Anyone who studied basic West African history would know how what exists today as the Nigerian supra-national state came into existence—it is an arbitrary imposition on the diverse nationalities that inhabit the parts of the Niger basin that the British called Nigeria. In the many years that I have researched and studied political evolution in and amongst these diverse nationalities, I’m yet to find or been shown a document that bears witness to a voluntary declaration made by their truly elected representatives that they surrendered their general will and allegiance to the supra-national state.
Elsewhere, including parts of Africa such as Tanzania, Botswana, and South Africa, the afore-stated scenario was the case. That, is one of the several reasons political stability prevails in them. Instead, in the case of the parts of the Niger basin in question, the archives are littered with all manner of documents under the label of “constitution” written by groups of actors who claim that they represent their distinct inhabitants. The latest of those documents was dated 1999. Its provisions proclaim the “legitimacy” that gave birth to the contraption that Mr. Umaru Yar’Ardua presided over in Abuja since 2007 until he voluntarily abdicated to an unknown destination since more than forty-five days ago.
I’m not a lawyer. But I’m sufficiently educated to infer from my research and studies to argue that there is logically no legitimate grounds for any of the nationalities that inhabit the Niger basin that finds itself capable, to waste another day before it disentangles itself from the Nigerian supra-national state. Politics is the act of the possible. Mr. Yar’Ardua’s abdication should be taken for what it truly is—a legitimate indicator of the ruse that has been used to frustrate genuine political development amongst the inhabitants of the parts of the Niger basin that were called Nigeria. If the latest inheritor of the ruse could take the liberty to violate vital
provisions of the instrument from which he claimed the “legitimacy” to wield power and authority over the nationalities, by way of abdication, it’s in deed rational and legitimate to argue that now is the time for the nationalities, any one of them that wants and is capable of to summon the nerves and walk!
IN the first part of this piece, I posed four related questions: One: What type of federation is currently being operated in Nigeria? Two: What type of federation is prescribed by the 1999 Constitution? Three: What type of federation is desirable in Nigeria? Four: What social-political forces currently exist, or can be created, to fight for the realisation of a desirable federal system? Having looked at aspects of the first two questions we may now turn to the last two.
In lieu of preface, let us briefly review relevant experiences in five countries - three of which no longer exist: the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Somalia and Rwanda. In 1922, the Soviet Union was constituted as a Union of 15 constituent republics. The Constitution granted each republic the right to self-determination up to, and including, the right to secede from the Union. The ruling Bolshevik Party was serious about the secession clause and, to demonstrate this, the Union was constituted in such a way that each Union republic shared borders with at least one foreign country. This made secession, if decided upon, practicable. A "land-locked" republic, completely surrounded by some other Union republics, would find it impossible to secede. The same principle and practical approach informed the constitution of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
The first two of these three countries - the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia - disintegrated peacefully in the early 1990s partly because none of their constituent, or federating, republics was "land-locked'. Yugoslavia, with six constituent republics, could have gone the same way but for a factor which we in Nigeria must ponder seriously: Serb nationalists within and outside Serbia - the largest constituent republic - did not want the break-up of the country. But when disintegration became inevitable, Serb nationalists responded with two alternative strategies: to create a Greater Serbia by incorporating, into Serbia, ethnic Serbs outside Serbia, or to create independent Serb enclaves in constituent republics dominated by non-Serbs. We know the result.
Somalia has no "ethnic problem" as such. Beyond that the country is a Muslim majority nation. What happened in 1991 was that an attempted coup d'etat led to a break-up of the country into armed clans that descended into parallel civil wars and anarchy. Somalia has had no central government since then. And the country is today a model of "failed state". The tragedy of ethnic-divided Rwanda is still fresh in our collective memory: An armed struggle to remove a government in 1994 led to the assassination of a president and triggered the slaughter of almost a million people. Nigeria has profound lessons to learn from the experiences of these five countries - that is, if the lessons of our (1967-1970) Civil War are not sufficient.
Now to Nigeria. I subscribe to a geopolitical restructuring of the country as an immediate task. As basis for this particular discussion we may turn to the Draft Constitution proposed in August 2006 by Peoples' National Conference (PNC). In place of the present 36-state structure, the draft Constitution proposed a federation of 18 ethnically-based regions. Twelve of the regions are mono-ethnic and six are multi-ethnic. A map of Nigeria's ethnic nationalities sharing the 18 regions is shown on the cover of the document.
