PASCAL OPARADA writes on views by enlightened analysts on the need for another look at the country’s current federal system of government
There is an argument by some apprehensive commentators that Nigeria’s current federal system of government may not survive another century.
Renowned Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and foremost constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze; former Commonwealth Secretary General, Emeka Anyaoku; and Prof Aloysius Okafor of the Centre for Alternative governance, a Lagos-based non-governmental organisation, all believe in Nigeria but not as it presently operates.
One thing they have in common is the view that the present system is defective, given the citizens’ peculiarities as a people and that it is built on political fault lines. They further argue that the nation’s presidential system of governance has done it more harm than good, because it breeds corruption and impunity.
The commentators have, thus, advocated alternative, though different, fiscal structure, if the country is to remain one indivisible entity as envisaged by its forebears. Some, particularly, advocate that Nigeria returns to her regional system of government. The reason, they stressed, is because the country witnessed development and autonomy of some sort from the federal government during the regions era.
Anyaoku reasons along this line. He, in fact, believes that Nigeria is standing on a cliff if it fails to restructure its political system.
“The present structure of governance we have in our country will not lead us to the peace and stability we want. We do need to restructure our governance architecture. We need to return to regionalism which would give us a truer federation than what we have at the moment,” Anyaoku said.
His prescription is that Nigeria restructures along the six geo-political zones, while the present state governments remain as development areas, but devoid of the full paraphernalia of administration, which, he notes, contributes to bloated revenue expenditure in excess of 70 per cent on administration alone.
Anyaoku believes that Nigeria does not have a genuine federation because of what he describes as “destabilising competition for the control of the centre”, a competition, he says, fans the embers of ethnic and religious differences.
Going back to regionalism, he believes, will allow each unit to develop at its own pace; “and with all of us coming together at the centre for national institutions, we can be sure of a greater peace and stability in the future”.
Nwabueze has a slightly different idea on how Nigeria should restructure its fiscal federalism. Being a member of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) in 1976, which drafted the 1979 Constitution, Nwabueze believes that the country should restructure along ethnic lines.
But Okafor disagrees with Nwabueze. “Nigeria has over 250 ethnic groups. How these ethnic nationalities can cohesively merge is going to be a herculean task,” he posits.
He rather suggests that the nation should embark on an alternative, home-grown democracy, where each geo-political zone will produce a vice president and have a common geo-political legislature to check the vice presidents from their zones.
But what happens to the current states in the federation?
Said he: “The states will also remain as developmental areas with limited autonomy, with their governors also being checked by geo-political legislature where they belong, to avoid abuse. This, he said, is to decongest the power at the centre and give the zones more power to develop at their own pace.”
For Okafor, under the above structure, the country should have one national legislative house to check the president and the vice presidents.
On how the president should emerge, Okafor said he needs to have two-thirds of votes from each geo-political zone to emerge as president. This, he said, will make it impossible for the country to produce an ethnic president, as is currently the case.
“The situation where every ethnicity is jostling to produce the next president is bad enough for the country because many will feel left out,” the professor said.
“At Independence, Nigeria had all the trappings of a democratic state and was indeed regarded as a beacon of hope for democracy. It had a federal constitution that guaranteed a large measure of autonomy to three (later four) regions; it operated a parliamentary democracy modelled along British lines that emphasised majority rule. The constitution included an elaborate bill of rights; and, unlike other African states that adopted one-party systems immediately after Independence, the country had a functional, albeit region-based, multi-party system. But these democratic trappings were not enough to guarantee the survival of the republic because of certain fundamental and structural weaknesses.”
On the strength of these submissions and in line with prevailing mood by some analysts, it has been argued that as the national conference winds down, it will be good if the delegates take a look at this aspect of Nigeria’s national life.
However, Ogubundu Nwadike, a public affairs analyst, believes Anyaoku is confusing the whole thing. For him, regionalism, instead of solving Nigeria’s problem, may end up worsening it.
Said he: “We cannot be running forward and backward on this particular issue of regionalism. Are we running back to regionalism because something new has changed in our regional arrangement? What necessitated our deciding for a different form of government? Has the circumstances changed. Regionalism will not solve our problem, it might even worsen it.”
Nothing, he added, is wrong with current system, but the operators.
“Nobody has even faulted presidential system because it is working elsewhere, just like parliamentary system is also working elsewhere. The problem is not with the system but with the operators. The presidential system is doing so well in United States. Let Anyaoku not take us too far into the experience.”
Advocating for a rather different form of government than regionalism, Nwadike said: “What will help Nigeria is a government with a second hand value. A government they can identify with. It doesn’t have to be presidential or parliamentary system. I advocate a system where you get people from the 774 local governments to elect people they want and when they gather at the centre, they can now elect the people of their choice to govern them.”
But for Emeka Ejere, also a public affairs analyst, Anyaoku is a living witness of how the regional system operated and benefitted from it.
Pat Anyadubalu, another analyst, said the problem of the country is not the type of system being adopted, but the leadership.
“The only advantage of regionalism is that it promotes regional development. In those days of regionalism, the regions were developing themselves. We had the cocoa in the West, the groundnut pyramids in the North and the palm oil in the East. So, there was healthy competition among the regions. Nobody was relying on crude oil. Today, the states are relying on hand-outs from the federal government and this hinders economic development,” Anyadubalu stressed.