum design and monitoring in a federation, and how public education can ensure non-sectarian education and promotion of secular governance are some of the issues that call for regular debates among stakeholders. But the right of the citizen to free primary/secondary education in the Yoruba region had been settled decades ago, to the point that it has become part of the vision and mission of every citizen in the state, as recent post-summit representations to the governor of the state has shown.

    While congratulating the Ondo State Government for accepting the importance of free public education, this column calls on the governor to quickly make education compulsory for every child under 18 years of age. The column also calls on President Buhari to extend free and qualitative education beyond JSS3 to SS3. This is the least that citizens in the countries we are bound to compete with expect from their own governments.

    Concluded

    Roposek@msn.com

  • Education: summits and retreats (2)

    For many decades, education of teachers is projected as the least demanding of the three tertiary institutions

    The significance of this summit is obvious. We cannot progress beyond the level and standard of our education. Today, it is those who acquire the most qualitative education, equipped with requisite skills and training, and empowered with practical knowhow that are leading the rest. We cannot afford to continue lagging behind. Education is our launchpad to a more successful, more productive and more prosperous future. This administration is committed to revitalizing our education system and making it more responsive and globally competitive.
    – President Buhari at a recent Education Retreat
    That curriculum contents in schools should be reviewed and domesticated to meet relevant needs while implementation should be enforced; that School Based Management Committee; Schools Board of Governors and Parents Forum should be re-invigorated in the state’s secondary and tertiary institutions; that state government should recruit teachers to fill all relevant vacancies in public primary and secondary schools; that the state government should provide well stocked libraries in schools to bring back reading culture while the process of migration to e-library should commence with first generation secondary schools in the state.
    —From 2017 Ondo State Education Summit

    Last week’s column raised the following issues: i) ideology is pivotal to any nation’s readiness to provide the right education for citizens; ii) such ideology does not have to be communist or capitalist to see the importance of education in a knowledge-driven world; iii)  any government that seriously believes in the power of knowledge to individual and national advancement is bound to give both real and rhetorical emphasis to public education; iv) far-reaching reforms of public education will come from belief by national leaders that education is not just for individual upward mobility but also for advancement of the nation; v) that summits and retreats by stakeholders may not be enough to ensure adequate commitment of government to expansion and sustenance of access of citizens to public education; vi) that free and compulsory public education for citizens at both primary and secondary levels is the least that any that governments that want to want to achieve individual and national productivity and prosperity can do to make investment of citizens’ tax in education profitable

    Today’s focus is on quality of education as source of good returns on investment of public funds on education of citizens. This view is most aptly put by President Buhari in the selection above from his opening remarks at a recent retreat on education in Abuja. Emphasis in the quotation is the author’s. Just like provision of education, assurance of quality also depends on or derives from commitment of government leaders to investing in adding values to citizens.

    Admittedly, public education is not the only way for citizens to acquire education, but it is the only way to ensure that all citizens, regardless of economic power, are given opportunities to acquire the basic knowledge needed for them to survive and thrive in today’s complex world. By basic education, I mean at least 12 years of structured learning for each citizen from the age of five. In a country seeking development like Nigeria emphasis of stakeholders should not be on sharing the financial burden of educating citizens between government and citizens. On the contrary, stakeholders should encourage government to pluck the political will to ensure that its citizens are given unfettered access to free and qualitative education until they turn 17 or 18 years of age.

    Providing quality public education cannot but cost governments money, like every other thing expected to bring good returns in the modern world. Stakeholders, especially such as those who met in Akure recently, are right to worry about cost-effectiveness, without necessarily casting such concern as cost avoidance on the part of government. And stakeholders at the Akure meeting are right to worry about how to achieve quality education as they do in the recommendations quoted in the epigraph. Very pertinent is the call for review and domestication of the curriculum and efficient management of teaching and learning.

    But the threat to quality of teaching and learning need to be examined not in an atmospheric manner but in specific terms that capture contribution of each stakeholder to quality or lack of quality: government, teachers, students, and parents. The government is the principal stakeholder; it provides the philosophy and regulations that guide education, including determining who becomes teachers in the society. If the government is happy to just get by, its choice will have implications for the product of schooling. For example, in a country where teaching is considered an occupation for citizens who do not qualify to do regular undergraduate degrees in specific disciplines, there should be no surprise if teachers are unable to make learning interesting and attractive to learners, a basic pedagogical requirement for success in learning.

    For many decades, education of teachers is projected as the least demanding of the three tertiary institutions. We started many decades ago with a policy allowing candidates with lower qualifications in WAEC to enter colleges of education. The policy in 2017 on admission to college of education is still the same. For example, a score of 200 in Joint Admission and Matriculation Board examination is required of students for admission to study in regular universities, candidates with 150-180 out of a total score of 400 are admissible to college of education. Without mincing words, what this policy admits is that teaching is the occupation for high school students who could not obtain 50% pass on of the questions asked on admission and matriculation examinations. A government—national or regional—that admits its weakest students to the profession that generates and propagates knowledge has chosen deliberately to provide anything other than quality education.  It is unusual for people who plant okra to expect to harvest garden egg. Countries that score high in international examinations like PISA: Finland, Scotland, South Korea, Netherlands, to name a few, not only admit their best into the teaching profession, they also give their teachers enviable salaries and benefits.

    The government is also expected to provide conducive learning environment. Just as it is with the choice of candidates for the teaching profession, school infrastructure and learning conditions in our country are not the type to make learners curious. Generally, public school environment is drab and more likely to depress than excite teachers and students in them. It must have been an attempt by some governments to respond to the socio-fugal learning environment of public schools that made them create special public schools called mega or model schools even in the region that served as trailblazer for universal primary and secondary education. The effect of such schools is ghettoisation of most public schools in many parts of the country. There will be more on this next week in the section on equity.

    Furthermore, the culture of public service that is needed to create and sustain quality in public education has also declined considerably. How many civil servants can tell their governors today that more money should be voted to public education than to salaries and perquisites of political office holders and civil servants? Chief Awolowo’s budget on education was more than the 26% of budget being recommended by UNESCO today as minimum that developing countries should commit to education. In the days of Chief Simeon Adebo, ministers and legislators did not have the last say on what they wanted to earn as salaries and fringe benefits in a government that told everybody that education of citizens was its cardinal goal and walked its talk on this.

