The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ropo Sekoni

Matters arising from the national conference report

Not disclosing the details of the report to the public is capable of encouraging well-meaning citizens and groups to pay undue attention to speculations

As should be expected in a country that has developed a unique trait known as the Nigeria Factor, the issue of a national conference promised a few months ago by President Jonathan has started to get compounded but not unavoidably. Instead of the public having a full knowledge of the contents of the report submitted to President Jonathan by the Advisory Committee, it is now being entertained with media presentations of personal disagreements between Senator Femi Okurounmu and Prof. Ben Nwabueze, two well-known advocates of political restructuring and two persons invited by the president to serve on the committee principally on account of their views on the need to restore true federalism after decades of constitutions authored by military dictators. If care is not taken, brickbats between Okurounmu and Nwabueze may degenerate into larger conflicts that may eclipse the real issue: What is in the report submitted to the president from views garnered from Nigerians across the country?

Before such a thing happens, it is necessary for the presidency to share the report with citizens. There is the impression that because the committee is advisory, its report is meant only for the eyes of the advisee. Another way to look at this is that the committee was not appointed to advise the president as a private person but as the head of state and that the pre-report meetings of the committee were funded from public purse. Therefore, the principle of the need to know applies, without any prejudice to the president’s right to accept or reject the report. The right of citizens, particularly those who made presentations to the committee during its fact-gathering meetings in different parts of the country, to know to what extent the committee captured their views must be respected. It is only after the public is caused to know what the report recommends that it can assess on one hand the proximity or distance between the report and citizens’ memoranda to the advisory committee and, on the other hand, the extent of congruence or divergence between what the committee recommends and what the president eventuallyaccepts.

Therefore, the ongoing media war between Senator Okurounmu and Prof. Nwabueze may be unnecessary until the presidency releases details of the report to the public. There is no good reason for any individual or group to start blaming the messenger before the message is disclosed. There is no good reason to encourage citizens and groups to start acting on conjectures. Not disclosing the details of the report to the public is capable of encouraging well-meaning citizens and groups to pay undue attention to speculations.

Although the Igbo Leaders of Thought working with Prof. Nwabueze had raised many important issues about how to organise the conference, it is, however, premature to do this before knowing the contents of the report of Okurounmu’s committee. Without access to the full report, such issues as using existing federal constituency as basis for selecting delegates, turning the conference into an exercise to amend the 1999 Constitution, and throwing away the call for referendum as the basis for accepting or rejecting a new constitution are essentially academic. There is so much that the presidency can do to ensure that there is no drift from the real issue to interpersonal disagreements between two of his original nominees to advise him on the conference. Were Prof. Nwabueze not hobbled by age-related ailments, he too would have served on the committee with Senator Okurounmu.

The first test of transparency is for the presidency to release the full report of the committee. This will allow citizens and organisations to participate in post-report thinking that can assist the president. If queries from readers of this column are anything to go by, citizens from across political and class spectrums are already anxious to know what the president intends to do with the recommendations they believe must have been derived from their memoranda to the committee.

There are already too many ideas about the report and the conference that are likely to add to the view that the president may not be as serious about the conference as he must have come across to the general public. For example, the issue that the conference will not start until March 2014 is already giving some citizens a lot of concern, particularly that INEC has announced its intention to lift suspension on direct political campaigns around the middle of the year, preparatory to holding presidential and other elections in early 2015.

Another controversy-laden issue being popularised in the informal media is the suggestion that the president may be nominating 120 delegates to the conference. It is only an early release of the full report that can stem such speculations and assure citizens that the 2014 national conference is not going to be a clone of the one held under the presidency of General Olusegun Obasanjo.

From the volume of memoranda submitted to the committee and given the enthusiasm demonstrated by citizens and groups at the presentation of such memoranda, it is saying the obvious to observe that citizens are craving for a transparent and credible national conference. There are too many important issues for discussion at the conference that certainly require time for serious dialogue and deliberation on how to enhance the country’s unity. Such issues include the following: At what point is the national assembly going to create an enabling legislation for the conference? How are delegates to be selected for the conference? Will the conference write a new constitution or is it to repeat what federal legislators have been doing in the last three years in respect of amending the current constitution? How long will the conference sit to enable it conclude its assignment before the 2015 elections? Will the conference give a voice to citizens through a popular referendum on its recommendations? Some of these issues must have been addressed in the report submitted to the president, but it is hard for citizens to discuss them without knowing what exactly the advisory committee has recommended to the President Jonathan. There is no good reason for the presidency not to share the report with citizens.

January 12, 2014
Another season of homilies and resolutions

One New Year resolution expected from politicians, particularly those at the federal level, is public affirmation of total commitment to free and fair election in 2015

This is the season for private citizens and public officials to make resolutions about how to choose new paths of improvement in what they do. Just as expected, our political leaders have seized the opportunity of Christmas and the coming of 2014 to do what they know how to do best: make promises; sermonise about how to make Nigeria work for all; and even pontificate about matters that are naturally beyond their ken. The goal of politicians’ sermons and New Year resolutions is generally to assure citizens of the relevance of political office holders to the lives of citizens. What troubles the average observer is that Nigerian political leaders from the president down to local government chairmen never take the trouble to find out if citizens are impressed by their mendacious talks at every religious festival.

For example, when President Jonathan announced his resolution to give Nigerians at least 18 hours of electricity per day, he did not realise that most citizens could not turn on their televisions or radio to watch or listen to him, simply because of power outage. Citizens must have been wondering in darkness why the president had to make this promise, more so that the energy sector had been successfully privatised by his administration. Ordinarily, people would now expect to hear from the new owners of the electricity supply chain, most of whom have been silent since they took over from PHCN. The federal government should give all the assurances of help at its disposal to the new electricity companies, not to citizens who have in the last six years have had to live with unredeemed promises about moving electricity supply from 2,500 megawatts to 5,000, and later to 6,000 megawatts.

In another part of his Christmas message, President Jonathan (perhaps unwittingly) made negative comments about the nation’s diversity, which for decades, leaders and citizens have passionately believed to be a fertile source of greatness for the country: “It remains my sincere belief that no height of human accomplishment is beyond us as a nation, if we can overcome our differences, such as they are, and forge a binding consensus to put the progress and well-being of the country above all other considerations.” I am sure the president knows that our cultural differences are not handicaps. What we need to do, as we prepare for a national conference to discuss how to make our country do better than it has done since 1966, is not to see our differences as obstacles to overcome but as realities to understand. Therefore, delegates to the national conference should not be encouraged to go and sit down and work out how to overcome our differences, but how to understand them and use the country’s diversity to improve the country’s performance and competitiveness within the comity of nations.

