Daily Independent Online.
*
Wednesday, July 21, 2004.
Nigeria: The unfinished business (3)
By Ndubuisi Kanu
To return to the
issue of the Presidency: If it is really in the overall interest of Nigeria to
have an Igbo as president, then who or what is hurt or denied, if the rest
Nigeria (and Ndigbo too) fail to (jointly) bring this about? It is Nigeria- not
just the group, Ndigbo, which suffers and is denied. It would be not only
mischievous, but also downright false to talk about the quest of an Igbo
president of Nigeria as the Igbo project; or to talk about the Igbo not getting
their act together. The quest is not so that Ndigbo could have their turn; turn
for what? Just which part of Nigeria is now an El-Dorado and the people(s)
therein or therefrom glad, happy and proud - just because they had their turn,
I ask and ask again? The ineluctable truth is that governance of a unitary or
unitarised Nigeria is a corrupted task at any point in time and by whosoever
person and from whatsoever nationality. In point of fact, once the country
returns to a federation (this time of peoples/nationalities), it would be
inconsequential where the President comes from. Those who are accustomed to
unitarism, in spite of its stark demerits, should, please, give national peace
and progress a chance. The peoples of this country have gone irreversibly long
enough on the global road of self-determination as to stomach unitarism for
much longer. For those who live out the complex of being rich (and powerful),
while the mosquito defeats the country, it is then to be stated that they live
out a lie and are really poorer in real terms in spirit and in circumstance
than the ordinary poor.
Even if the ruling
or any of the other political parties or any new political party wins tomorrow,
Nigeria will continue in the negative business of facing forward but running
backwards. In fact, things can only get worse.
I could go on and
on. But what do we do?
We should dust up
the Regional constitutions. These should be suitably adapted by each
nationality (or group of nationalities that wish to band together).
Incidentally, we are really no more than some 39 distinct nationalities.
*Sovereignty
resides on and with each and every distinct nationality. Thus all
constitutional rights reside with the people. It is from this premise that they
surrender or rather release what would be Exclusive and Concurrent rights
(list) to and with a central government (Federal Government).
*The ingredients
that we should all leave for central coordination were (1960/63), and should
be:
- Common Currency.
- Postal Union.
- International
Affairs: with definite leeway/agency for each nationality.
- National Defence:
with safeguards against misuse on any nationality.
- Standards:
Health, education, quality, etc.
- A few things can
be Concurrent. But not vehicle licence plates, which even now are rather on the
exclusive list.
- Ask nationalities
to fine-tune their Constitutions.
- Call a conference
of nationalities. Each nationality should come with their proposed
Constitution.
Using the drafted
Constitutions of the Nationalities and what they want the central constitution
to be, the Conference discusses to harmonize and arrive at how to live
peacefully and progressively in one country, Nigeria - as a federation of
nationalities/peoples.
A Central/Federal
Constitution emanates, in reality from these words: “We the peoples
..."
At a (relatively)
young age I had the governance of states thrust upon me under military rule. As
a matter of fact the highest political position I was drafted to was as a
member of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) during the Murtala/Obasanjo
regime. At that time, the SMC was above the Head of State. When, later, I was
appointed to Babangida's Armed Forces Ruling Council, Babangida had assumed
military Presidency and maximum ruler-ship, leading on to the inimitable
Abacha. Remember him? Even at the time of the Murtala/Obasanjo regime and at
the first 'half' of Babangida's, there was still some measure of federalism,
albeit under the aberration of military rule. The Accountants-General of the
States used to meet as equals with the Accountant-General of the Federation.
Fifty percent of the states' derived revenue along with the federal derived
revenue were put in the Distributable Pool; sharing followed the formula; no
State needed to go to Dodan Barracks to beg for its due.
Years later,
civilian and other Governors/Administrators had to beg and plead - for their allocations;
it was even alleged that some had to pay money upfront to get (part of) their
due allocation. We are even now at a stage where your Local Government and mine
are monthly, with anxiety and trepidation, awaiting what they would receive
from the Centre at Abuja. Incidentally, what does it matter to my Local
Government whether the people of Badagry or Benin or Kebbi are 2,000 or 200,000
so as to have the Local Government properly established - not 'Caretakers' (or
is it undertakers)? Why should election not take place in my Local Government
Area because there is no Voters Register in the next-door Local Government
Area? Unitarization has gone down to baseline- if not beyond.
The Economist,
December 20th 2003, page 117, writing under “Economic focus: when small
is beautiful”, with a kicker question “How big should a nation
be?", commented on a new book, “The Size of Nations", by two
economists, Alberto Alesina of Harvard and Enrico Spolarore of Brown
University. I quote:
"Of the ten
richest countries in the world in terms of GDP per head, only two have more
than 5m people: The United States, with 260m, and Switzerland with 7m. A
further two have populations over lm: Norway, with 4m and Singapore with 3m.