    The vision and values of public service half a century ago no longer seem to matter today to the country’s political leaders, lawmakers, parents, and school children who have been made to see education as a means of acquiring just credentials rather than knowledge.  How else is one to interpret the call for provision of library – analogue or digital – in every school. Aren’t libraries and schools Siamese twins by tradition? For example, I went to Ondo Boys High School, (Nigeria’s first Community Secondary School established in 1919) about sixty years ago, and the first item of Orientation in 1958 was a visit to the library!  Threats to quality education from loss of vision and decline in values cannot be neutralised by proclamations made publicly in Akure and whispered across the country in retreats, that government should provide primary education and parents secondary and tertiary education.

    Apart from being called upon to vote periodically, citizens need to be involved more directly in determining which projects their taxes are spent on, whether provision of access to education and health or purchase of bogus edifices or aircraft for rulers. A governance system that gives citizens opportunities in referendums to indicate their preference on how tax money is spent must be central to restructuring, especially now that the country may be entering the post-petroleum ethos and returning to productive economy, alias Diversification.

    • To be continued

     

  • Education: summits and retreats (1)

    The three major issues about education all over the world are access, quality, and equity

    When all the talents in society are not fully developed, it is not the individuals that are adversely affected alone who suffer; the society as a whole suffers as well. Now, granting that every Nigerian is given an opportunity to develop his talents, it is imperative that he should also be given an opportunity to employ these developed talents. Full development of man and his full employment are not only social imperatives, but also inseparably inter-connected and complementary.-Address delivered to Ondo State House of Assembly (1980)
    Boosting education will be a direct counterbalance to Boko Haram’s appeal. In particular we must educate more young girls, ensuring they will grow up to be empowered through learning to play their full part as citizens of Nigeria and pull themselves up and out of poverty.- President Muhammadu Buhari
    My single advice is that we must take education seriously, and we must do much more to educate our children.-President Buhari after returning from medical treatment in London
    That the issue of Education funding is too important to be left in the hands of Government alone if we must achieve functionality in education. It must be the business of all stakeholders. That Government should fund education at the Primary school level while parents should be responsible for the education of their children at the Secondary and Tertiary levels.
    •From Communique of a recent Ondo State Summit on Education

    In the last three weeks, there have been two important meetings on education: a summit in Akure and a retreat in Abuja. These meetings show the importance the two levels of government attach to exploring and solving the myriad problems confronting education in the country. National and subnational debates on education had been regular in the country even before independence. The quotations from Awolowo, Buhari, and from the communique of the Akure meeting above illustrate how politicians and government leaders have been paying attention to education, especially in the last two decades. Undoubtedly, summits and retreats are some of the ways to address some of the issues in the troubled and troubling education sector. But before communiques can be transformed into policy, there are lots of issues that need to gain attention of citizens, governments, and politicians.

    Without doubt, education is a matter that has pivotal bearing on the future of the country, and its place in the context of globalisation. And education is too important for its reform to be settled at summits and retreats, unless other critical issues have been identified, studied, and agreed upon by all that stand to benefit from education and training that are becoming increasingly indispensable in the modern world. Pointedly, deliberations by “stakeholders” need to be supported by deep philosophical and ideological debate by citizens and their leaders. Such stakeholders summit also need to be supported by data assembled by professional researchers.

    If the national and sub-national governments have held several summits and retreats on education in the last two decades and are still holding such meetings even under governments of optimism and change voted into power two years ago, it means that summits or retreats by themselves are not capable of bringing needed solution to this sector. The multifactorial decline of education in terms of access, quality, and equity is too deep-rooted to be sorted out in a two-day meeting of stakeholders, regardless of how talented such stakeholders are, more so in an atmosphere that seems devoid of clear ideological thinking on the role of education in the 21st century.

    The three major issues about education all over the world are access, quality, and equity. All governments and stakeholders that had used education to improve the quality of life of their citizens and of people of other countries through trading of products of improved minds of people in Europe, the Americas, and Asian Tigers are in the habit of continually reviewing and renewing their education sector from these three angles. And none of the countries cited for political and economic success today: UK, USA, Canada, Germany, Russia, U.A.E., Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Japan, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, etc., had moved away from the model of reducing public education to just six years of schooling. Not even the United States of America, the world’s richest capitalist country nor China, the world’s wealthiest communist country.

    Without believing that the communique issued at the end of the recent summit on education in Akure was designed to serve as a policy document that to limit citizen’s access to free primary education to primary school in the state, this column believes that ‘summiteers’ were rather insensitive to the concerns of citizens in the state. Announcing what amounts to an end to a tradition of 67 years of free primary education and 38 years of free secondary education in the state at the end of a two-day meeting by a few wise men require more explanations on the part of government about a meeting that many citizens must have considered to be fact-finding.

    When the Action Group government of Obafemi Awolowo initiated free primary education in January 1955, revenue to the state then was not up to 10% of what comes to the state today, just as the population of school-age children then was not more than 10% of the people residing in Ondo State today. Awolowo and his advisers were also told that the Western Region could not sustain free primary education. But the government then believed in its vision and pursued it by raising taxes and establishing Western Nigeria Lottery to finance what now made it possible for millions of people of Western Nigeria now in diaspora to be sending to the eight states in the region to remit close $15 billion to the states carved out of the region. That vision that knowledge is needed to improve quality of life of the individual and the status of the society appeared to have been absent at the recent summit in Akure. But it is not too late restore that vision, especially that the governor has not commented on the summit.

    If President Obasanjo initiated free Universal Basic Education scheme for the first nine years of schooling in his first term,  former Governor Mimiko was able to upgrade many schools to mega level, and the entire country is coming out of recession caused in 2015 by collapse of oil price, what could have gone wrong to the point that Ondo State would want in 2017 to reduce access to free public education to six years, at a time that other countries are insisting that every child should add two years of pre-school to public education? Believing strongly that the recent Ondo State summit must have been designed to find out the extent of the problems in the education sector rather than solutions, it ought not to have presented a communique that smacked of a solution searching for problems.