With the president’s announcement of his commitment to encourage Nigerians at the proposed national conference to contribute to how to make Nigeria peaceful and great, it is a good time to add that there is more to a national conference than talking about how to make a nation great. It requires talking and agreeing on how to make justice in all forms an abiding aspect of public and private life in a country. The presence of justice in every society and polity is the source of peace, harmony, and greatness. Those who have been calling for a national conference for decades have been concerned about justice to all sections of the country as the best way to make every part of the country feel confident to make the most sacrifice towards achieving the country’s progress and greatness. Such advocates recognise the country’s diversity, believe that the diversity is a source of greatness, particularly if the diversity is managed with a sense of justice by all concerned. Governor Kayode Fayemi’s New Year message to people of Ekiti State captures this view well: “I urge us all as a people whose destiny is connected inextricably with our great country to keep praying as we support the agitation for the restoration of true federalism and the entrenchment of equity and justice in our polity.”

One New Year resolution expected from politicians, particularly those at the federal level, is public affirmation of total commitment to free and fair election in 2015. On the part of partisan politicians, there should be an expression of commitment to a violence-free election at all levels, such as we just witnessed in Yobe, despite the state of emergency in that state. On the part of the country’s independent electoral commission, the agency needs to assure citizens at the beginning of a new year that all elections in 2014 and 2015 will avoid all the problems that marred the recent Anambra gubernatorial election. INEC must, as a body that is expected to be an impartial umpire, accept that excuses for not getting any aspect of polling right reflects sadly on the commission, erodes voters’ confidence in the electoral process, and can lead to serious democratic deficits capable of creating legitimacy problems for post-election governance. In addition to President Jonathan’s resolution to organise a credible national conference, INEC is the second most important agency in the country to assure citizens that it will do everything possible to gain the confidence of citizens in all elections the agency will conduct in 2014, as a way of making the right preparation for the 2015 national elections. Citizens need to be assured that elections will be transparent, efficient, free, and fair at all times in 2014, as this is one way to enhance peace, harmony, and unity in the country.

As universal (and sometimes instructive) as New Year resolutions are, Nigerians know that the president and most governors are entering in 2014 their lame-duck phase. Consequently, citizens are not going to take many of the promises made by federal and state executives with much seriousness, given the fact that a lame-duck year is not the best time to fulfill promises that could not be fulfilled in the preceding three years of full governing authority. What is likely to attract citizens’ attention and belief is for the federal government and its agency, INEC, to resolve to do a thorough job in organising a credible national conference in 2014 and credible elections in 2015 and beyond.

January 5, 2014
Beyond our epistolary season

The PDP as the party that has assured Nigerians that it is the party destined to rule the country for sixty years needs to face the issues raised by two leaders of the ‘largest party in Africa’

In the early phase of colonialism in our country, there was a small-medium business known as letter writing that threw up a small group of entrepreneurs called public letter writers. At that time, public letter writers used to know the contents of letters meant to be private pieces of communication between the owner (in this case, not the writer) of the letter and the receiver of the letter, who also often had to hire letter readers. The public letter writer and readers in those days were human agents that served as paid mediators between owners and receivers of letters. In this capacity, the public letter writer and reader were expected to keep the secret of the owner and receiver of the letter secret.

This is no longer the practice in our postcolonial moment that is now characterised by a measure of literacy that has thrown public letter writers and readers out of business. In our time, private letters are made public, not necessarily by the originator of the letter but by others who hope to gain from making public what is designed to be private. Nigeria has been awash with discussions of letters in the last two weeks. Many citizens have even been using the letters in circulation as a means of enjoying moments of catharsis or psychological or emotional release, which allows them to partake vicariously in the embarrassment of their enemies. But the real issues raised in the letters from the perspective of the average citizen appear to be waiting for serious discussion, as our culture of Karounwi dominates when what is needed is sober reflection on the part of friends or enemies of Nigerian letter-writers of the year.

One letter that came to be part of public intellectual property is one purportedly written by Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello. The release of this letter throws more light on the decline of decency in our society. It does not matter whether the letter in question was written by Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello. Every daughter or son has a right to write any kind of letter to her or his father, just as every father and mother have a right to write critical letters to their children. More dramatic things happen in other societies. Parents or children go to court to seek “divorce” from each other and use the court process to reveal a lot of unwholesome information about each other. What does not happen in decent societies is for private letters between two individuals to become public materials, for reasons of whatever gain—monetary or political—that the release of supposed private communication brings to the agent that distributes such pieces of communication. But today’s piece is not on a letter that should have been strictly private between a daughter and her father, if indeed there was such a letter. To make a strictly private family matter a topic of discussion for the public is to take undue advantage of one’s access to the power of signification in modern societies.

The two letters that should have been made public are those from former President Obasanjo to President Jonathan. This is not because the two are not entitled to sending themselves private letters on private matters, but because the two public figures are expected, when they discuss issues of pertinence to the nation and its citizens, to share their views with the public. The tendency in our country to privatise what is public and publicise what is private has been evident in the ways sycophants or friends and enemies or opponents of each of these two men of Nigeria’s contemporary history have used the epistolary mode to engage each other and the public, which in the final analysis gave both of them the importance that makes whatever they say to each other about Nigeria worthy of public attention.

Former President Obasanjo and current President Jonathan are now both messengers in their capacity as letter writers. The popular view that Obasanjo has no moral authority to send the message he sent to Jonathan because he too was culpable of several of the charges levelled at Jonathan’s presidency is as irrelevant as the claim by the PDP that the issues raised in Obasanjo’s letters are not issues for the party to worry about. Although many of the issues in Obasanjo’s letter are about Jonathan’s style of governance, there are many issues that capture the agony of the masses of Nigerians. Such issues as corruption, neglect of the youths of the country, direct or indirect discouragement of foreign investors who could add value to the country’s economy and thus help to create jobs, and citizens being put on watch-list for being opponents of the president are certainly matters that should worry the PDP as the ruling party.

Thus, the claim by the publicity secretary of the PDP: “The exchange of letters is not a party affair; it is not what we can intervene in any way. The leaders were writing on what they believe in. They have different perspectives to governance. They did not write about party matters. The letter writing is different interpretations of their own style of governance; it has nothing to do with PDP” can only worsen the situation of the sitting president elected to office on the platform of the PDP. This view represents a bizarre understanding of the presidential system as it raises several posers: Is the party disowning or abandoning the president? Has President Jonathan been governing without the consent of the PDP? Is the ideology of the PDP starkly different from what has been driving President Jonathan’s governance style?

