Nigeria@62: Resetting The Federalism Button To Avert A Possibility Of System Collapse
The Oasis Reporters
October 3, 2022
By Olawale Rasheed
It is very easy to detect a sense of hopelessness and depression that pervades the public space, exhibiting near zero public trust in government each time a debate is held about Nigeria’s corporate existence amongst most of it’s citizens.
Increasingly, even the best of patriots contemplate the worst. Decades as a student of Nigerian public political life however tend to confirm the conviction that a reset of the troubled federal republic is possible.
The status quo across various interests and factions in the country paint the picture without respite.
The caucus in power and the various factions outside are not enjoying the national calamities relentlessly spreading across all sectors.
The state of the economy is not just precarious, it is fuelling insecurity and dislocating all regions of the country. Aside from increasing joblessness, the debt overhang is threatening national existence at a time national revenue is insufficient to service trillion naira debt.
The fabled national cake is hugely depleted and largely incapable of going round the thieving class. The source of the battle – the treasury is becoming empty as the likelihood of default on debt is being projected in several quarters.
Not only is the cake crumbling, the thieving leaders are now an endangered specie. With banditry, kidnapping , insurgency, militancy and terrorism in virtually all the regions, the warring leadership assembly faces possibility of mutually assured destruction unless a button reset is embarked upon.
Those who assume that they are safe with the ill gotten wealth now face existential threats. The millions of idle hands have become agents of insecurity. Leaders can no longer safely visit their communities and if they flee abroad, the growing global searchlight grants them no hiding place.
The totality of the unfolding scenario is the enlightened interest of all for elite consensus. Most settled societies grow so sane out of a collective decision by leaders to be governed by common inviolable rules.
A decision is deliberately reached to enforce law and order, create communal and individual wealth, regulate society’s economic processes, levy tax, punish corruption, emphasise public good, place citizens welfare above individual interest and submit to the rule of law.
Such a society accepts democracy as the basis for leadership selection and there is a vow to ensure transparency of electoral conduct.
Each society has to build and sustain elite consensus, an arrangement by leaders on how the society should be governed. From pre-independence till date, this has largely eluded Nigeria. The independence leaders bickered up till the day of independence.
The 1960 independence was full of suspicion and ill will amongst the leaders. That burst open soon after from the Western region later engulfing the whole fledgling federation.
So we have never really gotten it right, especially in the area of building a national pact to which all nationalities agree, accept and subsequently sustained based on equitable and just application of such a pact.
Instead of such national agreement embodying and protecting interest of entities making up the federation, we have been swarmed and beclouded by ethnic, religious and partisan interests.
Leaders are ethnic champions rather than national icons. In their respective offices, tribe and religion dictate decisions rather than national interest.
Unity in diversity is to many leaders a mere slogan to be deployed to further family and tribal agenda.
Increasingly, we know nothing about national interest as elite consensus which forms the basis of national interest is non-existence.
In the lower manifestation of our state, tribal interest dominates government and is equated with national interest. Elite agreement in a region can never replace a nationally agreed template where all interests are protected and catered for.
As it is now , leaders across the country face the prospect of collective destruction unless a conscious attention is paid to collective re-ordering of national life. If leaders fail to act, the possibility of system collapse is a strong possibility. Nigeria is at a point where ethnic and religious interest needs to be coalesced into a moderated national agenda in which all parts of the country would have faith and commitment. The reality is that there is no better time for this reform than now when the nation is about to elect a new leader.
Resetting the federalism button is a must for individual and national survival. I identify five areas of rest which may also not be exhaustive but comprehensive enough to set the nation on sustainable revival.
Restructuring
The over-bloated federal system is a disaster waiting to happen. The old justification for a strong centre while still valid can be accommodated through a new total adoption of a merged 1960 and 1963 constitutions. The centre is handling so many functions that are better left to the states. Devolving powers and financing to the sub-national level is a major condition for the future survival of the Nigerian federation.
As much as some presidential candidates have made it a major campaign focus, let it be stressed that restructuring is the requisite life saving pill for this ailing federation. We cannot afford to play politics with it.
Meritocracy
A major challenge facing the nation is the refusal to allow competency as a guiding principle of national decision making. Hiring and appointing the most qualified into designated offices fast tracks national development. Doing otherwise slows down the wheel of progress even as it dents the reputation of perpetrators. To ensure nobody is left behind, talent hunting can be a national policy such that all regions will be adequately represented. Installing imbeciles in sensitive national offices contributes in no small measure to current national setbacks.
Good Governance
Nigeria must embrace good governance as a basic yardstick for the management of the society. As defined by various experts, good governance implies that the exercise of the vested authority is accountable, transparent, predictable, participative and dynamic.
Quoting a UNDP report, good governance entails participation, that is all men and women should have a voice in decision-making, either directly or through legitimate intermediate institutions that represent their interests. Rule of law is a must, such that the legal frameworks should be fair and enforced impartially, particularly the laws on human rights.
Governance must be transparent, and built on the free flow of information where processes, institutions and information are directly accessible to those concerned with them, and enough information is provided to understand and monitor them.
Other attributes include responsiveness of institutions and processes serving all stakeholders; consensus orientation which mediates differing interests to reach a broad consensus on what is in the best interests of the group; equitable treatment where all men and women have opportunities to improve or maintain their well-being; effectiveness and efficiency of processes and institutions which produce results that meet needs while making the best use of resources; accountability of decision-makers in government, to the public, as well as to institutional stakeholders; and strategic vision where leaders and the public have a broad and long-term perspective on good governance and human development.
Public/Private Sector Partnership
To build a resilient society of the 21st century, we must match our quest for good governance with the operationalisation of strong partnership between the public and the private sectors.
The establishment aversion for private sector participation in governance reengineering needs to come to an end, if Nigeria is to attain her full potential as a nation.
It is now a necessity for government agencies to become facilitators, not necessarily being regulators only, that currently stifle rather than fast track development.
A government providing an enabling environment for businesses to thrive is likely to attain better economic growth as this will enhance job creation and the expansion of the Gross National Domestic Production baseline.
Closure
From President Muhammadu Buhari to all the presidential candidates, a sacred assignment is at hand.
For Mr President, his best legacy is probably not going to be his successes or failures in the last seven or so years. His handling of the transition is a critical indicator of his accomplishment in office.
In specific terms, the Number One Citizen must remove the toga of a partisan leader. Hence , he must enforce free and fair election alongside impartial judicial adjudication of election disputes.
Policing neutrality and open commitment to the rule of law amongst others will affirm his positive place in history.
The urge and the temptation to impose a successor must be resisted at all costs.
To the candidates, whoever wins cannot retain business as usual as a model for governance. Fundamental reform is a prerequisite for national survival.
Other germane things to note is that the North should not be punished for whatever perceived excesses that were committed in the last few years.
National restructuring can only take place where the past serves as a corrective yardstick and not as a weapon of punishment.
An accommodated North will be more amenable to restructuring when it can get amnesty for any perceived shortcomings in the recent past.
As a new President will by this time next year be delivering his first national independence address, presidential candidates should produce a measurable blueprint through which they hope to salvage the nation. A cost plan of action embracing good governance and federalist restructuring is a must demand from all contenders.
Nigeria urgently needs a federalist button reset. Who will effect it?
Atiku, Obi, Tinubu or Kwankwaso?
Written by Olawale Rasheed.
A public affairs analyst. He writes from Abuja.
iwogoke@gmail.com