The Senate has incurred the wrath of Nigerians for rejecting the bill on devolution of powers. Assistant Editor LEKE SALAUDEEN examines the implications of the Senate’s decision on good governance.
The clamour for restructuring has suffered a major setback in the Senate, as the bill on devolution of powers was thrown out. If it had been passed, the bill would have moved some items from the bloated Exclusive List in the 1999 Constitution to the Concurrent List, which would have given more powers to the states.
The Senate’s decision took many Nigerians by surprise, because they considered the bill as a short-cut to restructuring, which has remained on the front-burner of national discourse. Analysts believe the Senate took the decision in bad faith. They say the senators have lost touch with their constituents, because the rejection of the bill was out of tune with the mood and popular demand of the people they claim to represent.
Devolution of powers is to address the allocation of functions between the state and the Federal Government as it was before the advent of military rule. For instance, primary healthcare, secondary education, land, housing, water supply and agriculture that used to be the functions of the regional or state governments have been included in the Exclusive List. These items were taken over by Federal Government as stated in the 1999 Constitution imposed on Nigerians by the military.
Restructuring was expected to change the revenue allocation formula, because when more powers or functions are ceded to the state and local governments, they will be given a huge capital outlay to accomplish them. Observers say it is the absence of the Federal Government’s presence at the grassroots that is fuelling the agitation for restructuring.
Highlighting the importance of devolution of powers, Professor Audu Gambo of the Department of Political Science, University of Jos, said decentralisation of power in a federal setting is critical to sustainable development and also boosting the culture of social accountability.
He pointed out that Nigeria’s federation is characterised by gross imbalance between the federal and sub-national governments, in terms of constitutional sharing of power. He said: “The Federal Government has by this imperfect arrangement become so omnipotent as to overshadow the federating units. “For example, there are 68 items on the Exclusive Legislative List and only the Federal Government is competent to legislate on them. There are only 30 items on the concurrent legislative list, which both the federal and the states are competent to legislate on.
“The point to note here is that the Federal Government exercises far wider scope of power than the states, and by implication, has succeeded in rendering the states subservient to it. The wide scope of power of the Federal Government translates to enormous resources at its disposal and leaving the states with the image of a kwashiorkor victim. This was the shape of federalism bequeathed to Nigerians by the disengaging military dictators.”
Gambo said the federal system of government as it is practiced in Nigeria represents a damaging aberration from the well-established principle bequeathed to us by the colonial administration. He added: “Not only is the Federal Government incredibly powerful, it is also stupendously rich as to virtually dictate to sub-national level governments, thereby making it the oppressor and the federating units the oppressed. This explains why the fiscal component of Nigeria’s federalism has remained intensely contentious. This is the context for the growing agitation by the sub-national units for devolution or decentralisation of power and responsibility to them.”
Condemning the Senate’s rejection of restructuring, renowned constitutional lawyer Professor Itse Sagay (SAN) said the decision demonstrated their contempt and disdain for federalism.
He said: “Their rejection of devolution of some powers to the states involving transfer of some items to the concurrent list, their scrapping of states electoral commissions, entrenching local governments as a tier of government in a supposed federation, clearly demonstrates their hostility to federalism and to the empowerment of the 36 states in order to make them more independent and effective.
“On the other hand, their inordinate self-love is demonstrated by their craving for immunity, participation in the Council of State and elimination of the President’s power to approve constitutional amendments.”
Sagay said the 8th Senate is the worst in the history of Nigeria and described the constitution amendment as a hypocritical exercise, which would lead nowhere. He added: “This Senate is by far the worst in Nigerian history. Nothing good has ever emanated from the chamber. Their grab for executive powers, confrontation with the President and Vice President, their love of self-serving legislation and total insensitivity to the common interests of Nigeria is sensational and unprecedented.
“The outcome of all this malevolence against Nigerians is that they will achieve nothing before they leave in 2019 and Nigerians will turn out in their millions to clap them out of relevance.”
Civil rights activist Comrade Mashood Erubami is sad over the Senate’s rejection of the bill on power devolution. He said the decision of the National Assembly is sadly retrogressive.
Erubami said the lawmakers’ decision was a betrayal of the mandate of their electors, who have shown preference for restructuring as an alternative route for replacing the current unitary system foisted on Nigerians in the name of 1999 Constitution that is being clandestinely operated.