Citizens are already too enlightened on the average to be taken in by the facile and puerile distancing of the ruling party at the centre from President Jonathan’s performance in office. This should be the moment of collective responsibility for the president and the PDP. It is politically dangerous for the president and his party not to speak with one voice on the important issues raised in the letter of a former chairman of the board of trustees of the PDP. Otherwise, citizens are going to wonder (and justifiably so) why the party that won the 2011 presidential election on the platform of transformation of the country would opt to remain aloof when the principal agent of transformation is being pilloried by one of the senior members of the ruling party.

In addition, citizens are going to continue to wonder what is likely to happen after the furore about the letters dies down or is eclipsed by another news event. Millions of Nigerians, who spend the Christmas period in darkness, indeed in greater darkness than in the days preceding the famous privatisation of electricity generation and distribution, are going to wonder about the governance of the country, more especially at a time the tariffs on electricity consumption are going north while supply of electricity is going south faster than ever before. Citizens are going to be bothered that corruption in high places is eating away funds that could have been used to improve infrastructure and the quality of life of the average citizen, particularly when citizens travel home to celebrate the festive season with their loved ones on bad roads from Lagos to the west and east of the country. Millions of citizens with children or wards who are unemployed are not likely to forget that money that could have gone to the country to create jobs had been chased away by insecurity or corruption in the country. The PDP as the party that has assured Nigerians that it is the party destined to rule the country for sixty years needs to face the issues raised by two leaders of the ‘largest party in Africa.’ Citizens are going to ask, as some of their vocal ones have already been doing, where the heart of the PDP is on President Jonathan’s proposed national conference.

December 29, 2013
A season of self-fulfilling prophecies?

For anyone in the presidency or out of it to shout treason because a political party has called for invocation of a provision in the constitution is worrisome

Robert Merton in his book,Social Theory and Social Structure, defines self-fulfilling prophecy as a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself. Our country has been experiencing in the last few days an avalanche of self-fulfilling prophecies that should worry citizens with sensitivity to anything that is likely to threaten democracy.

One such negative depiction of a situation with the danger of turning into a reality is the fear expressed this week by the Chairman of INEC that there may be no election in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa in 2015 as a result of the security challenges in the three states. He said to members of the National Assembly that should the emergency still be in place by the time of the 2015 election, which his commission plans for February, his commission will not be able to organize election in the three states.

Some are likely to see this announcement as a sign of good planning ahead by INEC and an illustration of a good leader anticipating (or even predicting) developments that can help or hinder his programme. In this respect, INEC is trying to ensure that there are no surprises, should this happen. Such announcement is a good warning to the government that does not want to call a sectional election a national to do everything possible to bring the insurgency in the three states to an end before the current emergency regulation expires.Jega’s logic is clear: Should violence continue in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe, it will be foolhardy to call people out to vote or to put electoral workers in harm’s way on account of holding elections to fulfill one part of the electoral act and of the constitution.

But the implications of not holding election in three of 36 states to choose a president for the 36 states are important enough for legal and constitutional lawyers to start worrying about. Non-lawyers have started asking questions that indicate they are worried about having election in 33 states to choose a president that is to rule 36 states. Citizens have started thinking aloud: What is the implication of choosing a candidate who is unable to win 25% of votes cast in two-thirdsof 36 states? Does this mean that there will be an emergency modification of the electoral act to base two-thirds of 36 states on 33 states? What happens if a few months later INEC feels safe to hold election in the three states and the voting in these states changes the overall result of the election that will have already put a candidate in place as president? Will holding election in the three states after choosing a president on the basis of 33 states not amount to engineering a bandwagon effect to favour the sitting president elected on the basis of 33 states? Will the three states be disenfranchised until 2019 once they are not able to participate in the voting in 2015? Is the partial emergency in states that are still being run by elected officials and that are even preparing for local government elections to hold in 2014 similar to the states being at war and are thus too dangerous for citizens who still go to mosques and churches to be givenmaxium security protection while voting?There are many more questions that have come from regular readers of this column that cannot be included in this piece because of space constraint.

As simple as these questions are, they are pointing at factors that can bring more political problems to a country and an electoral commission that were not able to organize a credible election in Anambra that is not under any emergency. People who were prevented from voting in Anambra at the right time and parties that felt cheated or rigged out are more likely than not to see serious danger in the proposal that election may not hold in three states in 2015. The good thing about Jega’s discussion with legislators is that it can serve as an indirect call on the federal government to ensure that no section of the country is treated in 2015 as if it is already excised from Nigeria. According to President Jonathan, emergency regulation came into force in the three states because that section had already started feeling and acting as if it was no longer part of Nigeria. Not holding election in the three states is to give the impression that Nigeria can go forward without them. In other words, the challenge for the federal government is to bring the Boko Haram terrorism to an end within the period of the ongoing emergency. Otherwise, we may be running the risk of having a situation in which a negative view of something becomes part of the character of that thing over time, and, in the process, act in a way to suggest that the three states are no longer part of Nigeria.

Calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it appears to be part of the season’s negative characterizations. Members of the country’s other major party, the APC, are already being accused of treason for calling on members of the National Assembly to commence a process to impeach President Jonathan. Impeachment is in a presidential system similar to calling for a vote of no confidence in the prime minister in a parliamentary system. Both are part of the checking and balancing devices built into democratic system of government to make treasonable acts by any group—military or civilian unnecessary. Impeachment process is to further strengthen the democratic process, by ensuring that those who have reasons to believe that the president or prime minister is not doing the right thing would not have any reason to engage in an illegal action to save the system from such leaders. Those who call for impeachment do not always have to be right; they also do not always get their way. But the right to call for impeachment is unassailable in a proper democracy.

For example, attempts were made to impeach President Bill Clinton during his presidency but those who called for and initiated the process lost out, because majority of the legislators did not believe that President Clinton had done anything impeachable. However, invoking this principle helped to further reinforce the presidential system as it made those for and against impeachment happy that the system had been allowed to take its course. Those who wanted Clinton impeached had their say while those who believed that Clinton had not committed any impeachable offence had their way during the voting, and Clinton’s rating even soared after that. It was a win-win situation for democracy.

For anyone in the presidency or out of it to shout treason because a political party has called for invocation of a provision in the constitution is worrisome. It gives the impression that there are people in the country’s post-military democracy that still harbor the imagination of military dictators. Democracy presupposes the existence of ruling and non-ruling or opposition parties. Opposition parties are allowed in all democracies to convince voters that they had made the wrong choice by putting the incumbent in power, when such parties have reasons to so believe. Opposition parties also have the right to invoke any section of the constitution that they believe can be used to improve governance or jolt the ruling party into consciousness. Equating calls for impeachment process with treasonable act is tantamount to calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it. Our democracy is not likely to develop if members of the ruling group do not want other parties in contest for votes and power to do their own job: ensuring that the ruling party does not take citizens for granted in its policies and performance.