    If the problem identified by stakeholders at the summit included government’s funding of  secondary education, the recommendation that free public education should stop at primary six certainly needs more data to convince citizens on the solution proffered by the summit. Citizens need more data: number of students in the state receiving free primary and secondary education; cost of providing this education per student; size of the cost in relation to the budget of the state; prioritisation of projects for funding in the state; etc. The reason for this information is that citizens have accepted that the only way out of individual and collective poverty in the state is provision of public education that guarantees access to free and compulsory primary and secondary education to citizens of the state.

    Even if Nigeria prefers to be the servants of the modern world, globalization has made (and is increasingly making) this choice impossible. All successful countries—socialist and capitalist—have a consensus about the importance of education in today’s world, and restricting access to free public education to six years of schooling is not part of preparing citizens for the society of the future. Fine-tuning the ideology of governance in the state is the first step in the task awaiting those charged to review recommendations by the Akure summit. Although the federal government is still at the incipient stage of turning its manifesto promise on education into reality, President Buhari is not in doubt about the importance of education:”My single advice is that we must take education seriously, and we must do much more to educate our children.”

    • To be continued

    Roposek@msn.com

  • Dapo Olorunyomi@60: fathering a new development journalism template

    When many of his contemporaries see problems, Dapsy sees solutions to such problems.

    Dapo Olorunyomi@60: fathering a new development journalism template Ropo Sekoni B’omode ba l’ori l’owo e je ka pon le, bo se agbalagba e je ka mooyi re. This adaptation from Sunny Ade means if a young man has a good head on his shoulder, let us give him the panegyrics due to him, just as we do to elders with similar qualities.

    “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
    — Voltaire

    “I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.”
    — Tom Stoppard

    Today’s piece is taken from a tribute I gave to Dapo Olorunyomi at a surprise ceremony organised in his honour in Abuja last Wednesday by Premium Times, The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, and many other organisations fathered by Dapsy since his return from exile.

    I first met the man being celebrated here about forty years ago at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). He was a student in the Department of Literature in English while I was a senior lecturer. Looking back, I am not surprised about Dapsy’s many achievements for which he is being appreciated in a festival mode that must have overwhelmed him today, given his modesty.

    Dapsy was a risk taker, who could not separate social activism from his academic study while at Ife. He was in the group of students who researched teachers in the department and read both primary and secondary sources on the topic of the day ahead of time to prepare for critical response to whatever the lecturer had to say. In addition to his sophisticated critical culture, normally expected from students of literary studies, he showed high promise of creativity for teachers ready to observe their students.  He was the type to add some undecipherable drawings to his notes during tutorials. One thing that stood out in his response in class and at faculty and other conferences was a palpable preoccupation with human rights, freedom of speech, and social and economic justice. His voracious reading of progressive literature across disciplines and a flair on his part to discuss from trans-disciplinary perspectives could not have been missed by his teachers and his peers. Dapsy demonstrated as an undergraduate an enviable readiness to marry theory and practice. He was among other students who saw a Siamese connection between knowledge and human progress. Dapsy’s humility and modesty in the way he spoke and acted   then did not include being a target for any form of pulpit bullying from those in academic and administrative authority.

    With such qualities in his twenties, many of the risks and accomplishments of Dapsy in his adult years are in consonance with his pedigree. In metaphoric terms, Dapsy’s frontier man’s ruggedness as he explores and reshapes whatever new political and social reality in which he finds himself has been evident in his impact on the country’s journalism landscape in the last 35 years. One such evidence is his role in his participation in the design and practice of guerrilla journalism in response to the antics of military dictators in the country. Fathers of Nigeria’s guerilla journalism: Bayo Onanuga, Kunle Ajibade, Femi Ojudu, Idowu Obasa, and Dapo Olorunyomi, and others, some of whom later got jailed, pushed into exile, or pushed underground by military dictators turned journalism into a weapon against tyranny and repression. The weaponisation of mass communication by these daring risk takers could not have been possible without their monastic commitment to inalienable and inviolable rights of citizens to freedom of expression, thought, action, and the pursuit of happiness. It is remarkable that no amount of pressure was enough to break the spirit of Dapsy while in exile.

    Most references to Dapsy during the pro-democracy struggle are to his membership of the army of guerrilla journalists, with very little mention of his activities while in exile in Washington. He came to Washington with his weapons of change. At the beginning of his exile, he served as special assistant to Chief Anthony Enahoro, who, like Dapsy, ran for dear life from Nigeria at the peak of the country’s tyrannical rule. Apart from being a central figure in pro-democracy publications and meetings of NADECO leaders with relevant sectors of the American polity, Dapsy quickly immersed himself of Autonomy Alert. He also assisted Chief Enahoro to work on the ideas and papers that later became seminal to PRONACO after the return of Chief Enahoro from exile. In tune with Dapsy’s quiet but restless nature, he used the years of exile to acquire new skills such as photography and training in application of telecommunication technology to mass communication, thus preparing himself for a transition from analogue to digital mass communication and transition to the journalism of the future.

    Dapsy’s love of innovation and his innovative spirit came into prominence in the post-exile period. He came back to Nigeria to prepare the practice of journalism in Nigeria for the creative destruction that we are all witnessing in many of the projects and initiatives started by this man of ideas and action. When many of his contemporaries see problems, Dapsy sees solutions to such problems. As a founding member of the group that created the template for guerrilla journalism in Nigeria, Dapsy threw himself into new initiatives and building of new templates for civic engagement during and after his exile. He used every opportunity available to him to create institutions deigned to improve transparency and accountability in governance with the aim of strengthening political, social and economic justice for all citizens. His first formal job after his exile was with The Open Society in Dakar. He avoided learning French to, in his own words, have adequate time to groom a new generation of civil society enthusiasts in West Africa.

    Shortly after that, he came, on the sponsorship of Freedom House, to enhance post-military democratisation process in the country. At the end of this project, he left behind The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, which is now in its 12th year. He responded to calls to serve as Chief of Staff at the EFCC and assisted in internationalising the fight against corruption through establishment of various financial tracking initiatives. He was one the team of NEXT’s experiment in investigative reporting before his founding of Premium Times. In the few years of the existence of Premium Times, the online investigative journalism ‘newspaper’ has given birth to several projects: PT Centre for Investigative Journalism, PT Books and other initiatives on Health and Agriculture and rural journalism.

