A lot has been
written and said about the agitation of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)
for self-determination. Their preferred route is through a referendum. Not long
ago, a group that called itself, Arewa Youths Coalition, even if there was no
youth
amongst them, issued a quit notice asking Igbos in the North to relocate
before October 1, 2017. This was obviously greeted by wide criticisms except
for a few people that supported them. Besides IPOB, there have also been
several other agitations from the Niger Delta, Middlebelt, and Oduduwa people.
The intention of this intervention is not to overstretch the already saturated
arguments as to the appropriateness of the agitations or whether the northern
"youths" could ask any citizen to relocate from any part of the
country or not.
I believe
that we must locate all the agitations and counter agitations along the lines
of the failure of leadership to deliver on what ordinarily, should be the main
essence of its existence. Somehow, even the agitators may not have the presence
of mind to place the issues where they rightly belong. Otherwise, questions
would have been asked and demands made of the leadership especially at the
level of local governments and states for them to give account of their
stewardship. We are all aware of some oil-producing states who receive 13%
derivation in addition to other allocations from the federation account
monthly, that have not been able to account for such large sums of money in
either developmental infrastructure or even maintenance of inherited ones. Having
said that, it is important to state that these agitations are not new, even
though they may have assumed a different dimension. Shortly after independence
in 1960, one coup led to a counter-coup and in 5 years, the country put
together by the colonial masters had fallen apart, culminating in a civil war
that consumed millions of our brothers and sisters. After the civil war in
1970, a process of reconstruction, reconciliation, and rehabilitation was
announced by the Gowon government. Most people insist that the process was
implemented in breach, leaving the injuries of the war improperly healed. One
thing about sores that do not heal well is that they could open up at the
slightest irritation and can actually become malignant or ulcerated. To add insult
to injury, good governance has continued to elude us, making the call for the
breakup of the country very attractive.
The call for
a referendum has been quite strong especially amongst the people of the South
East. Let me state clearly that in my opinion, there is absolutely nothing
wrong with seeking a referendum as it is guaranteed by the United Nations
Charter on Human Rights. The most recent is the UK referendum last year that
saw to Britain leaving the European Union. It is instructive that the UK referendum
claimed the job of the former Prime Minister, David Cameron. With the benefit
of hindsight, if Cameron knew that the votes would turn out the way they did,
he wouldn’t have called for the referendum. The people of Quebec in Canada had
been familiar with referendum since 1919 when the Quebec referendum on the
prohibition of alcohol held on April 10 of that year. The question on the
ballot paper was “Should sale of light beer, cider and wines be allowed?"
About 79% of respondents voted yes and therefore the sale of alcoholic
beverages was allowed, except spirits. It is not very clear what the initiators
of the referendum expected, but most times, the initiators of referenda do not
get what they expected. I used Quebec as an example because, in 1995, I was in
Quebec when the most recent referendum to determine if voters living in that
Canadian province would want a national sovereignty as an independent state.
Quebec, by the way, is a predominantly French speaking territory of Canada,
founded in 1867 with registered voters of over 5million people as at the 1995
referendum. In spite of the very charged atmosphere and mobilization, the
referendum which held on October 30, 1995, produced very shocking results for
its protagonists. 50.58% of the voters did not vote for the sovereignty while
49.42% wanted independence. Meanwhile, the referendum produced a 94% voter
turnout. Note that the first referendum held on May 20, 1980, produced a
similar result: 59.56% of the voters didn’t want independence as against 40.44%
that opted for secession. Of course, if you listened to the protagonists in
1995, you could swear, like yours truly, that secession was a done deal. Even
though the secessionists, failed in both cases, they did not fail in extracting
far-reaching reforms from the Central government of Canada.
To reforms,
which some people have termed restructuring, I now turn. There is no doubt that
Nigeria as presently constituted is not working. The bankruptcy of the model of
government we were forced to adopt by the military since 1999 has become
topical in the light of our severe economic challenges. Things are fast falling
apart and the center is unable to hold. I had argued at different fora that the
large central and state governments have become too expensive and in the face
of dwindling resources and it is only a question of time for everything to
collapse. I do not know anywhere else where government spends over 70% of its
budget on a day to day expenditure also known as recurrent expenditure. It also
means that the only money available for infrastructure is a paltry 30%. This is
a major reason why the system will not work. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look
like we are going to see oil prices of over $50 per barrel in the near future.
