Restructuring Nigerian Federalism, Strength To Functional Union Part 1
There has never been a time in Nigeria when the call for restructuring of the nation is on increase than now. Reasons are so obvious and politically conspicuous that even a blind person could see it. Restructuring Nigeria is simply ‘a call for the total restoration of the nation’s Federalism,’ which is the foundational cum constitutional structure to which all Nigerians subscribed as encapsulated in the Independence Constitution of 1960. The Constitution was violated in 1966 and the violation consequently set in motion a chain of events that culminated in the present abnegation of a 36 state-structure against the four regional structures that emanated from the Independence Constitution.
However, given the view of some that Nigeria is presently a Federation, it is not surprising therefore, to see different political actors giving different perspectives to the concept of restructuring. I shall attempt in this article to focus on the need to apply the principles of Federalism in line with 1960 Constitution as against its conventional practice.
Some questions that have continued to amaze and bamboozle many of us are, how did we get to where we are today? What are the reasons for ethnic secession? The article shall further examine our unity in diversity as strength to functional union. The benefits of restructuring are enormous and shall not be overlooked, as there shall be viable recommendations, especially on the incessant insecurity problems in Nigeria.
Nigeria operates a centralized system of government, which in feature is unitary than true federalism. The federal government controls virtually all the affairs of the country, developmental projects and its resources, while the component States derive sustenance from it. Ordinarily, what Nigerians understand in restructuring is the devolution of powers and as such that more powers be vested on the State governments. They want the component federated states to control the internal affairs and resources, while the federal government controls international affairs, foreign policy, defence, and economy.
Everywhere in the country, the concept and need of restructuring Nigeria prevails. Both the well-enlightened and less enlightened citizens are preoccupied with the topic, all call for restructuring as the only option for a united and progressive Nigeria. And as such, as early as at the heat-ups of last year, which threatened the unity and integrity of the country, some prominent Nigerians spoke extensively on restructuring Nigeria.
For the former President, General Ibrahim Babangida, Nigeria needs to be restructured to ensure devolution of powers to the effect that more responsibilities will be given to the component States, and the federal government rests only with specific responsibilities bordering on defence, foreign policy, and economy.
A former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, opines that Nigerian component States needs to be made viable, by taking away the federation allocations from the federal government and bestow it on the state governments, and thus have a changed federalism. The central powers and resource control have to be devolved. True federalism has to be restored and not federal unitary system that Nigeria operates.
It is obvious that Nigeria is not practising federalism as stipulated in the 1960 Constitution. What Nigeria practises is pure unitary republic, and we fault the initial founders and operators of these systems of government for their obvious ignorance which has plunged the nation since the Junta regimes till date, into the incessant socio-political and economic crises.
In true federalism, does the federal government create State governments? That is unitary system which General Ironsi practised, but General Gowon and subsequent Heads of Nigeria federal governments created states, instead of the federated States which in this situation are the various ethnic nationalities that were amalgamated into Nigeria, to create a federal government as it did in 1960.
In a federal State like America, does the federal government give monthly allocations as it does in Nigeria to State governments, control the natural resources, and sustain states government? The contrary is the case in a true federalism. State governments give some quota of its resources to the federal government, including oil resources.
Generals Ironsi, Gowon, and all the Federal Heads of State, especially the Muritala-Obasanjo’s remodelling of Nigeria presidential system of government into the America system, deviated from true federalism and thus violated the principles of true federalism of the 1960 constitution.
The half century violation of the 1960’s Independence Constitution and the 1963 republicanism has caused innumerable hardships for the federation. Thus, it is exigent to restructure Nigeria. There must be devolution of powers and thus a decentralised government given the present problems the country is facing. It will solve the security challenges in the country, electricity problems, stop the reliance on federal allocations for states developments; without the onus of competitions that create developments, agitation for secessions and outcry on marginalisation or domination by ethnic majorities, etc.
It is in this backdrop that Tola Adeniyi (2017) argued that Nigeria must return to the 1963 Constitution, to regionalism and parliamentary democracy, and thus jettison the corrupt-laden presidential system, collapse unviable States, and make legislature part-time and generally severally reduce the humongous cost of governance.
Since the history of the country, Nigeria has so far experienced different types of government. The (ethnic) regional government in the parliamentary democracy of 1960 to 1963, the (federal) representative democracy of 1963 to 1966, and the Military unitary government of January 1966 practised different socio-economic and administrative policies, while the highlight is the struggle to control the power at the centre.
To solve this problem, the first political shift from parliamentary to federal system of government took place and only a region was partially carved out (from the West) in order to cool the tension and opposition tempo, by way of controlling the situation militarily, the second political shift was made, and to totally dissolve the regional socio-economic might, competitions, agitations and political weights, another shift to federalism took place.
One can conclude that historically, the present statism in Nigerian federalism is as old as the first regional state created by the act of parliament in 1963. In her article, The Future of Democracy in Africa: Case Study- Nigeria 1992, Miriam Ikejiani-Clark noted that, “over the last 20 years, Nigeria has progressively evolved towards a unitary state with a strong decentralising component, power and the authoritative allocation of resources have been increasingly concentrated at the ‘federal’ level, a trend which went along with the atomisation of the country’s geo-political units owing to the fissiparous nature of Nigeria’s federalism. During this period also, the decentralised nature of Nigeria’s political system has been sustained by the introduction of a specific formulae of the distribution of federal revenue among the states and the institutionalisation of the ‘federal character’ principle. This principle is adhered out of the belief that only federalism can guarantee the plural nature of Nigerian society, hence the ‘federal character’ principle.”
Consequently, Nigerian federalism developed as a solution to progressive ethnic separation or fissiparity rather than as an aggregation or by an association (or cooperation) of the component units to the initial one. And out of the 64 years of her political Independence, the Nigerian military was the locus of power in the political system for many years and militarised civilian government for 12 years (Obasanjo and Buhari’s democratic leadership, as these military chiefs ordinarily removed their military togas). All these democratic years, Nigeria has not been able to evolve and operate a functional democracy, mostly because of her inability to evolve relevant political institutions that through political socialisation are made effective. As such, economic state, institutional factors and insecurity are today at the forefront of the socio-political problems in Nigeria.
A perfect example of this is the lopsided nature of the federalism of the First Republic. It has a heavy structural imbalance, in terms of geographical and numeric size of the regions, which electorally and politically favoured the northern region. Ever since then, the shifts to political systems, innumerable economic policies and transition programmes subsequently show that previous institutionalisation patterns, which are adopted, were mere ‘systemic failures.’ This is heightened by the fact that in 1979, Nigeria was imposed another institutional pattern: The American presidential democracy, which like other shifts of government systems implied a rejection of the last democratic institutional pattern- Parliamentary system.