Friday Musings with Ayo Olukotun, ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com, 07055841236
“I advised against the issue of
national conference…I never liked the priority of that government. That
is why I haven’t even bothered to read it (the 2014 National Conference)
or ask for a briefing on it and I want it to go into the so-called
archives”
– President Muhammadu Buhari, May 29, 2016”
In the wake of the recent insurgent
challenges to the Nigerian state, several elder statesmen, politicians
and civil society organisations have renewed their calls for the
restructuring of the country. One of the most recent is that of a former
Vice-President and perpetual presidential hopeful, Alhaji Atiku
Abubakar. Speaking on Tuesday at the public presentation of a book
entitled, “We are all Biafrans”, Atiku went on record as saying,
“Nigeria as it is structured today, is not working…In short, it has not
served Nigeria well and at the risk of reproach, it has not served my
part of the country, the North, well. The call for restructuring is even
more relevant today”.
As the opening quote sourced from an interview granted by President Buhari and published in Sunday PUNCH suggests
however, the growing chorus for restructuring and for the
implementation of some of the resolutions of the 2014 National
Conference are unlikely to meet with official approval at least under
the tenure of the current administration. Buhari says disdainfully that
he has neither read the conference report nor asked for a briefing on
it. Left to him, the report should be given a decent burial in the
archives.
This is an unfortunate remark to the
extent that it debunks or rather dismisses the Confab Report because of
the circumstances of its inauguration. Worse still, no creative
alternatives are offered to the Report at a time when the National
Question has been raised intently and intemperately. Obviously, no one
expects Buhari to have waded through a document running into thousands
of pages and featuring 600 resolutions. But, it is hard to justify his
contempt for a conference which, whatever its weaknesses, summoned the
best and the brightest to debate and deliberate upon how best to
restructure Nigeria.
The complaint about how much was spent
is valid but should be an argument for the nation to derive some value
from its work rather than throw it into the dustbin. If as one can
imagine, the country cannot afford to spend another N9bn or even half of
it for the same purpose, is it not all the more compelling to make do
in one form or another with what exists? At any rate, when did the cost
of a project become a yardstick for assessing its quality or essence?
These issues are raised in the light of the recent violent clashes
between law enforcement agents and youths based in the South-East
campaigning for the resurgence of Biafra Republic resulting in heavy
casualties on Monday, May 30. That apart, the ongoing militarisation of
the Niger Delta partly because of the activities of the Niger Delta
Avengers with heavy losses in men and materials points to the fact that
the nation cannot be described as healthy. Apart from these, the recent
murderous rampages of the Fulani herdsmen and the alleged indifference
of the government to the spiralling escapades have further complicated
an already mercy picture. For what it is worth, some analysts have read
meanings into Buhari’s inability to be present at a scheduled Lagos trip
and at Thursday’s Presidential launch of the Ogoni Clean-Up. At both
events, he was represented by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.
Before developing the discourse further
however, I digress, characteristically, to offer a short take. Lagos
State continues to show, under Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, the
possibility of competent administration at the sub national level. In a
context in which the states in most parts of the country are becoming
irrelevant to the people and the centre is struggling to find its feet,
Lagos tends to stand out.
Of course, it has far more resources
than most other states but it must be set on record that Ambode has
within the short space of 12 months lived up to the pace set by his
predecessors, especially, Bola Tinubu and Babatunde Fashola. Agreed, it
is premature to coronate Ambode as an instant success as some of his
publicists are doing, bearing in mind that he has three more years to go
to complete an electoral cycle, but very few will contend that he is
off to a good start. Consider the rising number of effective
interventions in road construction, his “Light up Lagos project” which
has assisted in fighting crime and imaginatively a programme under which
the state produces rice based on partnership with the Kebbi State
Government.
It is also good to know that this is at
least one place where the wails of workers and pensioners about being
owed salaries do not fill the air. The type casting of Lagos as an
example of developmental democracy would seem to have found
justification under its current leader who is admonished to maintain the
ambitious pace he has set for himself. Needless to say that the careful
husbanding of resources will be germane to the actualisation of current
initiatives.
To return to the main discourse, it
should be obvious from the events of the last few weeks that the
fundamental problems of the economy and a ravaged social sector cannot
be resolved in the absence of close attention to the need to renew the
federal bargain which is currently under assault. No one doubts that
Buhari is well-meaning but it takes more than being well-meaning to
govern Nigeria. For example, try as he would to downplay the National
Question or the need for restructuring his own action and inaction have
been interpreted in some cases as deriving from his Fulani ancestry.
Even his pattern of appointments has been interpreted by some as skewed
and at variance with what Prof. Rotimi Subaru recently described as the
“Integrative mandate of Nigerian federalism”.
There is a good reason to believe that
Nigeria and its constituent parts will gain rather than lose from a
major restructuring. Take for example, the issue of security and the
weak performance of a centralised police force. As The PUNCH
editorial persuasively argued on Thursday, the issue of state police has
now become a logical and required response to the inability of an
over-centralised police to cope with rising disorder. Connecting back to
the 2014 National Conference, those who have read the Report will
remember that this is one of the key recommendations.
Another dimension of the National
Question repeatedly advocated by a former General Secretary of the
Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, relates to the reconfiguration of the
federation with respect to reducing the number of states to an
economically manageable size. This of course is controversial
considering that political entities once created are difficult to be
abolished. There is no doubt however that the virtual paralysis of the
states put on the table out of the box solutions.
Whatever one thinks, we can no longer
afford to conduct conversations on the National Question as a dialogue
of the deaf which it has so far remained under Buhari. It is time to
face up squarely to it.
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