The promise to “initiate action to amend the Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties, and responsibilities to States and local governments in order to entrench true federalism and the federal spirit” is number one bullet item on the highlights of APC manifesto. This shows the importance that the party attached to this issue.
The manifesto is the contract between the party and the voters who expect the party to fulfill its promise. However, since the party won the general elections across the nation, it has prevaricated over its declared commitment to devolution of power. Some party leaders have declared ignorance of the meaning of restructuring. And when they were reminded of the party’s position on devolution, which is an important element of restructuring, they replied that it was not a priority because Nigerians needed food on their tables. Apparently, APC leaders have not drawn a direct link between devolution of power and the economic and social welfare of Nigerians.
Yet, devolution is not an end in itself. Of course, some could insist on the right of self-determination as an end in itself and then argue that Nigeria is made up of different ethnic nationalities which need to be as self-determined as possible without jeopardising the integrity of the unity of the country. Devolution of power to states meets this condition.
For a good reason, the writers of the manifesto did not go that route. While the ideal of cultural and ethnic self-determination cannot be philosophically second-guessed, the politics of manifesto writing has a logic of its own. Self-determination can be alienating. No political party wants to endanger its electoral interest a politically suspicious language. Therefore, APC avoided that path. The closest it gets to a semblance of self-determination rationale is its linkage of devolution with true federalism and the federal spirit.
As it turned out, even “true federalism and the federal spirit” can be suspect to segments of the population worried about its impact on bread and butter issues. Writers of the manifesto and defenders of devolution and restructuring have a responsibility to reassure fellow citizens about the practical end of the path they advocate. This is a politically safe route that APC manifesto and, unfortunately, its leaders have not explored. The defeat of the constitutional amendment bill on devolution is an embarrassment for the ruling party. Now it must go back to the drawing board.
An argument that recognises devolution as means to the end of economic and social wellbeing and political stability is persuasive. Every ethnic nationality and every administrative state would like to advance the welfare of their people. Devolution of more powers from the centre to the states is a viable means to this end. But before we go further in this direction, we need to address the concern of those who plead ignorance of what devolution stands for.
Truly, there are multiple understandings of what restructuring is. For some, it means modified regionalism. For others, it is using the present zones as federating units. Yet, for some others, it is resource control. For others still, it means return to the parliamentary system of government. In view of the various conceptions of the notion, one cannot dismiss offhand those who plead ignorance of the meaning of restructuring. Advocates have a job to do.
However, if restructuring has multiple meanings for multiple advocates, this is not the case with devolution of power. No one can deny that APC leaders understood what devolution means when they adopted it in their manifesto. Indeed, devolution is the least common denominator for all advocates of restructuring. They all want more power to be assigned to federating units.
Devolution means the transfer of power from one entity to another. Family heads monitor their children’s development from infancy to adolescence. In their teenage years, they devolve some responsibilities to them, granting them allowances which they are expected to use responsibly for their needs. We appreciate the fact that they know best their needs while we monitor them.
Our founding fathers struggled for a federal constitution on one important ground. As peoples of diverse backgrounds and cultures, we have diverse interests which others may not share but which are not necessarily inimical to our union. Each can best promote those interests without the direction or intervention of the central government. On the other hand, there are common interests that bind us and for which the federal government is best placed to promote and advance. The former include our economic interests, educational interests, health interests, and customs and conventions. The latter include external defense, currency, and foreign affairs.
The compromise that the founding fathers reached was a federal constitution that gives many responsibilities to the regions. But this was not seen as an end in itself. They were convinced that with each focusing on those areas of economic and social life that it alone knows best, national interest would be advanced. It worked in the first republic.
Undeniably, due to human nature, healthy competition gave way to unhealthy rivalry. But the military misread the cause of the fall of the first republic and threw the baby of federalism out with the bath water of crude partisanship. The later was the culprit, not the former.
The nation advanced socio-economically in the first republic because power was devolved to the regions. Now the center has taken over many of the responsibilities that used to belong to the regions. In education, the federal military government took over state universities, including the University of Ife. It delved into primary education through the Universal Free Primary Education decree. It got into secondary education with the creation of unity schools. The federal government has continued to create more federal universities around the country despite the glaring evidence of inadequate facilities and financial support for the existing institutions.
What will devolution of power mean in the case of education? Based on the proven assumption that states know best the educational interests of their citizens, the federal government will shift the responsibility of educating citizens to each state of the federation. But since the federal government still controls the largest portion of the resources of the country, it will give block grants to states for the purpose of education. With appropriate guidelines from the federal government, the states will design and pursue their educational policies and use the federal grants for same. The Federal Ministry of Education will be the policy writing and monitoring authority on behalf of the federal government.
With regard to health, the federal government will devolve the responsibility for basic health centers to the states. This is long overdue. There have been reports of basic health centers overgrown with weeds and serving as refuge for reptiles in the remote areas of the country. This is what can be expected from an overreaching and overbearing state. Devolution of power and responsibility in respect of health means that state governments will take better care of their citizens with block grants for health from the federal government.
Employment creation and poverty alleviation programmes have been implemented with limited success because they have not paid attention to the importance of local buy-in. Political parties controlling the center have always seen such programmes as political hand-out for supporters. In sane environments, such programmes will go to needy citizens. It would not matter which political party controls a state, every state will receive its block grant for the purpose of benefitting its citizens while the federal grant-making agencies provide the guidelines.
In short, devolution of powers is not necessarily resource control because in the model that I have advanced here, the federal government still controls the purse-string. If we are really serious about righting the wrong of a lopsided federal bureaucracy, devolution is the least that the APC ruling party can adopt right away while we clarify the meaning and requirements of full restructuring. I would have thought that it was because of its simplicity and limited political danger that the party adopted devolution in the beginning. That it still generated so much resistance that the North voted as a block against it is a failure of leadership.