December 22, 2013
Mandela: lessons for civics teachers

Mandela has shown us that people with vacuous interior are not likely to grow into respectable national or world leaders

There is no death that does not throw up mourners. Even the most inconsequential of men have people to mourn them. But when the death of an individual turns the globe into a site of mourners for that person, then that person has something that most of his or her contemporaries lack. Mandela’s recent passing has created one of the finest and telling spectacles of global unity in memory. The most glowing praises ever uttered have been rendered and deservedly so for Madiba. Even in Nigeria, many of the country’s institutions and their leaders have held special sessions to talk about Mandela in the most laudatory language. What must not be missed is that the implication of Mandela’s lifelong noble virtues can be a value to be cultivated by peoples of the world, especially Nigeria and its leaders.

Nigeria’s teachers of civics have very fertile resource materials for the teaching of civics, particularly topics on rights and duties of citizens including their leaders. South Africa’s population is small compared to that of Nigeria. But that South Africa gave the world the first global hero from Africa in modern times is a thing to be explained to students. Mandela, who said clearly that he fought white domination and black domination with equal focus, started his public journey by recognising that he, like other millions of Black South Africans, was a victim of the hate nurtured for the Other, where the inferiorisation of the other is believed to enhance and perpetuate the advantages of the self. He could have, at the end of his incarceration and the end of the world’s worst form of group hate, chosen revenge as a response to his country’s ugly past and as a blueprint for constructing a new South Africa. He could have argued for cleansing of the land, not just through the process of truth and reconciliation but of full disclosure and total restitution, a process that would have led to decades of inter-racial tension and underdevelopment, if not retrogression.

By mobilising all citizens to forgive and move forward into a future of peace and progress regime for all citizens, Mandela provided exemplary leadership to assist his country give the world the first Rainbow society and a new cultural model that is more profound than the melting pot model that used to be the envy of many societies before the emergence of Mandela’s policy of unfettered multiculturalism. The embodiment of the world’s first Rainbow society could not but be mourned and celebrated by the multiplicity of races that gathered in Soweto last week. Such rainbow reality cultural model as an empowering way to respond to ethnic or racial diversity in modern management of plural societies owes very much to the inner peace enjoyed by Mandela, which in turn engendered his notion of the Self and the Other.

The significance of an individual’s inner peace thriving in a very large heart as an enhancer of peace for others is best captured in Mandela’s own words: “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” To say that Mandela is a world leader is to say the obvious, because he has a philosophy of life that endorses the need for civilised men and women to respect the right of others to live without the fear of domination on account of demographic advantage or better access to the technology of mass violence. The unforgettable lesson from Mandela’s life experience and worldview is the importance that power can be molded to advance the cause of peace, harmony, and development in any country, regardless of the complexity of its cultural and ethnic diversity, once the holder of power has the right value and the big heart to see consistently beyond the self in his or her choice of policies and actions.

When Mandela said that he does not want just majority rule to replace Apartheid’s minority rule but democratic rule in South Africa, he was teaching the entire world a new lesson about what Ralph Waldo Emerson in his concept of transcendentalism once called the god with a small g in each human being, which can stay repressed, if not properly recognised and cultivated by the individual. Unlike many leaders in other countries, Mandela chose in 1994 not to allow the distractions that seeking advantages for one’s self or for one’s ethnic community over the other usually create for leaders who have failed to commune with the god in them and thus be able to accept that aspiring to be better human beings as leaders is capable of creating a better human community for all.

Teaching civics in Nigeria after the exit of Madiba should include not just adding the concrete examples of Mandela’s life experience to the list of illustrations of existing concepts but also to the expansion of concepts to be taught to young students in our colleges. Leadership presupposes the readiness of those aspiring to such positions to make sacrifice and never to get tired of making sacrifice on account of the community, whether small like a village or big like a country. If Mandela had chosen to buy armoured cars to travel in, it could not have been hard for the government of his country to buy such gadgets for him, given the amount of sacrifice he had made for the society’s progress. If he had chosen to travel on the road with dozens of land cruisers, the way our own leaders do in Nigeria, nobody would have accused him of asking for too much, given the enormity of what he had given of himself to South Africa. But his soul was too deep, his heart too large, and his mind too broad for him to need such toys and symbols of power and attention, without which a leader in our own country cannot recognise himself in the mirror.

Mandela’s notion of unity in diversity is best illustrated in the constitution with which he started South Africa’s post-Apartheid rule. The constitution is transparently federal. Mandela’s belief in democratic rule, as distinct from majority rule, did not prevent him from accepting the need to have a federal system of government in a plural society. His notion of national unity did not prevent him from seeing the good in ensuring that no section in a plural society is given an excuse to feel that it is dominated or may be dominated or cheated by another section. Mandela’s emphasis on the equality of all persons, regardless of race or religion, makes it unnecessary for any section to want to dominate other sections or to swear to go to war when other sections raise issues with a constitution that they believe had been imposed on them by departing dictators—military or civilian. Mandela’s acceptance of a federal model has not diminished the sense of unity in South Africa. Instead, it has encouraged his successors to respect the right of the elements of the Rainbow ethos to be and thus sustain the integrity of the rainbow society. Even with the painful history of group hatred arising from primitive handling of racial and ethnic diversity in South Africa before 1990, Nigeria with ethnic diversity that is devoid of dehumanisation of one group by another does not appear to be as united, even after half a century of independence, as South Africa is only eighteen years after South Africa’s independence.

Mandela has shown us that people with vacuous interior are not likely to grow into respectable national or world leaders. Madiba has shown us that persons incurably infected by the virus of infinite acquisition for themselves cannot become leaders and heroes.

December 15, 2013
Unitary police system: beyond first-line charge

Putting the Nigeria Police Force on a first-line charge may in fact lead to creation of another fiefdom for those in charge

Nigeria is one country where money or guaranteed access to funds is believed to be the be all and end all of all problems. Since the oil boom in the country, rulers of the country have been throwing money at problems without necessarily obtaining value for the money expended. We threw money at states and local governments from the federation account fuelled by petro-dollars, yet most states and local governments have to lose their citizens to Lagos, even thirty years after they were created. The belief that money can solve all problems in Nigeria is being propagated at the national assembly, which is currently about to amend the constitution to allow a first-line charge for security agencies including the Nigeria Police Force. The failure to secure the state, particularly by the Nigeria Police is caused, not as much by the source and timing of its funding as it is by the over centralisation of policing in what ideally and realistically should be a federal system.

