Twenty years after annulment of the presidential election of June 12, 1993 and the struggle for democratization that raged for four years against the dictatorship of Sani Abacha, the country has not made substantial progress in terms of responding to demands for democracy of and for nationalities in the country. But in terms of electoral democracy, the country has made some strides in the direction of de-militarization of the polity. Beyond conducting elections at intervals and electing officers to conduct the business of government at the federal and state levels, one crucial element of the struggle against military rule has been left unattended: the demand for restructuring of the polity.
Since the coming of civil rule in 1999, there have been media and political debates on the topic of re-structuring without sincere efforts to really address the problem with the hope of solving it. In the fashion of the proverbial Nigeria factor, debates on the issue of re-federalizing the country have been so cacophonous and suggestive of efforts to debate in order to prevent proper debate and deliberation. The process started with General Olusegun Obasanjo. During his first term, he referred to those asking for sovereign national conference as individuals that wanted the country to break. In his second term, he organized what he called Political Reform Conference. At the end of the conference, nothing substantial was achieved. This again induced fresh calls for people’s constitution.
President Umaru Yar’Adua did not have time to worry about addressing calls for restructuring, if he at all paid attention to them. But he succeeded in setting up a police reforms committee. The committee recommended that the central police system should be funded from the federation account, without giving any space of authority to the states which along with the central government own the federation account. As one area considered by federalists to be crucial to restructuring, those calling for a people’s constitution came back to the podium to drum up their demands.
Then President Goodluck Jonathan emerged. He too was quick to pontificate that Nigeria’s current constitution has no serious problem and that the structure of the polity is in order. Shortly after saying that, he formed a special committee to look at the 1999 Constitution and make recommendations on how to improve the country’s union charter. Knowing that the recommendations of the Belgore Committee did not address the issues raised by committed federalists about the current constitution, citizens continued to make the same demands that include calls for a people’s constitution to be determined at a sovereign national conference or a constitutional conference.
On its own part, the National Assembly expressed readiness to amend the constitution. Over sanguine federalists took this to mean that federal lawmakers would make recommendations to make the current constitution more federal. The process has been on for almost two years without any promise about when it will end. But from information released by lawmakers, the constitution, after amendment, is more likely to look more unitary, as we observed in this column last week. The purpose of the short historical journey since 1999 is to inform our readers about the failure of the country’s post-military political class to embark on de-militarizing and re-federalizing the polity. All efforts to make civilian rulers realize that continuing to govern the country with a constitution and a governance architecture that have no input from citizens is dangerous have not led to proper deliberation, even though they have generated a lot of noise.
Efforts by federal legislators to amend the constitution notwithstanding, two types of discourse have emerged and have been raging for the past one year: Unity discourse and Diversity discourse. Those who control the unity discourse insist that the current constitution is perfect. To them, what is wrong with the constitution is the quality of those who use or supervise the use of the charter. The core of the unity discourse is that if Nigeria is able to get good leaders, all its problems regarding managing its diversity optimally would be over. This school of thought also affirms that devolving more powers to the states is capable of causing disintegration of the country and that recognizing the county’s nationalities in the constitution as Ethiopia has done successfully is capable of breaking Nigeria. Centralists are quick to affirm that should Nigerians insist on electing a man or woman of higher quality than we have had since independence, constitutional problems that militate against peace and progress will disappear. In other words, the problem is lack of benevolent leadership.
But Diversity discourse focuses on the role of cultural plurality in the politics and economy of a multiethnic state. They ask for constitutional intervention in the management of the country’s diversity. Leaders calling for recognition of diversity insist that culture has a significant role in political and economic development and that cultural differences in the country are not likely to disappear and are also not injurious to the country’s unity, if well managed. Federalists insist that Nigeria may have bad luck that prevents it from having good and benevolent leaders, especially at the federal level. But they affirm that lack of benevolent leadership is not as impactful as lack of benevolent governance structure and institutions. They argue that many countries that have similar multiethnic character have created peace for the purpose of progress by adopting federal arrangements: Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Ethiopia, Spain, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America, to name a few. Some federalists are even saying that the problems of Boko Haram partially result from failure to address the national question in the design of the country’s governance structure. In short, federalists believe that the problem of the country is not one of benevolent leadership versus benevolent structure; rather it is a combination of both. They also think that a humanist approach to governance suggests that it is easier to work at benevolent structure than to create benevolent leadership. Political systems are not about creating personalities that can create political miracles; they are about creating institutions that are conducive to enriching the performance of average political leaders in office.
The challenge as we begin the third decade after June 12 must continue to include wishing the heroes who died while struggling for democracy in the country: MKO Abiola, Alfred Rewane, Kudirat Abiola, and many others to rest in perfect peace. It must also include finding ways to elevate the discourse of federalism that is almost being drowned by the thinking that says an imposed constitution is not as much of a problem as finding supermen to rule Nigeria.