The remaining half-dozen have fewer than lm people. What do such variations
comply about the link between population, size and prosperity?... as old
empires have disintegrated: more than half the world's countries now have fewer
people than the state of Massachusetts, which has about 6m.... With the main
exception of America, successful big countries (such as Japan) have relatively
homogenous populations. Dictators typically suppress dissent, regional or
ethnic. They see the benefits of size (and typically grab many of them); ...The
main reason for the resulting rise in the member of mini-countries is the shift
from empire or dictatorship to self-determination, especially in the past
quarter century. 'Borders need to satisfy citizen's aspirations'... Henceforth,
say the authors, one should expect economic integration and political
disintegration to go hand in hand, in a mutually reinforcing process.... If the
United States were centrally ruled, as, say, France, the country would break
up." Unquote.
Some people wonder
as to who should represent the nationalities/peoples at the (S) NC. Neither
Britain nor France nor any other country went to the ECM and later EU on the
basis of the respective populations; they went as equal partner countries.
Countries did not go to the League of Nations and later the United Nations
based upon population criterion. Not even the AU (then OAU) or ECOWAS is based
upon population! A country is a country; hence equal to any other country. In
the case of the NC, a people are a people; hence equals to any other people.
What is to be presented and rationalized in consensual and confidence-building
manner are the respective Constitutions - it is not an exercise in individual
opinions or where decisions will be taken through majority voting. Even if a
“major” tribe, say Ndigbo, try or think that they can out-shout or
out-vote the “minority” Ogonis against the wishes of the latter,
and without consensual decisions, the problems remain unresolved. The delegates
will and should be equal in number (I propose seven per nationality/people) -
however big or small the nationality/people might be considered to be.
The NC is not a
conference for the NLC, NBA, NMA, WIN, ZONTA, etc to attend or be represented;
it is a conference of the nationalities/peoples of Nigeria each of which have
their total SOVEREIGN right to exist where the Almighty has put them -
without reference to anybody, but with the goodwill and desire to live with the
other peoples in the same and under the same country agreed to by them all and
under agreed terms and conditions.
Even in those
unwholesome military days of Murtala/Obasanjo and early Ibrahim Babangida
regimes, the states derived/cast their edicts based upon the various Regional
Constitutions - as variously suspended/amended by the Federal Military
Government. I am tempted to say The Federal Republic of Nigeria Army, following
the title of the book by General M. C. Ali, the former Chief of Army Staff who,
ironically, is now the "civil" administrator of Plateau State. Right
now, though, there is to all intents and purposes only one Constitution - that
of the FR of NA”, oohps, Nigeria. Maybe my sources are limited, but I am
not aware of Federation(s) where there is only one constitution. Rather (and
even if it is not so in (any) other federal countries, it must be so in and for
Nigeria), in a federal country, of different and diverse peoples, the
federating units (nationalities/peoples) should each have their own individual
constitutions. After all, and in reality, they are the ones that surrender -
from all sovereign right RESIDING in them - some rights:
Exclusively to the
Center,
Concurrently, with
the center and
Residually, in
those areas not surrendered/compromised by them in any way.
Let me end by
stating again that it is those who do not wish Nigeria to survive as a country
that are opposed (or pretend to be opposed) to our RETURNING to the only way
that Nigeria can continue as a country of peoples wishing, wanting and keen to
live together, make collective progress and have a sense of belonging as
patriotic Nigerians.
Once more, let us
peacefully and harmoniously network this country to federalism (of the
different peoples/nationalities - big and small). As things stand, everybody
and everyone in Nigeria is marginalized; including those deluded into believing
that they are amassing wealth and appropriating power (whatever that means),
they are endangered by the fast- eroding fund of goodwill of Nigerians for the
Nigerian country. National Conference is not for breaking up the Federation but
for strengthening it. It is the centralist governance that needs to be broken
up, not the federation. Not many countries have gone to a Conference to break;
rather, breaking up has often been as a result of ignoring the need for a
dialogue. If Nigeria eventually breaks up, it will not be because of, or on the
floor of a National Conference. Once again let us hear Soyinka:
"The
responsibility that we owe ourselves is to prevent the attainment of that
critical mass that then pits one Community against another. No Community dares
succumb to an arrogation of power over the lives of its innocents... the mind
that aspires to an all inclusive Community must expand beyond the immediate and
address the genesis of the current climate of fear not as abstraction, but as
reality within the compass of redress” [Soyinka: A Quest For Dignity]
The steps that I
have outlined above are peaceful, practical, and brotherly in approach. Once
embarked upon, it would not take that long for results to be achieved; and we
shall all be happy for it and forge on to genuine patriotism and progress in
our unity in diversity".
