For many credible voices in our nation, the answer to our unresolved national question is a return to our 1954 structure, negotiated by our founding fathers ‘to promote the unity of Nigeria and protect the interest of diverse elements that make up the country’, with some modifications to reflect current realities. The open endorsement of agitation by some restive groups for self-actualization and ‘less centralised, less suffocating and less dictatorial’ central government by Atiku Abubakar seems to have brought a new focus on an old issue. The former governor of Kaduna State and leader of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, has added his voice. According to him, ‘a return to regional arrangement, where each region can create states they can cater for, would certainly reduce injustice and inequality among the people’. Emeka Anyaoku, the former Commonwealth Secretary-General has also renewed his call for ‘a return to the regional structure practiced in the First Republic, with the country’s six regions forming the federating units’. For Gen Akinrinade, “anyone that wishes Nigeria well and wants our states to develop will join in the growing agitation to restructure the country”. And reacting to the opponents of restructuring who have consistently said ‘Nigeria unity is not negotiable’, Wole Soyinka, regarded by many as the conscience of the nation has said the basis of our association needed to be renegotiated if we are to prevent a disastrous disintegration. Agreeing with him, The Guardian in an editorial in its edition of June 26, submitted “The present structure has bred identity politics of ethnocentrism, undermined national unity and patriotism, institutionalised corruption, violation of the rule of law and a dehumanisation of the people – antinomies that have led to state-led violence and enduring separatist impulses on the part of many nationalities that make up the country”. But long before now, other patriotic Nigerians such as the late Pa Tony Enahoro, Pa Adekunle Ajasin, two of our founding fathers, as well as human right activists such as Alao Aka Bashorun and Beko Ransome-Kuti, engaged in a life long struggle for a restructured Nigeria.
While many concerned Nigerians agree with these patriots that Nigeria is just not working as presently constituted, the Nigerian military and their apologists who after destroying the inherited superstructure, imposed a unitary system, abridged the political socialization process, insisted on teaching Nigerians that started party system in 1923 how to form political parties, decimated the political class which was replaced with military- baked new breed politicians that bred nothing but corruption and wanted to maintain the status quo.
Beyond these self-delusions, the Nigerian military have other reason to sustain the status quo. Studies have now shown that like their counterparts elsewhere in West Africa, who joined the military to climb the social ladder, they harboured deep-rooted hatred for the dominant groups in society such as the politicians, the civil servants and intellectuals they saw as the source of their marginalisation.
In fact those first recruited by the British into what eventually became the Nigerian military from the north according to Ahmadu Bello ‘were slaves who ran away from their masters and labourers from the market places’. The status of a soldier was not better in the east. Professor Adekanye, quoting N. J. Miners called our attention to one Major Eze, who writing in the 1963 issue of old Nigerian army magazine after the Second World War said: ‘The army was a place for the illiterates and criminals whose duties were to kill and be generally brutal”. In the west, those who joined the military were considered rascals. Adekanye also told us the poor image of the military can be measured in terms of low remuneration; the army recruit was paid less than unskilled daily paid government labourer and the army members of the NCO earned less than their counterparts in the police.
Like their counterparts in West Africa such as Liberia where Sergeant Doe, after taking over power, lined up, shot and dragged 11 bodies of President Tubman’s associates on the streets only to get himself integrated into their Whig Party he had accused of corruption, Nigerian military also first murdered their benefactors, threw the political class into disarray, destroyed the bureaucracy and the university system ostensibly because of corruption but ended up paying themselves higher salaries, awarding salaries for life to their Generals while many retired into life of opulence as owners of banks, captains of industries and owners of oil wells after murdering benefactors they had accused of being ‘ten per centers’.
The new acquired status provided Obasanjo an opportunity to appoint the 49 wise men that drafted the 1979 constitution which traded our inherited parliamentary system for a presidential system that unlike the former allowed him to be crowned President even after his rejection by his people.
Babangida demonstrated his own complex by hilariously calling himself President after his palace coup, executed not because of his lofty vision for the nation but according to Buhari, to protect Gusau who was accused of corruption by the Buhari military junta. He humoured himself as the ‘Maradona’ of Nigerian politics, manipulated the political class, decreed two parties, institutionalized corruption through SAP, took the nation through eight years of fraudulent transition programme at the end of which he annulled the most credible election ever conducted in our nation won by his friend MKO Abiola.
Abacha reduced the political class to comedians. For his own fraudulent transition, his five decreed political parties described as ‘five fingers of a leprous finger’ by the late Bola Ige were falling over each other to adopt him as their presidential candidate until he was visited by death, the leveller.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar, using the same military tactics humbled the political class. The highly respected caustic mouth, Bola Ige who was credited with writing the PDP, APP and AD constitutions long after the military had decided to impose Obasanjo as President was no exception. He was tricked to lower his guard by Obasanjo’s patronizing “Bola Ige is the only Yoruba man I fear’ during the 1999 election he was programmed to win. His assassination as Attorney General of the federation inside his room remains unresolved.
And of course Obasanjo did not disappoint his military constituency. PDP party chieftains became ‘garrison commanders’. Leaderships of the party as well as those of the two legislative houses were routinely shuffled like cards. The highly compromised legislatures often resorted to military tactics to outwit party members each just as the current leadership did in June last year.
The nation cannot move forward with restructuring. The military and their fronts who become multi-billionaires in their late thirties, the senate where members who routinely pass resolutions to cover up alleged fraud, the lower house currently enmeshed in allegation of massive padding of the budget cannot be regarded as patriots that care about the future of our nation.
We are therefore left with President Buhari who had restructuring as part of his 2015 campaign manifesto. He was voted President because Nigerians trusted him. He must remain faithful to his contract with Nigerians. Once a victim of betrayal by his military colleagues, he should know wealthy retired Generals and their fronts who insists “Nigeria Unity is not negotiable’ do not have history on their side. With those who have served jail term for corruption and others facing corruption charges in court openly canvassing for votes, it must be clear by now to the President that his lasting legacy will not be fighting corruption but a restructured Nigeria that prevents a disastrous disintegration.
