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Last week, after perusing the likely reality of the magnitude of the catastrophe of Nigeria breaking up into pieces, if we fail to sit down and negotiate its unity, we dealt effectively with the first of the three options pushed forward for evaluation.
Option 1, which was introduced and fully diagnosed last week, was appropriately named “negotiating the unity in a restructured format” and the bullet point of that recommendation was going back to status quo ante of the system of a wholesome fiscal federated system of government, created by the founding fathers of Nigeria and practised till January 1966 when the Military made that destructive incursion into the polity.
It was a fiscally federated system of government with four regions: North, West, East and Mid-West, all with full control of their individual resources [paying royalty to the Central government], they had their own constitutions, they enjoyed their autonomies, they developed at their chosen paces while the federal constitution allowed the Central government control of currency, defence and foreign policy. These were the facts of the federal government the military destroyed and gave us a dehumanising unitary system of government with terrible vices.
We concluded the discussion of Option One last week by saying that “Option one therefore is a clarion call to all meaningful Nigerians to arise in abolishing this distorted and disjointed system of government by reverting to status quo ante, albeit fiscal federalism, as we got it from our founding fathers. This is restructuring without breaking”.
The discussion is expected to progress to the next option but not without first of all identifying the reality of the damage already done to the psyche of our corporate entity. It is by identifying some of the calamities resulting from the bastardisation and jettisoning of proper federalism that we can appreciate a peaceful attempt in restructuring for continuity. Let us point just a few of such maladies.
Muhammadu Buhari was elected President by majority votes across the country. If there were doubts about his acceptability from the South/East and the South/South [minus Edo State], there was no doubt at all about the South/West and all the remaining geo-political zones of the federation.
Though at inauguration, PMB had alluded to a 97% of voters that he would take care of specially to the detriment of the remaining 3% [which rejected him at the polls probably] no one understood that to mean that his “chosen 97% was only Hausa/Fulani Nigerians” until he spoke to us [Nigerians] a few days ago strictly in Hausa language. By so doing, the president had spoken to wit: Hausa/Fulani, with a population of only 6% own Nigeria. This is one of the calamities in operating a distorted and disjointed federalism, which makes restructuring a necessity.
Herdsmen of Fulani stock are emerging as more dangerous than the officially recognised terrorist Boko Haram. They have pitched tents of war in every State of the federation – from the Sahara of the North to the Oceanic coast of the South. There is no State machinery of anger against them. Whenever the Nigerian State deploys troops with sophisticated weapons, it is against Rustlers and not Herdsmen. Nigerians have come to understand the interpretation of conspiracy of silence on the side of the federal government when herdsmen are mentioned. The herdsmen are the “anointed” in the scheme of a long drawn agenda to “conquer and subdue the infidels”. This is another malady which makes restructuring a necessity.
Nepotism is the greatest contaminated instrument in the household of corruption. If President Buhari says that “we have to kill corruption before corruptions kills Nigeria” and this same PMB is caught in the web of nepotism, as it has been fully manifested more in the public sector of the country, then this administration has succeeded than any other previous government in beating the drums of separation for the country. This is another calamity which compels restructuring.
Let us take a look at the Ministry of Interior for example, where the feared retired Lt-Gen Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau presides as the minister and see if we can really stop every other tribesman/woman [apart from the Hausa/Fulani tribe] in Nigeria from weeping for motherland in view of devastative height nepotism has ascended. All the government departments in that largest ministry are headed, not just by northerners but strictly Hausa Moslems only. Who is that man with any fear of God that would not say that this is a disaster, in a country of about 300 ethnic nationalities with over 180 million people? It is another compelling reason for restructuring.
Within the last two years of President Buhari second coming, two more division of the Nigerian Army have been established and both are comfortably situated in the far North – the President’s maternal geo-political section of the country. Of course, a few days ago, the Nigerian Army had its own University established, suitably in the North/East also. This is another formidable reason why we must restructure Nigeria fast.
Let us mention just one more malfunction of this federalism, otherwise there are legion reasons. Is it true that Christian Religious Study [CRK] has been taken away from the Nigerian education curriculum, leaving Islamic/Arabic Studies and French subjects alone? If the answer is yes, then there is an urgent need in restructuring Nigeria from being “their country to becoming our country”.
This brings us to Option 2:
Negotiating the unity in a restructured States/Nation federation format.
The beauty of this option is the novelty and the uniqueness around it. We shall, by the grace of God, complete this exercises; including Option 3, next week.
Godwin Etakibuebu, a veteran journalist, wrote from Lagos.