MY THOUGHTS ON RESTRUCTURING NIGERIA

By Noma S. Patrick

The best asset any Nation can have is a unity that transcends every natural and artificial boundary that seems to discriminate its people into different groups be it virtual or real. Only then can a Nation expect progress. It is from the understanding of this basic truth that Nigeria decided to make it a cardinal duty to preach unity not only by talking it but also making a slogan/motto out of it (“unity and faith, peace and progress”).

Ironically, practically attaining a state of basic necessary unity has turned out to be one of the impossibilities that has evaded the grip of the Nigerian people and as a result stalled our progress over the years even as our democracy keeps accelerating its escalation. The extent to which we have gone the opposite direction as regards the actualization of the unity we understand we so desire has led us to a point in our national political discourse where an idea called “restructuring” is given birth to. Nigerians are now either for or against the concept of restructuring the nation into a likely more workable system and order. I passionately belong to the former school of thought and this is an attempt to explain my own views on why restructuring should be the best thing any people in our position should clamor for.

The basis upon which the new found yearning for restructuring was born is the desire for an unadulterated federal system of government in which federating states, provinces or regions enjoy total economic and appreciable political autonomy as it concerns right to control and ownership of resources in their respective territories and a cooperation geared mainly towards maintaining a federal government that is only concerned with protecting the territorial integrity of the country, maintaining diplomatic relations with the international community, overseeing and executing a framework of economic cooperation and such other matters. This, I believe, is the right definition of the tendency towards which the work of restructuring should be for many wonderful and blissful benefits we stand to gain from as a people. In my view, restructuring, in the context of my argument as presented here will go an unimaginably long way in solving our problems politically, economically, socially and in much more other ways directly and indirectly connected to these that have over the years appear to defy all efforts toward solutions. I take these respectively in the paragraphs that follow.

In our game of POLITICS that has turned out, in recent years, to be characterized by an alarming level of immaturity audaciously shaking the very foundation of our cohesion and harmony both among the elites and the poor masses alike, restructuring will be the light that will lead us out of the dishevelment in quite a magical fashion.

The agitations, bitterness, desperation and do-or-die approach to politics that has accompanied the fifth republic and exposed our political puerility in recent history have just one main root cause. This cause is nothing short of the fact that there is a very lucrative and attractive center that every group defined by ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, regional sense of belonging etc. desire so fiercely to see “their own” in that lucrative place where wealth sharing (and embezzlement of course) is decided and where laws that affect everyone else are made (or at least where those making the laws are controlled). And in what has sadly turned out to be more like a natural disposition towards a total disregard for enthroning justice, fair play, equity, neutrality, evenhandedness and nonpartisanship which are supposed to the cardinal guiding principle of leadership in especially a plural society like ours, Nigerian politicians strive to get to leadership position to help “their own people” completely forgetting that every Nigerian must be considered as the leader’s immediate own and must be treated with all the love and care they need and deserve.  Of course the result is a further amplification of the agitation, competition and despair to have “our own” on the throne. It is not unusual to hear Nigerians rain curses on leaders that do nothing to help his village, his community or something one moment and still abuse somebody doing that the next moment for caring only for his immediate own.

Restructuring that ushers in economic and political autonomy through devolution of powers will go a long way of relieving the center of these lucrativeness and hence the attractiveness and easing out the resulting fierce and unhealthy contention among regions to be there. This will serve as a galvanizing spur for a unifying political inter-relations.

The pressure and desire to have “our own” over there will ease out and the unhealthy political machinations, conspiracy, connivance and mistrust that has bedeviled us will be alleviated. The politics of bitterness that we seem to have developed will become less tense and there will be respect to and fro among the federating regions.

The ECONOMIC freedom that will accompany restructuring will be a flabbergasting stimulant for healthy economic competition and hence unprecedented growth and vibrancy in economic activity especially when blended with laws that ensures fruitful economic cooperation among the federating units. It will greatly cut down on our collective lethargy and unrepentant indolence. The units will have no option but to succumb to a spontaneous force that will excite them into a concerted evolution of leadership towards the maximum development and tapping of their human and material resources. When every region or unit is made to depend on its own resources and work towards the development of same for the betterment of its people, the competition that will ensue will be a competition to develop which shall, in the end, serve us all well rather than our current kind of unhealthy competition just to grab power. The competition for political power has distracted us so badly from the path of economic progress to the extent that we seem totally and astonishingly oblivion of the fact that we are collectively and actively on the path to a consummate economic (and of course literal) suicide.

During the reign of the trio of Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a federal system where economic autonomy dominates supreme and anybody that is aware of Nigeria’s history can attest to the fact of how these leaders fiercely led towards outdoing one another in developing and maximizing an excellent human resource, agricultural resources and solid minerals. This is the kind of competition that everyone that mean well for Nigeria will yearn to have back and this is only possible if we make it to come naturally through restructuring.

Where federating units feel it will be beneficial for them to create an economic collaboration between themselves, agreements that are aside the economic coorperation framework established for the entire federation can then be entered into towards that goal.

When the desired economic autonomy is accompanied by laws aimed at promoting economic cooperation among units such that, for example, goods and services produced by these regions are made to satisfy the needs and demands of the entire federation, by the legislation, first and foremost before any consideration for export, Nigeria will become an economic envy of the world. The development that Singapore experienced under Lee Kuan Yew will be nothing compared to ours. Through an intra-exchange of goods and services where energy in ample supply from the Niger-Delta is made to serve the demands of agricultural entrepreneurs in the north, industries in the east and west and a vibrant transport and communication network between and within these regions, the speed with which the accompanying economic growth will come will leave Nigerians and indeed the whole world astounded. And what more, the beauty of it all is that it will come so spontaneously that even an inborn tendency to be inert will inevitably give way.

In our SOCIAL atmosphere, after all the frayed nerves of mutual anger, animosity, friction bitterness and tension prevailing through politics has eased out, Nigerians will begin to consider one another respectfully. In fact to achieve a workable and practicable unity we so much desire verbally, to wield better National cohesion and comprehensive mutual respect and understanding, autonomy of regions and decentralization should be taken very seriously. In his article titled “The Intellectual Case Against Nigeria’s Breakup”, Farooq Kperogi noted “the vibrant pre-colonial inter-ethnic relations between such northern minorities as Igalas, Tivs, Idomas, etc. and Igbos” and went further to say “to this day, Igalas and Idomas have councilors in some Igbo states, and there are ‘indigenous’ Igbos in Benue State”. This historic reality, in my view, was only made possible because of the fact of the existence of mutual respect from one ethnicity towards the other and this respect was born out of autonomy of these ethnic Nationalities in which none strive to be a ruler over the other. This same mutual respect, understanding and beautiful social order is still possible with a restructured Nigeria where everyone is considered with dignity and held in high esteem.

Lately, Nigerians have become fund of misinterpreting and misdefining peaceful coexistence as a Nigeria that remains not only as a one whole entity but closely knitted in its current structural state. Peaceful coexistence actually involves not only the existence of a nation as one country but also many sovereign countries coexisting in a geographical space in complete peaceful harmony. Indeed, by extension from points raised in the previous paragraph, African countries seams to coexist with one another more peacefully when compared to how people within their respective borders coexist. So just like we are coexisting peacefully with Ghana, Cameroun, Niger, Chad, Benin Rebulic etc, an even more peaceful and harmonious coexistence is very possibly and most likely for us when we are restructured.