Former Military President Ibrahim Babangida has lent his voice to the clamour for restructuring and devolution of powers. Group Political Editor Emmanuel Oladesu examines the agitation for the restoration of ‘true’ federalism by stakeholders.
This, indeed, is a moment of truth. Former Military President. Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, is repenting from the ‘sin’ of unitarism. At the twilight of his life, the General is embracing reality. Having perceived the solution to the national question from the prism of his illustrious military career for almost six decades, he has now made a U-turn. The survival of Nigeria as an indivisible entity cannot be decreed. Since the nation-state is on edge, only restructuring, in Babangida’s view, can stem the tide of collapse or disintegration.
Babangida said in a statement yesterday that Nigeria is ripe for the review of the existing structure. The amalgamated country hijacked by the military from legitimate civilian authorities, barely six years after independence, and redesigned to conform with the centralist vision of military interlopers, who lorded it over the nation for 28 years (1966-1979 and 1984-1999), is writhing in pains.
His views trail the pro-National Conference agitators and other politicians laundering their image on the borrowed platform of restructuring, ahead of future elections. The gap-toothed General, fondly call ‘Evil Genius’, surprised all when he lent his voice to the clamour for the devolution of more powers to states. He said Nigeria was also ripe for state police, stressing that policing is now a sophisticated enterprise. The immediate effect of the renewed agitations for the redesign or reconfiguration of the Lugard edifice is that the clamour has the potentials of temporarily dousing national tension.
Gen. Babangida felt the heat of a brewing crisis in his Hilltop Mansion in Minna, capital of Niger State. Some youths from the Northern Region had issued a quit notice to Igbo living in the vast territory, in reaction to the succession threat by restless Biafran irredentist from the Southeast. It was reminiscent of the 1966 logjam, which was aggravated by the avoidable pogrom. The implication of an impending disaster was not lost on him. Both federal and rebel forces bore the brunt of the needless three-year old civil war, which ravaged the defunct Eastern State. Personally, the General has a sad tale to tell because he is still nursing the wound he sustained on the war front. Having fought to keep Nigeria together between 1967 and 1970, he reasoned that another civil war should be prevented because no country fights civil war twice and survives it.
It is now evident to the former Commander-in-Chief that the answer lies in what has been evaded for 51 years. If the military foisted a unitary system, thereby paving the way for a lopsided federalism since 1966, the beleaguered country can still retrace its step from perdition by making a concrete effort to redress the ‘unitary injustice’ in 2017.
Gen. Babangida is one of the leaders whose atrocities have contributed to the growing mutual suspicion. His behaviour in power; his high handedness, survivalist approach and unfulfilled promises fueled the crisis of nationhood. His eight-year tenure in power paled into a disaster. Apart from silencing democracy, the military ruler presided over the liquidation of the federal principle. During the military rule, there were identity and distribution crises that the Supreme Military Council (SMC), the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) and the Provisional Military Council (PRC) could not resolve. Fundamental freedom and liberty were on holiday. The soldiers of fortune were not accountable to the people. When states were created, its lopsided distribution was worrisome. The bitterness was aggravated by the consequential creation of local government areas. While Kano and Jigawa states have almost 71 local governments, Lagos has 20 pre-existing councils.
In 1988, Babangida set up a Constituent Assembly to make a constitution for the Third Republic. It paled into an exercise in futility. He converted the country into a laboratory for political experiment. The outcome of the experimentation was the annulment of the historic June 12, 1993 presidential election, believed to have been won by the late Chief Moshood Abiola of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP). Gen. Babangida should be reminded that calls for restructuring by Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, and the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) filled the air, following his perceived reluctance to hand over to the president-elect. The June 12 injustice became the tonic for the agitation for equity, fairness and justice by other geo-political zones, which protested the domination of the country by some Northern cabals.
Had IBB handed over power to the late Abiola, perhaps, the situation would have been different. The Interim National Government (ING) that succeeded him was shoved aside by his ally, the late Gen. Sani Abacha, who despite setting up the 1999 Conference, tightened his hold on the country and ruled the pseudo-federal country like a Lord of Manor. His successor, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, was in a hurry to hand over with justification. He committed the error of foisting on the country the 1999 Constitution, which has remained an undemocratic document. Not only did the constitution lied against itself, it also lied against Nigerians. Its preface reads: “We the people…” Nigerians did not have opportunity to make an input into its preparation. Since 1999, some efforts have been made to revisit the constitution. A panel was set up by the Obasanjo administration to look at the document and make some recommendations. It did not see the light of the day. In 2004, Obasanjo also set up the National Political Reform Conference in Abuja. Its report was sacrificed on the altar of the third term. When delegates were brainstorming in Abuja, a miracle happened. Throughout the tenure of the Abuja Conference, the tension was doused. There was peace in Nigeria.
In 2014, former President Goodluck Jonathan set up another National Conference in Abuja. A report was submitted to him. He refused to act on it, promising to do so, if re-elected. Although prominent leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have called for restructuring and devolution of power in the past, there is no sign that the APC-led Federal Government has demonstrated any commitment to the resolution of the national question.
