Responding to the comments by a former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Alexander Ogomudia (retd.), to the effect that “Nigeria may be restructured violently”, presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu last Sunday reminded him and other apostles of restructuring that as “a constitutional democracy, changes to the country in structure, its systems, policy and politics must abide by the norms of democracy”.
Garba Shehu’s restatement of the obvious should ordinarily not raise any storm. However because of his past unrestrained comments on sensitive and sometimes divisive issues such as the killing of our compatriots by cross-border immigrant herdsmen, equating of Miyetti Allah cattle breeders association with ethnic national groups such Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and Pan-Niger Delta Forum, and his misleading comments on the controversial RUGA government programme, Shehu has left many with the impression he is serving other tendencies in the presidency instead of representing the public face of the president. His latest attack on Ogomudia seem to further confirm the fears of those who believe he is in the presidency as representative of those tendencies that view democracy not as a process that places high premium on leaders’ accountability, citizen participation and an open society with a just and equitable social order, but as a method of decision making by those who have gained power through a competitive electoral contest only to hold Nigeria to ransom.
Democracy, rather than serve as a tool for creating a more egalitarian society for Nigerians, has been used by those who fraudulently swear by the name of those on whose back they rode to power only to end up waging war against them and other Nigerians.
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During the 1959 election, Action Group’s flags were banned in the north with its UMBC/AG alliance members imprisoned. This was done in the name of democracy. When in 1962, the tendency imposed their stooge on the West in other to pave the way for the take-over of the region, it was carried out in the name of democracy.
By 1952 census, Yoruba constituted 76.4% of the population of Western Region, Igbo 64.5% and Hausa/Fulani 54% of their respective regions. But in 1963, the later created Mid-West which is only 23.6% of the population of the West and kept silent on the on 36% and 46% minorities in their respective regions that had at different times in their quest for self- realization engaged in insurrection suppressed only by federal military might. The tendency insisted it was democracy at play.
In 1963, tendency fought a war of attrition dragging themselves to the Supreme Court over the disputed 1962/62 census figures. Both in the name of democracy sought the support of the military over the constitutional crisis that followed the disputed 1964 elections and by their error of judgment dragged the military into politics with dire consequences for the health of the nation.
The response of a faction of the tendency that had since 1953 insisted their association with Nigeria must be predicated on Nigeria they could control to Ironsi’s Unitary Decree 34 of 1966, widely believed to have been drafted by Dr. Nwabueze was the symbolic change from unitarism to federalism, in name but not in content. Even as they plunged the nation to a civil war, both had insisted the motive was not greed for power but love for democracy.
Babangida who hilariously called himself president after a palace coup took the nation through eight years of ‘transition without end’, destroying in the process, our political socialization, and annulling the most credible election in our nation’s history purportedly on behalf of this democracy loving tendency. And it was for the same love of democracy, General Abacha, the maximum ruler decreed five parties described by late Bola Ige as ‘five fingers of a leprous hand ‘with all of them nominating him as their presidential candidate.
From 1993 to 1998, successive military regimes ensured more states and more LGAs were created for the north. The current constitution, federal in name but unitary in content with 68 items on the exclusive list, 52 on the concurrent list and none in residual list, signed in to law in 1999 by General Abdulsalami reflects the tendency’s view of how Nigeria should be run .
In 1999, the tendency conceded leadership of the country to the Yoruba to assuage their raw feelings over the death of their son, MKO Abiola who died in detention for winning an election. But they arrogantly insisted on picking for Yoruba nation, Obasanjo who went on to literarily climb the palm tree from the top by winning a presidential election despite having been roundly rejected by the Yoruba nation even in his ward. Again we were told it was democracy at play.
Between 1999 and 2019, all efforts at amending the imperfect document which allows resources of state to be seized by the centre and distributed without objective criteria among indolent 36 states and 774 LGAs, an arrangement which according to General Akinrinade “cannot lift us all up, let alone one part at the expense of the other” has been resisted by the tendency.
The 2014 Confab report with its modest achievement on devolution of power was rejected by the tendency according to Bashiru Dalhatu, who was a Minister of Power and Steel in the Sani Abacha government, because “The 2014 national conference had 492 members and the north which constitutes about 70 per cent of the country’s landmass and 55 per cent of its population was allocated 189 delegates while the south with only 30 per cent of the landmass and 45 per cent of its population was given an incredible 305 delegates.” The NDF therefore “called upon any group of sponsors or individuals agitating for any form of restructuring of the federation, first and foremost, to respect the existing constitutional order and to seek to do so within the bounds and parameters stipulated under our constitution and law. To suggest otherwise would lead to chaos and anarchy,” It said.
The rhyme between above Bashiru Dalhatu’s mindset and Shehu Garba’s “mindsets and entities rooted in the idea of violence as a means to change” and “such individuals, groups and entities peddling ideologies of violence and hate” is unmistakable.
In July 2017, Senate President Bukola Saraki of the 8th Senate speaking on the defeat of the devolution bill at the senate had said. “I think what happened was that a lot of our colleagues misread, misunderstood or were suspicious of what the devolution of powers to states was all about; whether it was the same thing as restructuring in another way or an attempt to foist confederation on the country”.
With the baleful legacy of the National Assembly in constitutional amendments between 1999 and 2019, it is difficult to fault the argument of those who claim Shehu Garba’s campaign for “healthy dialogue through popular platforms including elected parliaments” is on behalf of the same tendencies that have used their numerical strength to frustrate constitutional amendment since the beginning of the fourth republic. In the same vein, one cannot also fault those who read mischief to Garba’s reference to” mindsets and entities rooted in the idea of violence as a means to change” and “such individuals, groups and entities peddling ideologies of violence and hate” on the basis of Ogomudia’s timely warning to those tendencies that relish listening to only themselves.
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