The National Security Adviser’s assertion that the nation’s security challenges would be better met if security personnel are enabled to do their job more effectively is, without doubtful, insightful. What can enable security personnel to do their job more effectively is much more than whether the funding of security agencies is from first-line charge or not. For example, that the president’s fleet was almost grounded in France three months ago until three million euros was paid to the French authorities says more about a national culture that condones inefficiency than the type of budget allocation. After all, the presidency is more or less on first-line charge. How come nobody in the presidency was able to anticipate the embarrassing problem that came up in France? What is significant is to get a constitution that is de-militarised and that recognises the need to move the architecture of the nation’s security away from the legacy left behind by decades of military autocracy. There is no security agency that manifests the problem of bad structure that leads to bad performance more than the Nigeria Police Force.

It should not be surprising that efforts to police Nigeria, a federal country as if it is a unitary system has for decades led to under-securing the nation. Putting the Nigeria Police Force on a first-line charge may in fact lead to creation of another fiefdom for those in charge. It is the concentration of law enforcement powers in the hands of those who control the central government that has created all sorts of aberration being experienced on the nation’s security landscape. Legislators and governors in states who are empowered by the 1999 Constitution to make and sign laws are, ironically, prevented by the same constitution from enforcing such laws. In effect, such legislators and governors are also prevented from protecting themselves; they are left to the whims of managers of executive power at the centre.

Leaving the protection of governors and their citizens in the hands of forces that are answerable only to the central government in a federal state-nation makes it possible for police officers to withdraw security aides of governors and state legislators as and when such officers are instructed to do so or feel duty-bound to do so. Any surprise that seven governors meeting in Abuja, the capital for all citizens of the country, found out that governors duly elected by their citizens could be stopped from meeting, all in the name of national security and unity? Any system that separates the respect for its part from the respect for its whole cannot but have problems performing effectively. Citizens of states whose governors and legislators are dispersed or prevented from meeting as and when they choose cannot but feel alienated from security agencies whose loyalty is only to the central executive in a federal system.

There is no country in the world that is secured solely by its security personnel. All properly secured countries are secured jointly by security personnel and loyal or patriotic citizens. But loyalty or patriotism in a federal system derives from respect from the centre representing the whole for all the parts that constitute the whole. In any federal system that derives its legitimacy from shared sovereignty, governance at all levels, including security is also shared. Where this does not exist, as it has been in Nigeria since 1966, citizens are encouraged to feel alienated and isolated, and unprotected.

More than the speed with which funds reach security agencies, it is the architecture of security in a federal system that needs to be re-examined by members of the national assembly. The current system of securing the country, particularly its law enforcement system is too distant from citizens for effective security. For example, central police officers are culturally distant from the citizens they protect. Although the official language of the Nigeria Police Force is English,the de facto language of the Nigeria Police Force is pidgin, a language that is not spoken by majority of the country’s citizens. This is at a time that most federal countries provide special sensitivity training for law enforcement officers to respond in a culturally correct manner to citizens. Even in communities with sizable immigrant communities, such as the United States or Canada, police officers are selected from pools of citizens who are familiar with the language in which such communities carry their cultures. This is despite the fact that the United States is largely a territorial, rather than an ethnic, federal system. Respect for cultural peculiarities exist in other territorial federal systems, such as the United Arab Emirates.

In ethnic federal systems, such as Switzerland, Belgium, and South Africa, security officers are mandated to demonstrate adequate cultural understanding of the citizens and communities they are hired to protect. Decentralising the security system, especially the police system deserves more immediate attention than looking for first-line charge source of funding. Once the structure is deficient, no amount of funds can provide proper and effective security. Even now when some governors have to provide additional funding for the central police, such governors cannot be sure that their security is guaranteed by the police they partly fund on behalf of the all-powerful centre. In a federal system, a benevolent structure is always better than a benevolent leader that may or not appear for decades, depending on the value systems under which citizens who later aspire to be leaders are raised.

December 8, 2013
APC enlargement: rise of citizenship over subjecthood?

Whether before or after elections, citizens have been relegated in the last fourteen years to the realm of subjects

Dominocracy is where rulers are too powerful; where there are inadequate means of challenge, scrutiny and accountability; and political life itself, as well as the quality of citizenship, is eroded and devalued.
The absence of secure forms of sub-central government, the lack of independent institutions that are more than the creatures of the government of the day, the failure to develop the apparatus of social and economic participation; all this, and more, properly reflects a politics of subjecthood rather than of citizenship. – Tony Wright, British MP

The much-vaunted electoral democracy in Nigeria in the last fourteen years has not resulted in the birth of a democratic culture that enhances the participation of citizens in their governance. With one political party in power for so long, democratic choice for citizens has been restricted to disagreement within the ruling party that has come to perceive itself as invincible and irreplaceable. PDP has over internalised and exaggerated its superiority over other political parties so manifestly that some of its leaders often refer to the party as the largest political party in Africa and as a party ordained to rule for the next sixty years. The effect of what appears as the end of the politics of choice to voters has been frustration for citizens who have generally felt more like subjects than citizens. But this past week appears or promises to have brought the politics of choice back to the country’s political landscape, and hopefully with it, a good measure of optimism that change to democracy from what Tony Wright has, in another context, called dominocracy may very well be on the way to Nigeria.

The new kid on the political block is the enlarged APC. The PDP is not new to Nigerians in many respects. It is a party that has ruled the country rather than governed it for the past fourteen years, without being able to change for the better most of the dismal statistics in terms of human development index that the first PDP government inherited in 1999. Over 65% of Nigerians still live in destitution after fourteen years of governments supposedly chosen by citizens and are thus subjected to citizens’ scrutiny and approval, as distinct from decades of military autocracy that owed the citizens no explanation for whatever it did or failed to do. Nigeria is lagging behind many African countries with respect to improving the situation of maternal and child mortality, percentage of citizens with access to safe potable water and proper sanitation; access to electricity for industrial and residential use, access to good roads, functional education, etc. In other words, it is only the PDP that needs to be on the defensive politically.

APC has not been in control of the central government and thus should have no reason to invest its utmost energy on optics and rhetoric. Citizens are expecting to hear messages of motivation and not of manipulation from the new political party that has brought a party of equal weight to stand up to the ruling party. Many APC states have good records to show about doing so much with so little for their citizens. Many APC states have a political pedigree that is generally referred to in popular parlance as progressive tradition of politics in the country. It is also significant that there are many states that are willing to be infected by the virus of progressive politics, thus making it possible for the recent enlargement of APC. The enlargement must be made to translate into empowerment of the party. The principle of ‘no founder, no joiner’ provides a level playing field for all party gurus. But the initial philosophy that brought APC into existence must not be lost in the process of preparing a level-playing field. The main challenge about bringing change to the country may now rest on the new party for the obvious reason that it is APC that has set a new goal for itself and citizens with like minds: saving democracy.