    Dapsy’s emphasis on renewing mass communication in response to new innovations in communication technology is still unfolding. But his readiness to think out of the box ahead to enhance professional performance requires special mention. Even though he is still a victim of the excesses of power, even as recent as the beginning of this year, Dapsy remains undaunted in his determination to change the way journalism is done in our country for the good of its citizens. He does this not only through his own Premium Times but also via many of his other creations. With ten more years of active duty as a self-employed man, it is too soon to tell how far Dapsy will go in changing the form and content of mass communication in the service of democracy. One thing that is already clear is that Dapsy has embarked on sustaining knowledge and data journalism as the way to respond to new challenges thrown up by new telecommunication technologies and forms of signification.  It is already evident that Dapsy’s new preoccupation is already paying off through training of new generations of journalists and promotion of new forms of mass communication for advancement of human rights, accountability in government, and of social democracy in our country and beyond.

    Dapsy, you have shown that humility, modesty, honesty, and patriotism, in the words of Mark Twain “to your country at all times and to your government when it deserves it” do not necessarily impede stellar achievements. Welcome to senior citizenship and best wishes in your new age grade!

  • Restructuring and National Unity 101

    With respect to restructuring, it is wrong to assume that calls for change to the architecture of governance suggest efforts to water down national unity.

    This piece had appeared on this page before. It is being republished in response to requests from readers about the report that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, whom this column has praised for seeing the imperative of re-federalization ahead of many of his contemporaries, is quoted to have said last week at Federal Government College, Okigwe to have ‘emphasised unity rather than restructuring’. In normal political spaces, these two words are not mutually exclusive as they now seem in our country. In fact, they are mutually reinforcing in countries that practice federalism.

    If one were to count the number of times that Restructuring and National Unity occurred in the country’s newspapers and broadcast news in the last few months, it would certainly be a huge task. It is no exaggeration for such counters to discover that no other words rival these two. Today’s piece is a response to a regular reader of this column who has asked that I ‘break down’ a recurrent phrase in this column: restructuring to ensure that national and subnational governments in a federal state share power and sovereignty with the intention to stimulate and sustain unity of the country.

    National unity has two connotations in the country. When it is used by members of the ruling group and their clients, it signals an effort by such people to conflate national unity with uniformity of ideas on keeping the existing structure of governance intact. It does not give attention to whether average citizens feel a sense of belonging to the state and to each other as citizens of the same country. In other words, whoever demands for any change that may reduce the powers and benefits of those in the saddle of federal power are perceived to be working against national unity, where national unity is synonymous with demonstration of consensus on the immutability of an existing system of governance. There is a sense in which this view of national unity and the discourse constructed around it is reminiscent of what Ibn Khaldun, an early expert on Arab history, once called Asabiyya, a ruse by members of the ruling group in many Arab countries to keep power for their use and discourage or prevent any move by citizens to reduce the size of power needed by the ruling group to sustain the status quo.

    A call for restructuring is not a call for anything antithetical to national unity. On the contrary, it is a call for a commitment to reinforce national unity, where unity means creation of a system that facilitates and enriches a sense of belonging among various entities in a plural society. National unity is not a concept reserved for those in power alone; it is one that applies to all the people who inhabit a plural society. Correspondingly, restructuring is a concept that has value by promoting and safeguarding a sense of belonging among various components of socially and culturally plural society through creation of practices that set out to advance social and economic interests of members of the society.

    With respect to restructuring, it is wrong to assume that calls for change to the architecture of governance suggest efforts to water down national unity. In a federal democracy, no political group—national or subnational—should have a right to define terms of association. When politicians and their pundits refer to restructuring as an attempt to undermine national unity, such people   are thinking like colonial masters.  Federations result from agreement of all parts to co-habit for mutual progress.  It is failure to sustain an existing agreement or change one that is not working that can be dangerous to national unity. This explains why all federal governments that have succeeded had ensured that they created constitutions that citizens had a stake in from the beginning. That constitution of 1960 is a local example. With such constitutions, arrived at by consensus of federating units, both rulers and the ruled are protected from any destabilisation of the political system. When some of such federating groups have reasons to feel uncomfortable with the extant system, they ought to have freedom to call for restructuring or renewal of the constitution. And doing this does not amount to derogation from unity.

    Let us examine a few provisions in the current constitution that citizens calling for restructuring may consider inimical to creating an enabling constitutional environment for states to respond to the needs of citizens and residents in the states. Restructuring is, more than anything else, removing existing practices that may be perceived as negative to interests of federating units or adding new practices that can enrich such interests. For example, the current law that allows the federal government and private companies to generate and distribute electricity while allowing states to generate electricity only for its own use and not to be sold to citizens can threaten national unity. How would giving states the power to generate and distribute power to its citizens endanger national unity? Why in the first place should states need to ask for permission to generate electricity for its citizens in a federal democracy?

    Similarly, the current structure puts railway on the Exclusive List of Functions, thus making construction of rail lines and operation of rail transport by states illegal. If a state can provide rail transportation for its citizens, why should there be a constitutional obstacle to state creation of rail line?  Furthermore, a matter recently raised by Femi Falana regarding the federal government’s disobedience of the Court of Appeals’ judgement that the “federal government lacks the power to authorise dredgers to mine any resources in the intra-inland waterways in Lagos State” draws attention to the danger inherent in wholesale importation of decrees created by military dictators into the 1999 Constitution. Why should control over intra-inland waterways in all parts of the country not be under the control of states in which such waterways are located. How does changing such decrees (converted into constitutional provisions) constitute danger to national unity?

    Moreover, why should construction of school curriculum in a federal system—ethnic or territorial—be in the hands of the central government? Put differently, how would leaving education at all levels in the hands of the states in Nigeria, as it is in Germany and the United States, be deleterious to national unity in Nigeria? Why must revenue for any form of sales tax first be sent to the central government for distribution to states? In what ways can leaving such revenue in the states from which it is generated endanger national unity? What advantage to national unity ensues from making registration of business a federal function?

    There are several other provisions in the current constitution, especially in respect of items on the concurrent list that those calling for restructuring may believe to be in the interest of development at the state level where governors and state legislators have direct relationship to citizens.  As elementary as the examples provided here may seem, they illustrate the concerns of those calling for restructuring, which by any stretch of imagination should not endanger national unity. On the contrary, changing such provisions are more likely to sustain and enrich national unity.

