As the National Conference is now taking off in Abuja, I consider it appropriate to repeat some things that I recently wrote in this column. Nigeria could soon break up – if anybody thinks otherwise, as things stand today, he is deceiving himself. Anybody who is conversant with the strong feelings of most Nigerian peoples can easily see it.
But I believe that Nigeria can be saved – that Nigeria can survive, and go on from there to prosper in the world. The country called India offers us a very useful lesson. If we learn that lesson and use it, we can save our country. This is the historic task facing the National Conference as it sits in Abuja.
India was, like Nigeria, created by the British. It was the largest British protectorate in Asia – in the same way that Nigeria was the largest British protectorate in Africa. Both Nigeria and India contain very many nationalities (otherwise known as “linguistic nations” in India) – Nigeria contains nearly 300 nationalities, India about 2000. At the independence of India in 1947, India was a “federation” designed by the British overlords. The British had created the Indian Federation merely for “administrative convenience”; the states or federating units of the federation were arbitrary blocks of territories based on administrative convenience – without any deference to the nationalities. The nationalities were grouped or split irrationally.
Like the India of 1947, the Nigeria of 1960 (at independence) was also a federation designed by the British for administrative convenience – without deference to the nationalities. The nationalities were grouped arbitrarily into three regions, and some nationalities were split up along the boundaries of the three regions. When many nationalities cried out against this irrational treatment, the British rulers answered that they were not willing to change anything – and that Nigerians themselves could tackle the problem after independence. Since independence in 1960, the Nigerians (civilian politicians and military dictators) who have controlled the powers of the federal government, have just followed the example of the British – by creating states for administrative and ulterior political considerations, and by irrationally grouping and splitting our nationalities. Therefore, the Nigerian federation of 2014 is, unfortunately, still almost exactly like the Indian federation of 1947.
Worse still, as Nigerian rulers have created smaller, weaker and poorer states, they have reasoned that these states are too weak to hold much power or responsibility, and they have consequently grabbed all power, all resources, and all resource control in our country, and heaped everything in the hands of the federal government. The federal government has therefore become a sick and unrestrained monster, mud-swimming insanely in limitless power and money, barging into everything and anything according to its whims and caprices, dragging all efficiency down, generating corruption, distorting electoral and judicial processes all over our country, and breeding hideous poverty. With the poverty grew crimes, insecurity, various species of conflicts, and now, terrorism. Today, most Nigerians have had enough – and Nigeria is about to implode.
Parts of India (the far northern provinces which became Pakistan and Bangladesh) broke away soon after 1947. After that, the rest of India continued to shake; many nationalities wanted to break away. Today, Nigeria is shaking, and many nationalities want to break away. But Indians took action and saved their country. We Nigerians can save Nigeria too – simply by doing what the Indians did.
Here is what the Indians did. Many Indians began to advocate that their federation should be restructured in such a way as to show respect to the nationalities, and make the nationalities happy to be members of the Indian federation. Most of the biggest politicians opposed this, claiming that it would only lead to the breaking up of the country. The Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, threatened that if it was adopted he would resign. But the proposal grew more and more popular, more and more intense. Finally, by 1953, the country accepted it. Nehru and other powerful politicians humbly bowed to the will of the majority. A National Commission was set up to look into the matter and to advise the country.
The Commission recommended the following: First, that the nationalities and their different cultures should be respected, and that no nationality should be split by any boundary in the federation. Secondly that the larger nationalities should each form a state. Third, that the small and contiguous nationalities in various parts of India should negotiate among them and form states (no nationality was to be pushed into any state; the nationalities that agreed to form a state would negotiate the constitution of their state). Fourth, that a lot of powers should be devolved to the states from the federal government, to make the states strong, and that, in revenue allocation, the states should receive much more than the federal government.
The process of devolution resulted in the following list of powers for the states: public order; police; education; local government; roads and transport; agriculture; land and land revenue; forests; fisheries; industry and trade; state public service commissions; and courts (except the Supreme Court of India). It also laid down another list on which the states and the centre would both have power to make laws – namely, criminal laws and their administration; economic and social planning; commercial and industrial monopolies; shipping and navigation on the inland waterways; drugs; ports; courts and civil procedures. The federal (or union) government was given powers over such subjects as defence, foreign policy, inter-state commerce, the Supreme Court, etc. In revenue allocation, the states were given a percentage much larger than that of the Federal Government. Today, it is 85% for the states and 15% for the federal government.
An Indian scholar and statesman, Dr. S.D. Muni, has described the effects of this careful restructuring as follows: “The elaborate structure of power devolution has combined with the linguistic basis of federal unity to facilitate the management of cultural diversity in India and to help mitigate pulls towards separatism and disintegration”. Muni adds that both at the federal and state levels, Indians are dedicated to “a consciously followed approach to preserve and promote the cultural specificities of diverse groups”, and that that “has helped such groups identify with the national mainstream”. Finally, the health of the whole structure has been greatly helped by the fact that Indians have consciously remained loyal to the integrity of their democratic institutions and to democratic politics.
That is it. Surely we Nigerians are able to take these same steps and save our country. The National Conferenceshould restructure our federation along the same lines. We should also establish effective measures for upholding democratic politics in our country, the integrity of our elections and courts, and the handling of our public accounts. These steps will surely benefit our country, our states, our nationalities, our institutions, and all of us Nigerians. They cannot conceivably hurt any Nigerian nationality or group. Therefore, hopefully, no Nigerian nationality or group will, at the National Conference, put up a resistance to them. I fear that if any nationality or group resists these measures at the National Conference, Nigeria might quickly evaporate on the spot. We must all join hands to prevent that.