To save democracy, the party is in a good position to use its national spread and the experience of its new members, as well as the recent experience of the party in Anambra. One thing that militates against democracy in the country is the absence of independent institutions. Such absence has since 1999 encouraged the personalisation of politics and privatisation of power, with the result of a culture of impunity across the land. Independent institutions that require struggling for before 2015 elections include getting a new Independent Electoral Commission that can perform the function of an impartial umpire. Election is too crucial for the survival of representative democracy to be left in the hands of persons that are constrained in any way. Unlike the judiciary, INEC officials do not have the security of tenure of judges and thus need every protection they can get to do their job without any trace of partiality. This has not happened since 1999 and it has to happen if democracy is to be saved.

More eyes are thus going to be on APC to re-define democratic politics and put the polity back on course. APC is expected to provide leadership in terms of the politics of ideas, particularly popularisation of a vision that sees Nigeria beyond just a site of enormous power for those who are ready to play the game. Citizens are already too hungry for a party that has a vision that is rooted in an ideology that accepts that the role of government is the improvement of the life chances of citizens in all spheres. Whether before or after elections, citizens have been relegated in the last fourteen years to the realm of subjects. Their desires have thus not been able to enjoy noticeable space in the planning of a centralised state drowning under the weight of a burden it prefers to have but not to carry in an efficient and democratic manner. APC cannot afford not to persuade citizens about finding another way to govern this country well. More questions are certainly going to be thrown by citizens at the APC because more answers are expected from it than from the party that has been in power for the past fourteen years and that appears to have exhausted and enervated itself in the process.

While elections are important in a democracy as the only means of peaceful change, democratic politics is much more than electoral democracy. Citizens want to be included in the way they are governed. They want to have a say not only at elections but at all times about the performance of their government. Democracy is not just for the sake of executive and legislative leaders; it is mainly for the sake of citizens. Any political party with the confidence of citizens has little to fear before, during, and after elections. APC should not allow the success of the last few days to diminish the attention it gives to mobilisation of average citizens. It needs to shift the focus of its membership drive to average citizens now yearning to become co-owners of a party that has announced plans to enter into a ‘monitorable’ social contract with citizens. Doing this can enrich democratic politics in the country, as it is capable of allowing other parties to upgrade themselves ideologically and culturally.

People across Nigeria have a vision of the Nigeria they want to live in and leave behind for their children. They have ideas about what they believe the government can and should do to make their citizenship of the country fruitful and fulfilling for them. Citizens across the country are not in the dark with respect to the need to ‘re-constitutionalise’ the governance of the country. APC as the alternative party must be ready to deal with hard questions from citizens and to assuage their fears about a country that has for long appeared to be ‘irreformable’ at the hands of military dictators and post-military rulers alike.

December 1, 2013
Why confab of local governments is dangerous

Most of the local governments in existence today are creations of military dictators

An important confession: the title of today’s piece is partially taken from Mohammed Haruna’s title in The Nation of last Wednesday, “Why Confab of ethnic nationalities is dangerous.” The borrowing is not designed to critique Haruna’s thesis about the fluidity of ethnic identity in Nigeria and elsewhere for that matter. If there are as many ethnic groups in Nigeria as Haruna has identified in his essay, then it may be more difficult (but not necessarily any less dangerous) to use ethnic nationalities than the current local governments or federal constituencies as basis of inviting delegates to the conference.

There are some verities that those privileged to represent Nigerians from various parts of the Nigerian territory must deal with. One of these is Haruna’s thesis that identity evolves over time for all groups: Hausa, Fulani, Igbo, Ijaw, Edo, Idoma, Yoruba, etc. For example, Ondo, Ijebu, Egba, Oyo, Ekiti, Ijesha, Igbomina, etc have been evolving and may still evolve over time into something different from what exists at present. At some point in history, those referred to as sub-Yoruba groups today considered themselves as nations and even presented themselves to British colonialists as such and to the Portuguese before then. The experience of today’s Germans and the German language is similar to that of the Yoruba. One of the many German dialects was chosen to become the standard German language, just as the Oyo dialect was, at the encouragement of Bishop Ajayi Crowther and further encouragement later by Chief Awolowo’s Universal Primary Education, chosen to serve as the language to unify and prepare the sub-Yoruba groups for Christianisation and modernisation.

Despite the rightness of Professor Peter Eke’s observation that “an Ekiti man would have been astounded if he were called an Oyo man in 1820,” it is not true that an Ekiti man would have needed an interpreter in order to communicate with a Yoruba (Oyo) man in 1820. A cursory reading of Biodun Adetugbo’s linguistic study of Yoruba dialects and some familiarity with the most trans-ethnic Yoruba discourse, Ifa, would be enough to confirm that the Ondo, Ekiti, Ijesa, Ijebu, Oyo, Egba, Oyi, man would not have had any major trouble understanding an Oyo man in 1820, particularly as members of communities of primary orality at that time. No doubt many of the sub-ethnic groups would have had difficulty in written Oyo (now standard Yoruba). In addition, Yoruba pre-colonial historiography that recognised the Ife ancestry of all Yoruba sub-ethnic groups was and is still used to underscore the reality of diversity in unity among those that call themselves the Yoruba today after the scattering of Oduduwa princes across what is known today as the Yoruba section of Nigeria.

Those going to the national conference need not know a lot of pre-colonial Yoruba history to make rational contributions to the dialogue on how to construct a federal system that creates affection and not fear among the ethnic groups in today’s Nigeria. In fact, such a union of affection, rather than one of sectional domination bequeathed by decades of military autocracies, is the one that is likely to aid the process of Nigeria’s version of the Melting Pot or massive acculturation that will create a truly Nigerian persona, if this is found by conference delegates to be a desirable goal. Even if Nigeria’s ethnic diversity disappears today, such disappearance does not automatically make nonsense of demands for territorial federalism, such as exists in the United States of America and in the United Arab Emirates, for example. Such demands, even after a thorough homogenisation and pasteurisation of Nigeria’s ethnicities, would still form part of the expansion and extension of the culture of freedom and liberty, namely decentralisation and devolution of power with the purpose of enhancing participation of the governed and expanding the rights of citizens in their governance at the subnational or local level.

Let us now address why it will be dangerous to use existing local governments or federal constituencies as basis of choosing delegates to the national conference. Most of the local governments in existence today are creations of military dictators. They were created at a time when the revenue allocation formula was changed by military autocrats away from the principle of derivation in existence until 1966 to the principle of even development and national unity manufactured by military autocrats. After several decades of military rule, dominated largely by generals from what used to be the northern region up till 1966, military dictators created more local governments in the north than in the south, basing their argument on land mass and population.