    Now that the ruling political party and governors of various regions have commissioned committees to study demand for restructuring, it will be of benefit to all saddled with such responsibility to assume that such calls are, unlike those for disintegration, not intended to destroy national unity but to promote it.

  • Re-federalisation: majoritarianism, consensus, and self-determination (2)

    But the legislator has, of himself, no authority. He is only a guide who drafts and proposes laws, but the people alone (that is, the sovereign or general will) has authority to make and impose laws—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

    He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion—John Stuart Mill in On Liberty

    I concluded last week’s column thus: ‘But if none of the country’s institutions is likely to be changed because individuals in power are likely to be beholden to the interests of their specific sections of the country or to their source of livelihood, it becomes logical to listen to those who have been calling for establishment of a constituent assembly to work on a new structure and a new constitution to encode a new political reality. Such approach may move the emphasis on majoritarianism to consensus, a value that has historically been inseparable from the process of making democratic constitutions.’

    The point of today’s piece is not whether Nasir el-Rufai has a right to view what he calls political realities of the country into an albatross around the neck of Nigerians who do not think that it is politically legitimate in a multinational democracy for some sections of the country or groups of citizens to hold down others who they estimate have minority vote. He also has every right to expect and even recommend that legislators vote against meaningful changes that such lawmakers believe can endanger whatever privilege the status quo accords them. It is perfectly within the democratic rights of the Chairman of APC’s True Federalism Committee to express his personal opinions freely. What appears troubling is that Mallam el-Rufai left fellow citizens and fellow party members or sympathisers in the dark as to who spoke to the youths; el-Rufai the person, or the Chairman of APC’s committee on true federalism.

    Undoubtedly, many citizens must have voted for General Buhari to become president on the strength of the pledge of APC to nudge the country to migrate from business as usual model to change of many aspects of the polity and economy that had ceased to function profitably for benefits of the citizenry. More specifically, the manifesto pledge to ‘entrenching the Federalist Spirit in the constitution’ must have attracted the presidential candidate and his party to voters across geographic divides. Should el-Rufai have been understood by citizens as sacralising the status quo on behalf of the APC committee, such understanding or misunderstanding is capable of disturbing voters in various parts of the country who voted for APC in 2015. I could be wrong in my reading of el-Rufai’s speech to the youths in Abuja. I could not catch any hint that he separated his own voice from that of the committee that he chairs and on whose behalf the event at which he spoke was organised. It should not be too late for him to make this importation distinction or clarification.

    Now to Political Science 101 of el-Rufai’s sanctification of Nigeria’s political reality. To pontificate that that lawmakers have the power to vote any issue down or out, even on the basis of self-interest, and in the process create a situation of ‘conflicting argument without consensus’ is to imply that lawmakers, rather than the people, are the sole owners of sovereignty, a situation that has necessitated invoking Rousseau’s words: “But the legislator has, of himself, no authority. He is only a guide who drafts and proposes laws, but the people alone have authority to make and impose laws.”

    Furthermore, the notion that if majority of voters opt for something that is in their interest and that may not be in the interest of minority of voters in a multinational democracy, does this make minority nationalities (voters) that call for a new political structure that they believe can facilitate improvement of the living standards of citizens in their own constituencies and communities irrelevant? Does such use of majority electoral power make the status quo citizens (with minority vote) perceive to oppress them inviolable? Sovereignty in a multinational democracy is not exclusive to majority of voters; it belongs to all citizens. Those who feel they are victims of tyranny of the majority and who desire to be free from such oppression do have the right to seek redress in the name of self-determination. An important matter to worry about as the APC works towards its report on true federalism is whether all Nigerians can be sovereign when a part feels (as those demanding for re-federalisation of the country currently do) to be living in a system that prevents them from self-actualisation?

    It is the danger inherent in flaunting the power of majority of voters on a matter as fundamental as determining the crafting of a constitution to serve as a charter for a multi-nation federal state that needs to be avoided in speaking to youths in a country in search of change. Just like the status quo (or existing reality) is part of the human condition, so is change or alterability of the status quo an aspect of human experience. To insist or believe that the status quo is sacrosanct is to deny Nigeria of claim to a universal experience, the value of creative destruction. With over 50 years of various forms of unitary governance, the whole country or sections of it that feel degraded have a right to demand change and they need not be discouraged by over privileging of the status quo.

    There should be no political reality in Nigeria that is not subject or amenable to change, once the will to give change a chance is there. We need not overlook that modern political organisation provides a space for those who are made to feel impotent by the sheer force of numbers or majority votes in a democracy. Embarking on restructuring requires more user-friendly vocabularies than electoral tyranny of the majority. After over half a century of conflicting views about the architecture of governing our multinational federation, we need to migrate from the force of majoritarianism to that of consensus.

    Our country is too important for its citizens and development of Africa for it to be subjected to the tension of conflicting arguments that can wear the country down by valorising unnecessarily the power of any majority—be it of individual lawmakers or of states or regions. The dichotomy between majority and minority is only capable of accentuating demand for self-determination, which in most cases, always ends up in bigger conflicts for both majority and minority. Insisting on using provisions of the 1999 Constitution to make changes in the architecture of governance and in creating a constitution that citizens feel reflects their values and aspirations may be endangered in the context described by el-Rufai as Political Reality; one that may be resistant to change for reasons of sheer self-interest of persons or groups.

    If by any stretch of imagination, Mallam el-Rufai’s speech to youths in Abuja two weeks ago had (or still has) any connection to the perspective of APC’s Committee on True Federalism, it behoves the party and party leaders to give Consensus the prime of place, rather than the power of majority to dismiss new ideas perceived to be coming from minority of voters. It is consensus that eases conflicts faster and more tearlessly than majoritarianism. A time that our country is at the intersection of status quo and change, it is necessary to recall Josiah Gilbert Holland’s poem about leadership: GOD, give us men! A time like this demands; Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; men who possess opinions and a will; men who have honour, men who will not lie….