The proposed mono-ethnic nationality regions, each of which is proposed as a federation, are, in alphabetical order: Ibibio, Ijaw, Igbo, Urhobo, Edo, Yoruba, Tiv, Nupe, Fulah, Gbagyi, Kanuri, and Hausa. The six multi-ethnic nationality regions, each of which is also proposed as a federation, are: South East, East Delta, West Delta, West Middle Belt, Central Middle Belt, and East Middle Belt. According to the draft Constitution under review, the federating entities in the Federal Republic of Nigeria will be the regions. State creation will be the responsibility of the regions and the states will be responsible for the creation of local government areas.
My first observation here is that the People's National Conference actually took pains to list Nigeria's ethnic nationalities in the Draft Constitution. This should be commended. This level of thoroughness and seriousness has set a standard for what has to be done to produce a new Constitution for Nigeria. It also reminds me of what Chief Tayo Akpata said recently in an interview, namely, that the task of reviewing or re-writing the Constitution is too serious to be left entirely in the hands of the National Assembly. Chief Akpata, the Ima of Benin, is a veteran progressive politician and administrator and - before then - an activist nationalist. Yes, a new Constitution which is as inevitable as it is desirable - if the country must survive and remain one - cannot be, and must not be, the exclusive task of the National Assembly.
The second observation is that going by the proposed restructuring based on the Ethnic Nationalities Map of Nigeria on the cover and last page of the document before me, some of the 18 proposed federating regions are actually "land-locked" in the sense the term has been used in this piece. The "land-locked" regions, as I can see, include: Edo, Igbo, Central Middle-Belt, Nupe and Gbagyi. Maybe there are more; but that is what I can see. The point is that the Draft Constitution includes the secession clause - which I endorse completely. But it does not provide for the practicability of secession by ensuring that no federating region is "land-locked". To this I object - also completely.
The third observation strengthens the main fear I have concerning restructuring along ethnic nationality lines, or rather, along strictly ethnic nationality lines. Drawing the boundaries in some areas will be almost impossible through conferences - whether national or not, whether sovereign or not. It can be done only through war or other forms of armed imposition. Let me say here - with all responsibility and humility - that I was one of the first to propose the (regional) restructuring of Nigeria and I was also one of the first to introduce the term Sovereign National Conference (SNC). This was as early as 1992. But I knew, and still know, the limits of conferences in dealing with the question of power - especially when rapacious, selfish, oppressive, anti-people, capitalist-oriented and utterly unpatriotic classes and blocs, as in Nigeria, are in power.
We may summarise the three points so far made: the listing of ethnic nationalities is a commendable undertaking; some proposed regions are "land-locked", and this is problematic, to say the least; and there are limits to what conferences can achieve in drawing up boundaries between ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. But having said this, I have to re-state my belief that Nigeria has to be restructured and reconstituted, through appropriate constitutional arrangements, along lines that eliminate ethnic domination, enhance self-determination at the grassroots, promote popular political participation, radically raise the quality of life across the whole country and radically reduce regional disparities. This is a big agenda.
Adopting current political language, I support resource control, fiscal federalism and true federalism. In particular, I see no difference between Regions collecting revenues and paying taxes or making contributions to the Federal Government and Federal Government collecting revenues and sharing with the Regions. All provided, of course, that the principles are clear and just and, more importantly, provided, that popular-democratic and pan-Nigerian forces are in power.
Yes. The social forces that can fight for a just and democratic restructuring must be popular-democratic (and in the present historical context, also radical and revolutionary) and pan-Nigerian. Any social forces that already believe that Nigeria must either break up or be restructured strictly along ethnic nationality lines cannot fight for the type of restructuring that I believe is desirable and realisable. I am not afraid of disintegration. I am only afraid of the inevitable bloody process - given the history and experiences of Nigeria and the level of national integration. Why should one be afraid? If the ruling classes and blocks continue to behave as if Nigeria is their property and Nigerians are their slaves - to exploit as they wish - and if popular-democratic and pan-Nigerian forces cannot remove them from power, then a fate worse than disintegration will befall us.
We now come to the question of governmental structure at the centre. I shall be sketchy and will draw from the interview, earlier mentioned, that was recently granted by Chief Tayo Akpata to The Guardian and published in the paper's edition of Sunday, July 5, 2009. Modifying Chief Akpata's suggestion, we may proposed two possible systems - each of which is a mixture of presidential and parliamentary systems of government. In the first system, a newly elected National Assembly meets to elect members of the Presidential Council - one member for each federating region. The Council is chaired, in rotation, by its members.
