By Emmanuel Oladesu
The North is roaring like a lion. But, it is not seeking to actually devour the South, which has nevertheless become vulnerable, judging by the defective federal constitution that is stifling its growth.
The ‘born-to-rule’ North is just trying to defend its interests, and indeed, its multiple gains in a lopsided federation.
The South is helpless, or so it seems, although it is richly endowed. Lamentably, it is politically disadvantaged. Democracy is a game of numbers. The focus of the South is qualitative population, which predisposes it to having small family size through birth control method, unlike the North which relishes the steady quantitative population growth and numerical strength that confers a predictable advantage on poll day.
The South is also a victim of structural injustice. Successive military administrations headed by Northerners were responsible for the skewed state and local government distribution. Thus, while Kano and Jigawa states have over 70 local governments, Lagos State only has 20 constitutionally recognised councils. The councils are fed from the federal purse, the bulk of the money coming from the oil-producing South.
However, the South also lacks strategy, cohesion and oneness. While the North is conveying an impression of regional unity by flaunting the profile of an imaginary monolith North, the South is in disarray, battling with dichotomy among the Southwest, Southeast and Southsouth.
While the three regions in the North always manage to close ranks in the face of real or imagined threats, the three regions in the South are like a House of Babel.
While the North assembled its leading lights, including monarchs, governors, ministers, legislators and intellectuals, to bark at the South at its recent Kaduna meeting, the disunited South, which perceived the interest articulation as a bite, returned the salvos in a communique issued at the end of their emergency meeting without the explicit backing of the divided Southern political class.
There is no political headquarter that is common to the South. Therefore, selected Southern leaders and some Middle Belt friends, converged on Abuja, where they sent some futile verbal missiles to their Northern counterparts. It was doubtful if the self-acclaimed leaders of the South went to the meeting, following consultations with elected and appointed public officials from the South. Therefore, ministers, governors, monarchs, legislators and prominent politicians from the South were not aware of the Abuja counter-meeting. They only read the highlights of the communique on the pages of newspapers.
The ‘power conscious and highly protective North’ is guiding its hold on power jealously. In the process, it came up with a subjective interpretation of the recent developments in the polarised country as an attempt to seize power from the region.
This perception underscores the misinterpretation of the powerful position of the president and the reduction of federal power to a regional property or heritage.
It appears the Northwest, Northeast and Northcentral, which is also made up of Yoruba Northerners, are on on the same page on the quest for power and retention of control.
But, the South is packaging an artificial response to the semblance of threat, amid suspicion between the Southwest and Southeast, which are locked in friction and suspicion over which zone in the South should be the beneficiary of presidential zoning in 2023, if, as it is often said, the Hausa/Fulani decides to reluctantly concede power to the South.
The two bloc regions-larger North and larger South-are trading blames over the recent EndSARS protests. There is a deep gulf between the North and the South, akin to the developmental gap between the the two big regions. Their views are not identical on the national question or any issue. Thus, their differences also made them to canvass different solutions to the burning issue of police brutality, based on their peculiarities, interests and aspirations.
To the North, the peaceful protests were hijacked by some elements pushing for division and regime change. Northern Governors Forum Chairman Simon Lalong, governor of Plateau State, who read the communique of the Kaduna meeting, said the North would resist the attempts to deprive it of power. The message was clear. A perceived affront against the president is an affront against the North and not the South, a section of which also voted for him in 2015 and 2019.
A former House of Representatives member also propounded a strange and inexplicable theory of federalism, which negated resource control, claiming that the Federal Government is the owner of all natural endowments, irrespective of where they are deposited by God.
These arguments by the North have some implications. The North is viewing the presidency through a regional lense, although the South wants to see Muhammadu Buhari as president of all Nigeria. By trying to view any threat to the presidency, as it were, as a threat to the North, and not the entire country, the North has inadvertently proved the allegation of nepotism against Muhammadu Buhari by certain Southern elements.