    Concluded

  • Re-federalisation: Majoritarianism, consensus, and self-determination 1

    All the institutions under the current constitution are part of what need to be changed.  B

    But the legislator has, of himself, no authority. He is only a guide who drafts and proposes laws, but the people alone (that is, the sovereign or general will) has authority to make and impose laws—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

    He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion—John Stuart Mill in On Liberty

    In the last two columns, this writer observed that Nigerians are getting positive about restructuring. I based my assessment on comments from many people and groups ranging from those who were hitherto hostile to restructuring and those who made a religion of the polysemy or ambiguity of the word. Those that I characterised as doves included the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress Committee on True Federalism, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai. Even before the official release of the APC report, the chairman of the party’s Committee on True Federalism has in a post-Chatham House lecture released a new doctrine that can be called the Doctrine of Political Reality, a doctrine that revives the stasis of the past few years spawned by claims of ownership of sovereignty by people in legislative and executive power.

    In a special Youth Consultation organised by the APC in Abuja recently, el-Rufai venerated the status quo in Nigeria so religiously that he gave the impression of status quo as destiny for the country and all its citizens. El-Rufai acknowledged the power and authority of individual lawmakers to stop any wheel of change in the country, for no other reason than self-interest, while cataloguing six items under his doctrine of political reality: a) The people of oil and gas-producing areas cannot have 100% resource control; b) there can be no equal number of states between the North and the South; c) Nigeria cannot be restructured without the approval and support of the North; d) there can be no change to the status of the Senate; e) the current constitution cannot be replaced and may not be amended unless 2/3 members of federal and state legislatures feel comfortable with such change, and f) there can be no coup to make intransigent lawmakers irrelevant.

    Of course, many of the ideas of el-Rufai’s Principle of Political Reality should not be scary to ‘restructuralists’ or true federalists. One idea is that there can be no coup. This should in fact gladden the hearts of those referred to as agitators for restructuring, more so that it was coups that got the country out of federalism into unitarism which has now become a bone of contention between different sections of the country. Another is that people in oil-producing communities should not expect 100% control over revenue from the black gold. At no time in the history of oil in the country did the regions or states in which petroleum is produced have 100% control of revenue earned from the product. The highest control for mineral resources was 50% of revenue allowed in the 1960 and 1963 constitutions duly negotiated by representatives of all sections of the country. These constitutions allowed 50% to regions, 35% to the federation, and 15% specifically to the central government.

    The third idea that is not likely to scare autonomists is that nobody should expect equal number of states between regions, namely north and south and east and west. This does not seem threatening because the number of states is not necessarily synonymous with federalism. In addition, proliferation of states is one of the reasons for demand for re-federalisation, a situation that had frittered billions of dollars from petroleum on maintaining bureaucracies in 36 mini states across the country, not to mention the central government and its inordinate number of agencies. In the event of re-federalisation, it may not matter the number of states in a region, especially once the country moves away from gathering resources from all states to share on the basis of criteria that have nothing to do with productivity of states to a federal model in which it is the subnational units that provide funds to run the central government, just as it was in the 1963 republican constitution.

    The other ideas of el-Rufai that should be worrisome to lovers of fundamental change to the polity and the economy of the country are those concerning the power of individuals currently in legislative positions to act as capriciously as they desire and the view that the 1999 Constitution is sovereign, even when the constitution is the principal instrument of de-federalisation of the country. El-Rufai makes himself very clear on the power of lawmakers to scuttle any restructuring: “We have a political process and so, we are not over-throwing the government and starting afresh. So, we have to work with what we have in a sensible and pragmatic manner and reform what need to be reformed.”

    What is worrisome is not the view that restructuring should be about what is good for Nigeria:   “We must think for once what will be of interest to the country. We must think of what will be of interest to Nigeria because what will work in one part of the country may not work in another. If we don’t think first of what is of interest to all of us before the individuals, we will only have series of conflicting argument without consensus. Whatever consensus comes into being must of necessity be good for Nigeria.” What is troubling is the valorisation of the status quo in a context that is about creating a new reality. It is worrying that there are sections of the country that derive special advantages from the status quo, as such possibility smacks of lack of equity.

    There is nothing strange about Mallam el-Rufai’s recognition of the power of majority of voters in the senate or in state assemblies. Majority rule is part and parcel of democratic culture, especially those aspects that rely on election. This veneration of majoritarianism is not totally unexpected in a context in which re-federalisation is believed in different parts of the country as removing advantages of one section, rather than as creating equality of opportunity for all sections. What is overlooked in the privileging of majoritarianism in respect of restructuring is that those agitating for a federal Nigeria are calling for a new political reality, as distinct from the existing political reality or status quo. If there is any group or section of the country that believes that it is the current assembly—national or subnational that will make re-federalisation possible, such section or group should think anew. The reason that citizens do not expect sitting lawmakers to create a new constitution is not just because they were not voted directly for that purpose. It is because citizens agitating for change know that self-interest will prevent lawmakers from doing a meaningful job at amending the constitution to bring far-reaching changes. Democracy believes in ethical behaviour as crucial to consolidation of democratic culture. All the institutions under the current constitution are part of what need to be changed.  A striking aspect of our country’s political reality is that the 1999 Constitution that drives the country’s political and economic process is a fundamental law that does not enjoy the consent of the citizens directly by way of referendum or indirectly by way of consensus reached by duly elected representatives of the people.

    But if none of the country’s institutions is likely to be changed because individuals in power are likely to be beholden to the interests of their specific sections of the country or to their source of livelihood, it becomes logical to listen to those who have been calling for establishment of a constituent assembly to work on a new structure and a new constitution to encode the new political reality. Such approach may move the emphasis on majoritarianism to consensus, a value that has historically been inseparable from the process of making democratic constitutions.

     

    • To be continued

  • Hawks and doves on Nigeria’s revival (2)

    A legislature that is afraid to disclose to citizens what it pays itself does not have the credibility to write a new constitution.

    The first part of this piece ended with an acknowledgment of noticeable reduction of the pugnacity of the country’s political discourse in the last few weeks. The deafening counterclaims of pro- and anti-restructuring forces seem to be coming down as groups, political parties, sociocultural organisations, and individuals with media visibility across political and ethnic divides start to listen to each other, while stating their preferences about what to restructure and how to restructure the polity. It is the willingness to join in the dialogue on re-federalisation (rather than back away from it) without abandoning positions of each group that I have called dovish, as distinct from the hawkish ‘take-what-you-have-or-shut-up’ reaction to calls for restructuring during the first two years of the APC administration. While the doves are enriching national conversation on this important matter, some of them are raising issues that demand interventions from opinion leaders who are so, principally they plan to capture or keep political power at the end of a deal.