To make matters worse, most parts of the world are looking at phasing out
hydrocarbon-powered machines and cars in the next decade or two. Even if that
does not happen, advances in technology are pointing to the fact that at $30
per barrel, shale oil producers can still make a profit. So where does that
leave us? Do we still have the liberty to continue to do the same stupid things
we had done before?. Today, we borrow to pay salaries. In fact, the Federal
Government recently announced that it borrowed N3.57trillion to finance budget
deficits in the 21months of June 2015 to March 2017. This is the domestic
component of the debt. In terms of absolute numbers, the domestic debt profile
rose from N8.39t in June 2015 to N11.97t by March 2017. Our external debt rose
from $9.46b to $13.81b in the same period. This means that in addition to the
above-stated figure, there is a foreign currency component of $4.35b,
representing an increase of about 46%. These are in spite of the debt of the
states which had risen from N1.69t as at March 2015 to N2.96t as at March 2017
indicating a rise of N1.27t or 75% in two years. For a country with an average
yearly budget of circa N7trillion, one doesn’t need a soothsayer to tell one
that our debt profile is unsustainable. The 2017 budget earmarks some N1.66t or
23% of total budget for debt servicing. Experts believe that with the rising
debt profile, this figure would be exceeded and put further pressure on
government’s ability to deliver on its promises. Meanwhile, close to 30 of the
36 states are in arrears of salary payments for several months. All told,
something is wrong with the present structure of government. We must do
something about it or prepare to assume a position as a failed state.
In reducing
the cost of governance, we must rethink the executive system of government that
we copied. Truth be told, we do not need and cannot afford the current model.
In my opinion, we must reduce the powers and cost of government. If we choose
to retain the Executive system, we must tweak it such that we will have a
President and a Vice with no more than 12 ministers. At the moment, we have a
109 member Senate and 360 strong House of Representatives. Collectively, the
National Assembly members have a little less than 3000 aides and assistants. My
recommendation is to do away with a bicameral legislature in favor of one
National Assembly of no more than 90 people. We must do away with the 36 state
structure and set up a regional structure of the now more acceptable 6 Regions
with a Governor and Deputy Governor each. The 6 regions would, therefore, be
the federating units. By so doing, we save on 30 Governors and their deputies,
thousands of commissioners, aides and close to 1000 House of Assembly members
and their aides. We must also do away with the current 774 local government
areas and let the regions determine how many local governments they intend to
have for administrative convenience. We must then devolve power to the regions
and implement a true fiscal federalism whereby each region is at liberty to
develop at its own pace and pays the royalty to the center. We had tried it
before and it worked. The majority of the premier universities were set up by
the regions which seemed to compete to develop. The central government would
still be in charge of areas like Foreign Affairs, Armed Forces, without police,
citizenship, and all such items on the exclusive list. Members of the National
and Regional Assemblies would function on part-time basis sitting periodically
as required and earning sitting allowances only.
Recently,
there has been some awareness campaigns about tax payments in Nigeria. Our tax
to GDP ratio is around 6%, making us the lowest when compared with other
countries on the continent. As we encourage people to pay tax, we seem to
forget that our constitution has no place for leaders to pay taxes. That is why
those who administer and spend tax payer’s money do not need to pay taxes to
stand for election. Even if for this alone, we must take another look at our
constitution.
There are
other reasons for which we should review the constitution to meet the demands
of the populace. One of these is that government besides being too big is also
too powerful and too intrusive. There is a tendency for people to feel
oppressed and for businesses to be suffocated as citizens feel there is too
much inequality, deprivation, and hunger, thereby, encouraging corruption.
Wherever I
had made these proposals, I had been confronted with two questions viz: what
exactly are you suggesting, an executive or a parliamentary system? The second
question is the how question. How can this be implemented given that the people
you require to make these changes are the beneficiaries of the existing order?
On the first question, my answer is in a favorite quote by Alexander Pope thus,
“For forms of government, let fools contest, whatever is best administered is
best”. So it doesn’t really matter what we choose. What is important is that it
serves our purpose of making government work for us. On how we can achieve the
reforms, I believe that we must start from somewhere, without necessarily
reinventing the wheel. In spite of all the arguments about the constitution of
the membership of the 2014 constitutional conference, I believe it is still a
good and the most current document to start with. Of course, one is aware that
the document provided for the creation of more states, but given our knowledge
that the present state structure has become unviable, it would be foolhardy to
talk about creating more states. In my opinion, we should pick up that
document, flesh it out, pass it to the Council of States who would take a
little time to read and approve relevant sections of the recommendations and
send them to the National Assembly which should pass them within a defined
maximum period of time. The approved documents would then be endorsed by the
State Houses of Assembly as prescribed by the constitution. All these can be
concluded before the 2019 General Elections and a take-off date would be part
of the restructured constitution.
Let me state
that these are my suggestions about how we can handle the issue of
restructuring with minimum pain. I do not pretend that this is the best or even
a good approach. I will like to read other views about this. This is a very
healthy debate that must not be muscled. It is also my opinion that we do not
have a choice except if we choose to move from being one of the most fragile
states in the world to a failed and insolvent state. Let me end by advising
that Government must resist the temptation of putting more people behind bars
for the current agitation. It should rather ease the tension in the land by
releasing the remaining members of the IPOB who I understand are still held in
detention and others including El Zakzaky and members of his group. The Arewa Youth
Coalition leaders who gave the quit notice should also not be arrested. We
should rather engage everyone in dialogue. We must encourage open and frank
discussion. In most parts of the developed world, the government is both an
enabler and the solution. Here, the government has become obstructive and the
problem. I strongly believe in hitting the reset button when I realize that
something ain’t working. Please, this one ain't working.
Email:alexottiofr@gmail.com
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