The Collective and Rotational Presidency described above may either be an executive one or share executive power with a cabinet headed by a Prime Minister. Each alternative produces a different system. Finally, for any new system, the measure of its desirability, in the final analysis, is the degree to which the working and toiling people, together with all other oppressed segments of the population, including women, liberate themselves and assume control of their lives and the means of reproducing their lives and, by so doing, liberate the society as a whole. In other words, without a promise of popular liberation neither the present Nigeria nor a restructured one is desirable.
Nigerians are expected to be patriotic and to work hard or even give their lives in efforts towards preserving the entity presently known as Nigeria. But I want to shock you with this statement: Nigeria, as we presently know it and has known it since 1914, is not worth preserving. Similarly, Nigeria is not worth any self sacrifice by anybody who is truly African, in any effort whatsoever towards its preservation.
The country, Nigeria, is presently steeply immersed in a whole lot of dreadful morass and quagmire, politically, economically, socially, culturally, name them. To the rest of the world and to the majority of her citizens, Nigeria has been and regrettably continues to be a huge failure in progress. And this failure is almost reaching a state of perfection or absoluteness. The most updated diagnosis of this country's ailments will show that at worst, Nigeria is now what even prominent Nigerians have identified as a failed state, while at best it is a perfect, societal example of the word, stagnation. The reasons are not far fetched.
So why is Nigeria failing? It is because in this society, there is a now deeply entrenched and hallowed culture that prescribes that problems are never meant to be solved but only to be indulged and got rotten in. And the people of this country for decades have followed this prescription with a most amazing and intense religious fervour. Nigeria's greatest problem is this believe by Nigerian citizens or particularly the few citizen elements in Nigeria who currently have a near monopolistic access to power within this 'somewhat' sovereign polity, or rather the pretence by these elements to believe that a state carved out, established and forcibly being sustained by an entirely non-African and a complete colonial and later imperial vested interests, can and need to and must be preserved by the people presently seen as Nigerians. Subscription to this misplaced believe culture in Nigeria goes, of course, all around but with very few and yet significant exception.
Nigeria, as everybody knows, is a British creation. One man called Frederick Lugard did it for his country Britain while working for their colonial interest over the territory that presently constitute Nigeria. His girlfriend and later wife, coined the name Nigeria, as we are told, and the colonial power wasted no time afterward to slap the name upon all the peoples found within this marked out territory of Nigeria located along the eastern edge of what is now known as West Africa. And almost a century later, we the indigenes found within this territory which is now an independent and sovereign political state, are being expected by the territory's contemporary rulers and local overlords (who remains more or less the colonial and imperial representatives in this former British colonial territory) to be proud of and proudly wear around this garb beautifully made for us by the Briton called Frederick Luggard and his girlfriend Flora Shaw; and if and when called upon, to sacrifice our lives as “patriotic” Nigerians towards preserving this 'sacred' creation by Britain.
Of course we don't see this as a problem at all in Nigeria presently. That is why in an era when the consequences of centuries of wicked exploitations by the old colonial powers of Europe, as well as the consequences of the post colonial and ongoing exploitations by the modern and advancing imperialistic powers of North America, Western Europe and Asia, are all being laid bare globally for judgement as they are telling heavily on the exploited continents and countries of Africa and of the rest Third World; and in a time when the souls and spirits of the peoples of these exploited continents are crying and yearning and demanding for justice and liberation, we in Nigeria are still being deeply immersed in an indoctrination to be proudly Nigerian and be patriotic enough to give our lives and all to defend and preserve Nigeria just as the British created it. Good people, great nation with the status quo intact. Incredible! But here is exactly where the Nigerian morass and quagmire of the moment actively lies.
Name some of the key Nigerian ailments of the moment about which the majority of this country's citizens are lamenting to high heavens, albeit passively, and see if you can't trace their roots to the greatest folly ever in the world that is presently going on in Nigeria in the name of running a country along a more or less colonial status quo and trying hard to make Nigerians believe it is all working out well or going to be fine despite the glaring outcome that says otherwise. Inter-ethnic strives; religious fanaticism; self enthroned and self perpetuating, greedy, and devourer ruling cabal; governmental corruption and fraud; dearth of values and norms in the society; continuous erosion of indigenous culture, traditions, and customs of the people; social, economic and political stuntness and retrogression; infrastructural precipice; and perpetual vulnerability to imperialistic vultures of the world; etc. These are phrases that best describes Nigeria of today. And they all have direct roots in the kind of country structure that Nigeria inherited from its colonial foundation and has since inception strives to maintain with an bewildering manic intensity folly never seen before in history.