This has increasingly fueled the nasty feeling that whenever a Northerner is the chief occupant of Aso Villa, he cannot be a symbol of national unity. This should not be so in a plural society battling with the crises of identity and integration. The presidency should be the jointly owned, both in word and deed. The presidency should be perceived as a national property, and not a regional asset.
More worrisome is the twisting of the federal principle. If some Northern elements who see justification in the selling of natural resources from Zamfara to the Federal Government turn around to oppose the agitation for resource control by oil-producing states in the South, it is nothing short of distortion of the principle of equity and justice. This smacks of mismanagement of the distributive crisis, which, as analysts have repeatedly warned, will backfire one day.
The differences in perception by the North and South makes federalism, or true federalism, more compelling, if Nigeria is to survive as a nation-state. It is better to embrace this reality in the national interest. The future of the country may depend on the triumph of federalism over the current jaundiced unitary structure and over concentration of control in the power-loaded centre.
The North is at liberty to project and fight for its interests within the federation. The North wants the retention of the dreadful Special Anti-Robbery Squard(SARS), which the South had accused of brutality. It may therefore, mean that SARS was not harmful to the North.
The reason may not be far-fetched. The security challenge in the North is different from the security problem confronting the South. In the North is the Boko Haram sect, which has wrecked much havoc on the region. The insurgents have limited their activities to the North, particularly the Northeast. Banditry and cattle rustling are also giving the North a lot of concern.
But, in the South are internet fraudsters, Yahoo Yahoo boys, who have also not expanded their coast to the North. In the South are armed robbers and criminal elements who kidnap for ransom, and others who indulge in blood-sucking rituals.
The solution cannot be the same. The puzzle is that while a zone in the larger South, the Southwest, came up with the idea of Amotekun, some Northern elements cried foul and made attempts to frustrate the initiative, although some versions of the outfit exist in the North. To them, Amotekun, which was initially proposed as a regional security outfit, amounted to state police through the back door.
The foregoing reinforces the reality of a fragile federal country. Nigeria is not a nation, but an amalgam of diverse tribes lumped together by the colonial interlopers. Six decades after its independence, its centralised leadership has not become a rallying point and unifying factor as it perpetually mirrors ethnic aspirations and sectional interests, thereby fuelling the persistent division and tension.
The North is different from the South in many ways, particularly in terms of cultural history and aspirations. The cleverages and peculiarities mean that, if the North and the South are to cohabit, there is need to mutually evolve the terms and conditions for peaceful co-existence. If the current unitary arrangement is discarded and federalism is restored, the component units will creatively muster the strength to develop according to their pace. There will be no uniformity, but healthy competition, unity and peace.
There is no convincing evidence to show that the South and the North would be comfortable with disintegration, or dissolution of the unworkable union. Nigeria has the potentials of emerging as a great federal country, a big market with many economic benefits, and a model for Africa in unity in diversity.
However, while the South is canvassing its redesign, reconfiguration or restructuring to make it workable, there is an overwhelming evidence of resistance to this inevitable solution by some influential Northern leaders.
The major bone of contention and source of tension in Nigeria are the antagonistic positions of the two bloc regions on the way forward. The push for devolution of power by the South is being undermined by the fear of restructuring by the North. The fear should be allayed. Both bloc regions have to meet at the table of brotherhood for dialogue and reassurance that will herald mutual understanding.
The strategic resistance to restructuring has fueled the insinuation that the North is pushing for the sustenance of the status quo as the exclusive beneficiary of the power-loaded presidency that is unwilling to shed its weight of Exclusive and Concurrent Powers.
As the National Assembly is set to review the constitution, these imperatives should be considered. A comprehensive devolution or decentralisation may not be easily attainable. The amendment can be pursued gradually, steadily and progressively, taking one item after the other.
If the outcome of the proposed constitution review does not put Nigeria on the path of ‘true federalism,’ the exercise will be a waste of time, money, effort and expectation-a grand total of zero.
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