This was despite the fact that Nigerians were and are not convinced that the population figures given to the country at the end of several censuses are accurate. Those who argue that Nigeria’s population pattern is the exception that confirms the rule of population spread in West Africa may be wrong. However, to use a figure that does not enjoy the confidence of citizens to determine the number of local governments at the same time that local government is promoted by military rulers to a tier that attracts allocation other than what is given to states that encompass local governments is to create suspicion among citizens from different parts of the country who want to live together as friends and partners, rather than as overlords and underdogs.

Just as more funds currently go to the north from the federation account on account of the number of local governments, so will more votes go to the local governments from the north at the national confab, thus making it possible for the north to use the principle of majoritarianism to prevent any changes to the status quo created by unelected soldiers. No section of the country should have the power to prevent the north from having as many local governments as it desires for its own pace of development. Correspondingly, the over 400 local governments in the north should not have the power to use their majority at the national conference to prevent any section of the country from opting for another structure that is different from the current one that gives the north over 400 local governments and makes it hard for the south to increase its number of local governments. In other words, the opportunity for each region to have the number of local governments it believes it needs for its development should not be tied to money sharing from the federation account, nor should it be tied to the fact that any region currently has the advantage of more local governments created by military autocracies.

Similarly, using existing federal constituencies to determine number of delegates and voters on issues at the national conference is fraught with avoidable danger. Like the local governments, the current federal constituencies came out of decrees and constitutions created by military dictators and on the basis of the census figures, the veracity of which has been questioned by citizens that include former leaders of the population commission. With almost 200 in the north out of a total of 360 federal constituencies, it is understandable for delegates from the south to feel that the power of majority can also be invoked by the north to keep the status quo intact. To have a frank dialogue that can help to enhance the unity of the federation, it is important to avoid all of the fetters created by military dictatorships and allow a level playing field for all parties to the national dialogue, be they spokespersons for ethnic federalism such as exists in Ethiopia or advocates for territorial federalism such as the one in the United Arab Emirates.

November 24, 2013
Matters confusing

Just about every aspect of the country’s way of life engenders confusion

It should not be hard to write about matters capable of confusing normal and intelligent people in our country. Just about every aspect of the country’s way of life engenders confusion: infrastructure, traffic management, political governance, political party culture, etc. But today’s column is not about any of these ubiquitous problems. It is about a few things said or half-said about serious issues by those who should know better.

The first confusing issue is about the ‘explanation’ given recently about how Prof. Festus Iyayi died two days ago. The Chief Medical Director of a Specialist Hospital to which Prof. Iyayi was taken after an accident nearLokoja said: “The late ex-president of ASUU had a penetrating injury to his heart, which might have killed him instantly.” The same expert said later that “the same penetrating injury may not have reached his heart,” adding that “beside his seat was a pair of Novas, an anti-hypertensive drug which suggests that he might have been hypertensive.”

What is this medical talk designed to achieve, a science-driven identification of etiology of death? Did Dr. Amodu’s observations derive from the result of post mortem examination? Or, is he a forensic pathologist who can predict from just looking at the body of Iyayi to determine the cause of his death? What has having hypertension to do with dying at the scene of an accident? I am not a medical scientist but I happen to know as a former member of the Postgraduate School Board at Ife about the four sub-specialties under pathology: morbid anatomy, chemical pathology, microbiology, andhaematology. If Dr. Amodu is not a morbid anatomist, should he not have waited for the findings of an expert in this field before giving conflicting or confusing information to the public about a tragic death of this proportion?

All the postulations made by Dr. Amodu should have been delayed to grow out of a thorough post mortem examination. Any attempt to speculate about whether Iyayi died from hypertension or some penetration to his heart should have waited for a post mortem. The statement by the hospital’s sole administrator: “I believe that what will be will be. Iyayi was just destined to die this way because nobody was unconscious in the vehicle” not only contradicted what Dr. Amodu, a chemical pathologist, said but also blurred, avoidably, the line between scientific thinking and fatalistic resignation.

What is expected from members of a medical scientific community is to inform the public about what a thorough post mortem on Prof. Iyayi indicates, not speculations or sermons from medical scientists. After all, the country is not short of morbid anatomists to help conduct a post mortem. I can still remember such names as Professors Odesanmi, Obafunwa, Akang, Anjorin, and Elesa, to name a few. As far as the regular public is concerned, Prof. Iyayi must have died because of the accident. To bring in the issue of his being seen carrying with him anti-hypertensive medications is to give the impression that the authorities in Kogi want to diminish the role of the accident in Iyayi’s premature and sudden death.

A similar distraction is manifested in the testimony attributed to Dr. Francis Idoko, a medical attache to the Kogi State Governor’s convoy. Dr. Idoko is said to have reported that the convoy’s rear vehicle rammed into the bus which was trying to avoid a pothole, adding that the convoy ‘brushed’ the side on which Iyayi was sitting. The question that comes to the average newspaper reader is where exactly was Dr. Idoko when the accident happened? Was he in the last car in the convoy and at what point in time did he determine that the vehicle conveying Iyayi was trying to avoid a pothole? Is Dr. Idoko able to tell the public if the last vehicle in the convoy that rammed into Iyayi’s vehicle was moving at a speed reasonable for a road with potholes? What is needed at this point of national mourning of a man who had made so much sacrifice for the good of this country is not to rush to any conclusion and give the impression that people in high authorities in Kogi are interested in watering down the impact of the accident that killed Iyayi.

Another confusing matter is a recent statement by Senate Deputy President, Ike Ekweremadu:”There is no way the national dialogue would affect or necessitate the suspension of the amendment process….We cannot wait for the national dialogue because we do not know when it will start or when it will end.” It is not clear what the National Assembly plans to achieve by rushing to conclude an exercise that has been on for almost three years, on account of the inability of lawmakers to find out from the president when the national conference will start or end.

Is it possible that the national assembly may know what the rest of the country does not know in respect of the national conference announced by President Jonathan? Many politicians have said that the President is not in a position to be serious enough to hold a meaningful national conference while many others have decided to give the president a chance and count their losses when he fails to deliver on his promise. For the body that has been trying for years to amend the constitution that a national conference is billed to remake or replace to say that it cannot afford to wait for citizens to indicate their preferences on the constitution they want may imply that the lawmakers and the president are not exactly on the same page on the importance of the constitution and on the role of citizens in the making of a constitution that affects them.

