Why States in Nigeria Cannot Protect their People — Deji Adesoye
The Oasis Reporters
January 22, 2018
“Nigeria has been divided into states for the purpose of sharing national revenue.”
“The power to provide for security of lives and properties is not given to the states.”
Samuel Ortom, governor of Benue state, was advised by some Nigerians to stop being a crybaby and do something by himself to stop the deadly attacks by herdsmen on his people. They want Ortom to stop going to Abuja to seek the ‘mighty’ intervention of the president. This line of advice is a clear demonstration that a lot of commentators on public affairs in Nigeria do not have sufficient understanding of the basic structure of the Nigerian state, particularly, as a federation.
In this short essay is a guide to the very structure of the present Nigerian state, which is useful for anyone who wants to understand the Nigerian situation, as well as become a commentator on key matters in the Nigerian polity.
The Nigerian nation is a federation of 36 states, by the division process. The 36 states came to be through the division of the Nigerian territory into parcels, and parcels and parcels, till we arrived at what we now have, many states with no economic and security balls.
Before independence, the colonial government had single-handedly, in 1946, divided Nigeria into three regions, the Western, Eastern and Northern Regions. This arrangement, which at that time mirrored the perceived major ethnic lines in Nigeria, was the structure the Nigerian leaders across the three major groups maintained and sought to strengthen, through application of more self-government for each region.
At independence in 1960, Nigeria retained the arrangement. Later in 1963, the division process took a step further in the carving out of the Mid-West Region.
In 1967, the country was splinted into 12 states by the Gowon administration. That was the beginning of the splinting of Nigeria into states. Later in 1976, Gen. Murtala Mohammed came with his own axe and splintered Nigeria further, breaking out 7 more states.
In 1987 and 1991, Babangida carved out 2 and 9 states respectively.
In 1996, General Sanni Abacha broke some states into pieces, and the pieces were 6 in number. That is how Nigeria became a federation of 36 states.
Meanwhile, the wood-shopper’s job doesn’t seem yet ending, since some people in some quarters continue to ask for states to be created for them. Example is the proposed Ibadan state, which some people are asking for.
There are two ways in which a federation can happen. The first one is through addition, the second is division. A federation is by addition when the component units come together, voluntarily, to form a union government.
The US federalism is an example. The original 13 states at independence formed a federation. Other states then began joining, until the US became a federation of 50 states.
On the other hand, federation by division is when a country, which is already a unitary government, is divided into units, so as to have a look of a federation. Nigeria is an example of a federation by division.
No doubt, federation by addition is a genuine form of federation as it typifies the case of people entering into a union the terms of which they already understand and like, and in fact, are enviable to them and which they would like to be a part of. Federation by the division process is a fake federation, it does not typify the case of people entering into a union willfully based on an understanding of terms. It is an attempt to forge a federation from a unitary system.
One important thing to notice about these two types of federation is that the federation by addition (FA) is forward-looking, while the federation by division (FD) is backward-looking.
The FA will be looking towards growing the defense and economic power of the union, based on the template of progress that brought all the states together, whereas the FD will be going back to the first things that ought to have been done.
The Nigerian states for example, having not founded its federation on genuine roots, has been dealing with the haunting problems of the foundation, so it has been going backwards, going back and forth on issues of the terms and conditions for living together, secession, restructuring etc.
Now, back to the crucial matter. The crucial question to ask in order to understand the structure of the Nigerian state is: why is Nigeria divided up into states?
What is the motive for the creation of states in Nigeria?
The Nigerian elite from the days before independence have been concerned with the distribution of national wealth. To control resources or have a share of resources have been the driving force in the negotiation of the Nigerian state. This is alright, since politics is about allocation of resources.
This bourgeois idea of politics, reinforced by Harold Laswell’s definition of politics as “the competition about who gets what, when and how”, has been the motivating principle of Nigerian federalism. The Nigerian elite have not paid attention to the more important purpose of politics, which is the protection of lives and property of citizens. The security of lives is something that cannot be shared out among people based on a time-table, contrary to Lasswell’s idea of politics, which suggests that politics is the struggle to share out resources based on time-table. Security is an ever-present need, which cannot be negotiated, put on hold, or be postponed.
The struggle over national wealth has been the driving force of the struggle for decentralization. This is clear in the crisis of 1966-67, involving the Ojukwu led Eastern Region, which culminated in the Nigerian Civil War. To meet this quest, Gowon divided Nigeria into twelve states. This was monumental in the journey of Nigeria as a federation by division.
This motivation towards national wealth and lack of attention to the principal function of government, which is security, has led to two things:
One, Nigeria has been divided into states for the purpose of sharing national revenue.
Two, the power to provide for the security of lives and properties is not given to the states.
In the first case, the states exist only to collect their own due of national revenue from Abuja. They were not created to develop their people through economic development in their jurisdiction.
On the second hand, the states, though given the power to make laws in certain matters, are not given the apparatuses of force to implement their laws.
What is a federation where the states do not have their police force? Where the states have no security agency in its command?
How do you make law as a sensible person knowing full well you have no apparatus to implement the law? This is the fate that Samuel Ortom’s anti-open-grazing law has suffered. Ortom has no apparatus to implement the law he made. Taraba has no apparatus to implement law. Neither has Ekiti. No state has the apparatus to implement any law. The Federal Government alone can make and implement laws.
So, whenever we want to advise Ortom, we should remember this point. That any group of fighters set up by a state government is illegal. And that when you put weapons in the hands of illegal fighters, there is no way you can monitor the weapons and withdraw them when the fight is concluded. In that case, you have created another militia that will become a future problem for the state. Not only is such a response riotous, except one has decided to go into the act of war against the attackers.
In the ongoing attacks by herdsmen around the country, an action by the Federal Government is not an intervention, it is rather a primary constitutional function. States in fact, have the constitutional obligation to wait for the response of the Federal government, because the Federal Government is the only authority that has the right to protect the lives and property of citizens. This is so because the states are only points for collection of monthly revenue allocation, they do not exist for the development of the people, let alone their security.
Written by Deji Adesoye
adesodeji@yahoo.com