The clamour for restructuring has often been ignored. It appears that Nigerian leaders are only eager to act when there is a threat of succession. The first time was in 1953, when Northern delegates to the pre-independence Constitutional Conference in Lagos and members of the Northern Regional House of Assembly asked for secession from the rest of the country. The agenda was borne out of frustration and disillusionment. An Action Group (AG) member of the Federal Parliament, the late Chief Antony Enahoro, had moved a motion for independence. In their view, the North was not ripe for independence because of the obvious educational and economic gap between it and the seemingly more prosperous South, especially the educationally-advanced West. The delegates were booed and jeered at in Lagos as they headed for the railway terminal to board the train, after rejecting the independence motion. The delegates later called for a loosed federation.
The second threat came during the civil war, which was foisted on the country by the competition for power by the military class. In fact, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, a highly-educated tactician, tricked the Nigerian delegation led by Gen Yakubu Gowon to the Ghana Peace Meeting brokered by Gen. Ankrah, to accede to his clever demand for balkanisation. On returning home, Ojukwu and his men retorted: “On Aburi we stand.” The Vice Chairman of the Federal Executive Council and Federal Commissioner for Finance, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, said, if the East was allowed to secede, the West would have been motivated to follow suit. For three years, Nigeria was up in arms against itself, until the secessionists surrendered on the battle front.
The third attempt also came during the military rule. A coup plotter, Major Gideon Okar, during a failed coup, announced that eight states have ceased to be part of the federation. He said they should come and negotiate with the new government, which never came into existence. Lamentably, Gen. Babangida, who survived the coup, failed to reposition the country in a manner that will give a sense of belonging to the diverse ethnic nationalities.
Since 1999, Nigerian leaders have carried on with the optimism that the national unity is non-negotiable. But, critical minds and foreign observers have thought otherwise. Few years back, a foreign body aroused Nigerians to the reality that the country stood the risk of a break-up. The warning was dismissed with a wave of the hand. Also, in 2009, the former American Secretary of State, Senator Hillary Clinton, warned that Nigeria may become a failed state. There have been persistent struggle for self-determination by ethnic organisations, which thought that loyalty to a central government that cannot defend the interests of component units was illusory. Mrs. Clinton observed that bad governance may aggravate the discontent. She said: “The most immediate source of disconnect between Nigeria’s wealth and its poverty is a failure of governance at the federal, state and local levels. Lack of transparency and accountability has eroded the legitimacy of government and contributed to the rise of groups protesting the injustice and challenging the authorities of the state.”
In 1994, an eminent scholar, Prof. Adebayo Williams, warned that Nigerian federalism had become a compelling and comprehensive failure. He alluded to frightening memoranda and manuals for disintegration flying all over the place. In his view, there was also the failure of leadership. Williams said: “What we are witnessing is a man-made disaster of epic proportions. The Nigerian State has, so far, become a compelling and comprehensive failure.”
Many have attributed the long journey to a difficult future to the mistake of 1914. The foundational error by the first colonial governor, Lord Fredrick Lugard, who forcefully lumped the different tribes together without mutual agreement, may have become Nigeria’s albatross.
Frictions and tensions among the ethnic groups are recurrent phenomenon, right from the pre-colonial days. As ethnic tensions degenerate into ethno-religious crises, which have undermined national unity, cohesion and security, leaders, who adorn primordial lenses, are eager to politicise the core issues germane to the solution. The Presidency is not a unifying factor.
In the opinion of a political scientist, Boniface Ayodele, it is perceived as a rotational commodity. He added that any region that does not produce the President at a time cannot have confidence in the power base. Nigerians see themselves, first as indigenes of their tribes, sub-tribes and ethnic nations. There is no sense of attachment and belonging outside your region of origin. A President is perceived as the Northern President, Southwest President and Southsouth President. There is loyalty to the regions, and not the centre.
Ayodele, who teaches at the Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, pointed out that anger and disillusionment ooze from the feeling of domination; real or imagined; neglect and inequality. “Perhaps, no ethnic group has been insulated from the pervading fear of marginalisation, a singular development that has fueled unrestrained calls for confederation, restructuring of the much criticised lopsided federalism and outright secession,” he added.
In the past, many stakeholders argued that Nigeria could overcome ethnic tensions by evolving a virile federation by breaking the country into smaller units for easy administration. State creation was designed to loosen the tribal bonds and chains. However, the exercise was conducted by partial, partisan and distant military rulers, who imposed a unitary system, which ironically alienated the newly created states and systematically encouraged further regression to tribal enclaves. In fact, the civilian regimes inherited the unitary posture, which has hindered the growth of federalism.
Besides, in some states like Kwara, Kogi, Benue and Adamawa, different tribes with different identities were lumped together. The states and local government areas are not also evenly distributed between the North and the South by the military.
According to experts, the unresolved national question revolves around the core crises of development, including identity, legitimacy, participation, and distribution. The burning issues arising from these unresolved challenges include citizenship and indigeneship and residency, the secularity of the state, state and community policing, the revenue allocation, the rotation or zoning of presidential power, local government administration, land ownership and corruption.
Dismissing the 1999 Constitution as a ruse, Chief Niyi Akintola (SAN), described it as a rebellion to true federalism. Citing two defects of the constitution, he said it is wrong for the Federal Government to have input into the creation of local government, adding that it is also wrong for the governors, who are the chief security officers in their states, to rely on the Abuja-based Inspector-General of Police for maintenance of law and order.
But, will the Buhari administration heed the call for restructuring?