If, despite the millions of naira spent so far on efforts to amend the 1999 Constitution, the president came to the conclusion that a national conference was direly needed to have an inclusive approach to amending the constitution, then somebody needs to tell the nation exactly why we should continue to spend money on ongoing or what seems to be interminable amendment of the constitution and also embark at the same time on spending millions on a national conference towards creation of a people’s constitution.

It is too soon to give the impression that the national conference is part of the business as usual governance style that has bedeviled the country over the years. Common sense would indicate that two parallel exercises to amend or remake the 1999 Constitution should not be allowed. If the President believes that the ongoing amendments are adequate to keep the country sustainably united, he should quickly disband the presidential Advisory Committee on National Conference. If he seriously believes that a national dialogue is needed to achieve amendments that citizens can own, he should find ways to persuade the national assembly to give him a chance to do the national conference. What is not clear in the new rivalry between Ekweremadu’s position and that of President Jonathan with respect to the way to keep and grow Nigeria as a Union of Affection among the federating units is where both the president and the federal lawmakers locate the country’s sovereignty.

November 17, 2013
Federalism and taxation 2

Payment of tax by citizens has over the centuries cemented the social contract between government and the citizenry.

There are options for the reform of the tax system which could both finance increases in benefits and leave the tax system itself more progressive and more logical in structure. Furthermore, the transition to such a system could be one from which the overwhelming majority of the population would gain-John Halls in Changing Tax: how the system works and how to change it.

Just as we observed last week, the idea of the federal minister of finance on reforming the system of multiple taxation in the country is still more atmospheric than specific. But as we move closer to a position paper from her, it is necessary for the states to prepare themselves philosophically and strategically to address the issue of taxation in a federation, more so that taxation all over the world is a central political issue for citizens and their governments.

Among political conservatives who believe that the government should have little or no role in solving the problems of individual citizens, taxation is looked at with disdain. Similarly, in polities like Nigeria that thrive on the mentality of manna from nature as the source of public finance, tax may be considered a burden that the government should not be saddled with while it spends its energy to allocate funds from non-renewable resources that appear infinite to myopic individuals in charge of government. Correspondingly, many citizens in such societies with access to funds from non-renewable resource are generally opposed to tax, more so to progressive tax that they consider to diminish their savings. But among social democrats who think that the role of government is to facilitate the transformation of the government into a caring agency with concern for the welfare of citizens, taxation is crucial to the creation of a welfare state.

If there is any human creation that has helped to fuel development of democratic states in the last three centuries, it is the fact that citizens pay tax to fund government projects that improve the life of citizens: road, education, healthcare, and even social security for the needy. Payment of tax by citizens has over the centuries cemented the social contract between government and the citizenry. More than vote, tax makes it possible for citizens to own their governments, assist them to create socially beneficial benefits, and even provide funds to fight enemies, if and when they exist.

Given the claim that Nigeria is a federal republic and the recent announcement by President Jonathan that there is a need to have a national conference at which citizens dialogue on how to improve their federal system, it is important for those leading the debate on reforming the country’s system of multiple taxation to recognize that multiple tax systems is a sine qua non of federalism, be it territorial as in the case of the United States and the United Arab Emirates, or ethnic as in the case of Belgium and Ethiopia.

The first area to mark down for reform is Nigeria’s Indirect tax system. This area includes all forms of consumption tax: Sales Tax, Value Added Tax, Rates, Excise Duties, Car Tax, Stamp Duties, Driver’s License Tax, etc. At present, the federal government collects most of these taxes. The result of federalization of what should be a subnational tax is that states and local governments in which citizens consume such services and in the process add to the responsibility of the government of such states is that such states induce and collect consumption tax for other states to benefit from.

For example, when I was growing up in colonial Nigeria and even up to pre-military era, it was the subnational government that collected tax on car registration, issuance of driver’s license, and all rates. Even up till the time of General Sani Abacha, collection of sales tax in Lagos was a state responsibility. Replacing sales tax with VAT, the proceeds of which states send to the federal government for allocation to states in the fashion of revenue from petroleum should be the first area to reform in favour of states and local governments. There is no federal system in the world in which sales tax is collected by central governments, the way federal agencies now collect funds for driver’s license and vehicle registration.

It is fiscal federalist thinking that encourages true federations around the world to leave indirect taxes to subnational governments. It is subnational governments that provide infrastructure, education, and healthcare to most citizens in federal systems of government. Such governments need funds to provide such services to citizens making such contributions to governance. By paying tax, such citizens are also empowered, thus strengthening their voice in the way they are governed. At present, there are a few states that provide some form of social security for senior citizens while most of the country’s states do not consider such a policy important for their citizens. For example, Osun and Ekiti States provide monthly social security allowances for citizens over 65 years of age. Such states have services they need to fund from indirect taxes. If Lagos State had been allowed to exercise its rights in a federal system to collect Port charges, there would have been no basis for the state to be looking longingly for a special status for the state from the federal government.

By having a tax system that requires states to send revenue collected from indirect tax to the central government, the federal government carries to a ridiculous extent the weird philosophy of government imposed on the country by military autocracies in the name of national unity and even development. In order to mask the exploitation of petroleum producing states under military rule after changing the principle of derivation from 50% of revenue to zero and later to 13%, military dictators created the policy and decrees to centralize all forms of revenue, which they also created agencies to mobilize and allocate or distribute to states.

With respect to Direct Taxes, there is nothing in the books that prevents a system in which states collect all forms of direct taxes and send to the federal government whatever percentage is agreed upon for funding projects of central governments. Just as John Halls once said: “The argument that a local income tax would be ‘administratively impossible’ is hard to sustain when Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the United States of America already have one,” the central government will not lose anything but its unnecessary power to subordinate states that should have been coordinate with it, should all forms of income tax be collected by states with the option of sending some percentage of collected revenue to fund central government’s programmes. Taking this option will remove what the minister of finance refers to as multiple taxation. Until a few years ago, I worked at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and lived in the State of Maryland. I paid federal income tax, income tax to Oxford, the city that houses Lincoln University, and to the State of Maryland where I lived. This is a good illustration of diversity in a federal system. If this is what is called multiple taxation, it is the only way for different states to offer different levels of social services to its citizens in a federal system.

The issue that matters most to citizens is not the number of states to which a citizen pays taxes but the use to which such tax revenue is put by those in power, for as long as such tax is progressive. If Lagos State, for example, had not been able to tax individuals and citizens within the state in the last sixteen years, the state would have been uninhabitable by now, given the meagre funds allocated to it by the central government and the exodus of citizens that move to Lagos State from other parts of the country on a daily basis. What must not be missed in the debate about reform of our tax system is the need to insist on progressive taxation, to ensure equity and fair distribution of income. What must be avoided is any reform that takes the power to tax away from states that provide services to their citizens.

Concluded

November 10, 2013