    Admittedly, demand for restructuring from the beginning had been through a peaceful approach. Even when the demand peaked during the pro-democracy struggle after annulment of MKO Abiola’s presidential election in 1993, callers for restructuring through sovereign national conference asked unequivocally for democratic conversation among representatives of federating units on working out a new charter for the Nigerian Union. More recently, the Yoruba Assembly at the House of Chiefs in Ibadan a few years ago resolved to start a Yoruba Constitutional Convention to gather ideas for kick starting regional procedure for mobilising the country for re-federalisation.  Chief Bisi Akande, one-time chairman of APC recently suggested a return to the 1963 Constitution as a first step in returning the country to federalism.

    And just a few weeks ago, Afenifere, Afenifere Renewal Group, Atayese, and many other self-determination groups in the Southwest renewed a peaceful call for restructuring. The formal demand christened the Ibadan Declaration stated in clear terms and without threats to other units in the federation many of the provisions the Yoruba region would want in a renewed federal system. What is not clear and may need further thinking about the Ibadan Declaration is the demand for a regional government that will co-exist with six states with all existing institutions that have been money guzzlers: governors, commissioners, and lawmakers. There should be a way to put this matter before the people. Having two layers of bureaucracy in the Southwest may be economically irrational for a region that wants to move away from business as usual. But in terms of interregional relations, the Ibadan meeting wants a peaceful resolution of the problem of bad structure that is crying for a new design.

    The decision of the ruling APC to establish a committee on agitations for restructuring also suggests the party’s readiness to respond to the issue, rather than continue to give reasons why the party could not respond in the last two years to calls for restructuring. Some leading members of the party: Bisi Akande, Abubakar Atiku, and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu have on different occasions listed advantages of restructuring for sustainable development in various parts of the country, thus reinforcing the APC’s change of heart on the growing demand for a new governance architecture. More reassuring in this respect is the speech of the chairman of the APC committee on restructuring, Nasir El-Rufai, in Chatham House.  El-Rufai’s characterisation of Nigeria as “a Federation without Federalism” could not have come at a better time for those who are confused about what people mean by restructuring. But as the party continues to find out what restructuring is supposed to entail, it does need to conflate devolution and restructuring. These are two distinct political choices of action. Devolution, transfer of functions to lower levels of government does not have to lead to federalism, because powers devolved can be withdrawn, more within the framework of a constitution that has the provision of federal legislative supremacy for every item on the Concurrent list. Restructuring is about sharing of power and sovereignty between central and subnational governments and enshrining of such decisions in a constitution to regulate the behaviour of each level.  There is danger in a devolution or transfer of power between levels in a unitary constitution. Those calling for restructuring are also calling for a new constitution, as distinct from the one bequeathed to the country at the end of military rule in 1999. But one remarkable development so far is the APC’s resolve to face a problem that cannot get solved until it is faced.

    Among visible personalities who have given more suggestions on how to restructure is Chief Emeka Anyaoku, a man whose approach to this matter for over a decade has become a reference point for others. He had for years provided justification for why we need to redesign what he has called on several occasions ‘the architecture of the country’s governance.’ Getting more specific about what process to employ, Chief Anyaoku has recommended recently that government should establish a Constitutional Drafting Committee to include representatives of Afenifere, Ohaneze, Arewa Consultative Forum, Ijaw Nation Congress, etc to deliberate on a new constitution.

    Certainly, there is a need for a new constitution but deciding on division of power and responsibility between the central and subnational governments should not be done by organizations that do not have to consult or report to communities. Delegates should be persons who are mandated to think with their communities rather than just thinking for them. Each state should mobilise citizens to bring recommendations to the region on the type of Nigeria they want to leave for their children. It is each region that should select (on the basis of federal legislative constituencies) delegates for the Constitutional Drafting Committee. The job of the current lawmakers does not include the writing of a new constitution. Writing a new constitution is not a legislative activity; it is essentially a political one at which citizens deliberate on the delimitation of the powers by which they agree to be governed. A legislature that is afraid to disclose to citizens what it pays itself does not have the credibility to write a new constitution. Having waited this long to re-create Nigeria into a modern democratic multiethnic state, decades after discarding of the Independence Constitution by military regimes, we might as well do a thorough restructuring that the people can own. Such approach may consume time and resources, but there should be no shortcut to any place worth going.

    Pastor Tunde Bakare’s presentation also falls into the category of a peaceful approach to restructuring. This is not surprising. Bakare is an unrelenting patriot and an unforgettable citizen for his role before the invocation of the Doctrine of Necessity during Goodluck Jonathan’s transition from vice president to acting   president when Nigerians were kept in the dark over the health situation of President Umaru Yar’Adua. The point that requires attention from other “Restructuralists” (for want of a better characterisation) is not the facile theory in Bakare’s argument about whether there were nations in Nigeria before British colonization and subsequent ‘nationalisation’ of the tribes gathered into one space christened Nigeria. Even if all that had existed in the space that was transformed by Lugard were just tribal groupings, tribes who later found themselves in postcolonial Nigeria, like others like them elsewhere, are not precluded from enjoying the right of self-determination.

    But more importantly, it is the pastor’s recommendation of a ten-year restructuring exercise that seems to be too pacific or too dovish. To create “a Presidential Commission for National Reconciliation, Integration and Restructuring to work within ten years a journey from geo-economic framework, mend or re-create geo-social fault-lines towards attaining a geopolitical climax” is more likely than not to complicate a simple process. What is not likely to take too much time is to bring delegates of descendants of the tribal men and women the British converted into regular human beings or newly found national groups together to express their desires freely about how they want to live with their neighbours. This is how other countries have faced similar problems. It seems simpler to create new Basic Laws of co-existence than to subject citizens to another decade of political and economic limbo.

    Undoubtedly, the individuals and groups referenced in this piece have made significant contributions to civil national conversation that seems to be calming the nerves of various sections of the country. The full report of the APC committee is certainly worth waiting for, more so that there seems to be no functioning opposition party to throw additional light on the to be-or-not-to-be of restructuring.