The rights activist said: “Power devolution is a key component of genuine restructuring and true federalism. Hence its rejection is very much anti-people and a very bad insistence on objecting to join the restructuring alliance.
“It is a flagrant rejection of the real essence of their being voted into power into hallowed chambers of the legislature to represent the people and enact laws. Through that act of seeming legislative rebellion, they have once again shown that the house cannot be relied and depended upon as the key institution of government through which the desires and aspirations of the people can be realised.”
Erubami noted that Nigerians mooted the objectives of restructuring to target change as a formal peaceful means of agitation against the past style of governance and its unacceptability to the constituent components. He said the rejection has justified once again the objection of that chamber of the National Assembly to changing and restructuring Nigeria peacefully and a confirmation that they favour the inevitable revolutionary reordering of the nation.
A lawyer and human rights activist, Mr Monday Ubani, described the Senate’s rejection of the bill on devolution of power as retrogressive. He said the blockage of the bill by the Senate dominated by the APC is a serious setback for the ruling party that made restructuring one of its campaign promises.
Ubani said Nigerians trusted the APC and voted it into power only to renege on its promise through the insensitivity of its members in the National Assembly. He added: “Will Nigerians ever trust the party again? It is sad in the sense that the APC that promised change through restructuring has disappointed the people.
“We have not seen the end of this matter. It is either we restructure or forget about Nigeria. It is a temporary setback. What we are saying is to remove some items from Exclusive List and transfer them to Concurrent List to empower the state governments that are very close to the people and understand their needs.
“If the National Assembly makes restructuring impossible, there will be an implosion in the country and the ruling class will pay for it.”
On the importance of decentralisation, Gambo said it is a necessary precondition for any meaningful and sustainable development to take place. He said devolution goes with increase in the volume of financial resources to sub-national governments.
Gambo added: “In Nigeria, for example, many sub-national governments hardly provide the basic socio-economic infrastructural needs of the people. This is fundamentally so because of the low quantum of resources given to them. More often than not, such limited resources are barely enough for recurrent expenditure suffers harrowing neglect.
“This explains why the social problem of unemployment in Nigeria is worsening. Capital expenditure does not only generate job opportunities, but also provide massive socio-economic infrastructure at the sub-national levels of government.”
The professor argued that, by the gross imbalance in the distribution of power in favour of the central government, sub-national governments have been robbed of the federally desirable scope of power to impact meaningfully on their citizens.
He said: “As a tier of government that is much closer to the people than the remote Federal Government, they are always the target of the citizens’ anger and disenchantment with poor performance.
“This is the context in which some pressure groups have been agitating for devolution as a means of enhancing the capacity of sub-national governments for improved delivery of social services to their people.
“This would inevitably call for the fundamental review of the extant constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to ensure equitable and balanced distribution of power between the Federal Government and federating units.
“This is in accord with the basic principle of federalism which is the sharing of responsibilities on the basis of competence of each level of government to efficiently and satisfactorily discharge such responsibilities”.
Erubami said the danger of the Senate’s rejection of devolution “is that the agitation and ceaseless clamouring would be elongated and if care is not taking, any slightest mishandling especially in the context of Southsouth agitation for complete resource control and Southeast demand for self determination, Nigeria may just submit to their pressure”.
He said when the distribution of resources in the course of the management of the polity is being delayed or continued to be seen to be unjust, peace and tranquillity are usually the first victim.
The civil rights activist said: “When justice is denied, the clamour for revolutionary change may follow, eliciting drastic call for fundamental re-arrangement that will force change and alter the subsisting relationships between the federating units. This will be a consequence of the unconcerned attitude of the Senate as have been exhibited for years by people in power to the call for decentralised police system, fiscal federalism, resource control, in other word true federalism.
“What is underscoring the stringent call for restructuring is still the perceived absence of justice and equity in the management of the polity and inequitable distribution of resources that belong to all; until the Federal Government wakes up to the call, regional agitation for restructuring will not abate.
“All that needed to be done is for the National Assembly to wake up from their dreamless slumber and demonstrate that they are true representatives of the people. As a key institution of government, they should remember that the people gave them the mandate to represent and supervise the executive and enact laws for good governance.”