    Roposek@msn.com

  • Hawks and doves on Nigeria’s revival (1)

    Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced—James Baldwin

    I have deliberately borrowed the word revival to frame today’s piece. Millions of religious people believe that revival is a word charged with both material and spiritual value. Isoji (translated as revival in English) in the religious rituals of most churches in Nigeria, carries more force than synonyms such as rejuvenation, revitalisation, and reanimation can conjure. In Yoruba, the language in which I am thinking in this piece, revival means ‘bringing back to life of a force that had gone inert or moribund. To many Nigerians, their country had been inactive for decades with the result of being ‘unable to respond to its demographics,’ a euphemism for a political system that has not been designed or empowered to have the capacity to improve the quality of life of its citizens.

    My concept of revival today is akin to the transformation that can happen after an individual is given direly needed external stimuli to make him or her regain consciousness, after a long period of mental or spiritual inertia. Relatedly, restructuring as a process is seen by this writer as an application of special stimuli to the political organisation of a country, with the hope of saving the country from dead governance cells that had made the country incapable of responding to the needs of its citizens. If you ask the average Nigerian why there is no electricity, water, good road, good public schools, etc., he or she is likely to say the government is unable to provide such services. Many citizens also believe the governments in the country are unable to meet the needs of citizens because they are not designed to do so. It is, therefore, not surprising that the word restructuring has started recently to affect the consciousness of citizens who hitherto would prefer to block his ears to such word. To use metaphors to depict varying responses, restructuring has created hawks, ostriches, and doves.

    James Baldwin’s favourite quote: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced” seems to have found a new home in the country in recent weeks.  And this change of attitude is good for the future of the country as a democracy and a federal state. A national problem that has not been faced substantially for years now appears ready to be faced. But the manner of facing the problem of designing Nigeria to perform better than it has for the past 50 years can be characterised as hawkish, ostrich-like, and dovish. For the avoidance of doubt, the hawks of restructuring are different from those of secession. The reference to hawks in this piece is in relation to those who feel that restructuring should be rebuffed.

    Visitors to Nigeria for the first time shortly after the return of President Buhari from sick leave would have marvelled at the country’s penchant for theatrical way of solving problems. IPOB was ready to break the country and those who would not condone such sacrilege were quick to give Igbos quit notice from their natal communities or to call for application of state violence against IPOB. Now the tension about emergence of Biafra seems to have subsided as political leaders from Nnamdi Kanu’s section of the country are pledging loyalty to Nigeria’s indissolubility while committing to imperative of restructuring and lawyers are arguing about Kanu’s whereabouts.

    An unmistakable development on the nation’s political landscape now is the readiness of all ideological persuasions to give diverse conditions on how to engage each other on the matter of restructuring. Some experts are saying that it is the extremism of IPOB that has softened the hearts of those in government on the issue of restructuring to the extent that those who had sworn not to hear the in the past are now giving conditions that can bring them to the dialogue table to find out where the shoe of Nigeria’s current governance structure pinches their neighbours. Others have confirmed that President Buhari brought the manifesto promise of APC to entrench the federalist spirit in the constitution from CPC, suggesting that the country has been blessed all the time with a believer in restructuring. What matters now is that the audience for, if not adherents of the doctrine of restructuring, is growing by the day.  Being open to calls for dialogue is what civilised democratic discourse is about. No multi-national country can afford to ignore the grievances of its many constituencies while expecting to bring peace and progress to any or all parts of such nation-space.

    In the last few weeks of facing rather than ignoring the demand for structural change to the polity, hawks, ostriches, and doves have articulated their positions loud enough for each group to start feeling relieved that disintegration is not in sight as much as dialogue, negotiation, and compromise seem to be. Of course, the hawks are still active in claiming that any attempt to interrogate the current structure of governance foisted on the nation by departed military dictators is tantamount to doing the abominable: wrecking the country’s unity. But many citizens now seem to be coming to terms with the reality that demand for restructuring is not a call for disintegration but an effort to create a political environment for enhancing and sustaining the country’s much needed unity.

    Some pundits have cautioned against reading too much optimism into the fact that more people are now willing to give any attention to calls for restructuring. Such social media pundits are quick to draw attention to the concept of Taqiyya in Arabic and Islamic studies, i.e. the freedom for individuals or groups to act or talk in a friendly way without being intending to be friendly. But this writer’s reading of the situation in the country is that citizens of various political and cultural affiliations are interested in approaching problems facing the only country they can call their own, instead of looking away from it as many leaders and governments had done in the past.

    Ostriches still abound on the demand for restructuring. Most former military dictators are still in the mode of avoiding the word political restructuring. For example, former military head of state, Abdusalaam Abubakar, does not see any reason for restructuring while all that is needed is for all hands to be on deck to build the country’s unity, as if restructuring automatically kills unity. It is General Abubakar that is known as the author or owner of the 1999 Constitution that has theologised the current unitary governance. Similarly, former President Obasanjo, under whose military dictatorship major de-federalisation of the country took place, has called for restructuring of the mind as the only task that must be done. Of course, there must be many more beneficiaries of de-federalisation in and out of the military who think like Abubakar and Obasanjo. It is not totally unexpected that those who feel obliged to sustain their legacy projects would prefer to deflect attention away from anything that interrogates such legacy. But such response is akin to playing the ostrich.

    But, the latest response from the Northern Elders Forum to restructuring by the group’s president is a dovish move, in contrast to pronouncements of this organisation in the past: “The North recognises and acknowledges that there are demanding and legitimate questions on the current operations of the Nigerian state. The North has very clear ideas on all issues and positions that the nation sees as challenges and is willing to dialogue on all of them. What the North will not allow, however, is to be stampeded into adopting an agenda and grand designs from other parts of Nigeria, which will hurt its basic interests.” Paul Unongo’s statement is reassuring at this stage of the national conversation on how to make the country’s unity productive and sustainable. Even in Catalonia where Mariano Rajoy has bared his fangs unnecessarily against Charles Puigdemont, the Catalonian leader, some Catalonians are complaining that they were stampeded into carrying out someone’s agenda. No pro- or anti-restructuring group should have the freedom to stampede others into accepting their agenda. All sides should be given the chance to provide the picture of the country they want to live and die for.

    Next week will focus on more dovish approaches including positions that seem too dovish for achieving needed progress.

     

    • Roposek@msn.com