By Biobele Abraham Gorgewill, JCA
What is ‘Restructuring’? The word ‘restructuring’ within the political space of Nigeria has become an emotive one, carrying with it different emotions on both divide between its strongest proponents or protagonists and the cynics, who distrust the brand of restructuring being expounded by its protagonists.
However, political restructuring, the thrust of this paper, can simply be described as the alignment of levels of government vertically and branches of government horizontally for the deepening of democracy and the promotion of the welfare of the citizens.
Restructuring can be likened to true federalism. The basic idea of a federation is that the federating units should be up of the diverse ethnic nationalities or the various people making up the nation and each of the federating units, whether called states or Provinces or Religions etc. should have the Constitutional powers to manage its own unique problems. However, this can only be attained not through or by a Central tailored to suit the peculiarities within its territory. Thus, each federation unit is constitutionally empowered, and not merely permitted by the Central authority, to explore, exploit, develop and manage its own resources for its own people and to be in charge of its own security, and to make its own kind of contributions to the overall well-being of the entire Nation. In this way, the Central authority is saddled with only those items that are common to the survival of the Nation, including but not limited to matters such as defence, external affairs and currency and such like!
Nigeria had indeed passed through this way both before and immediately after independence under the Republican Constitution of 1963, under which each of the federating Regions had its own distinct Constitution while the Centre had a general Constitution covering all fields common to all the federating Regions. However, and regrettably, this system of true federalism which engendered the regional prosperity of the pre-independence and immediate post-independence era-though still not an utopia, was hastily jettison sooner than later even before it had taken complete root in Nigeria and Nigeria was subsequently over the year goaded into the kind of federalism we practice today as a Nation, in which the federating units, called States, are so emasculated to the point of being truly incapable of even looking after the affairs of its own people without the over bearing control and interference by the over lordship of the Central authority. In true federalism the federating units are by their own Constitution empowered to take their own destinies into their own hands but within the larger Nigeria Nation, in my understanding of the concept of restructuring, it has nothing to do with the breaking up of the Nation, which remains, and must so remain, one indissoluble indivisible strong and united Nation under Law and the Almighty God. It is rather about how to legally bring into being the concept of stronger federating units constitutionally empowered to be their own keepers while deferring to the Centre on matters of common interest to the entire federating units and the country.
In a true federalism therefore, the usually vexed issues of resources, their exploitation, exploration, development and control would be constitutionally defined and each federating units and the Centre would know its definite role in such matters and thus lay rest some of these most vociferous agitation over resources control that the Nigeria nation had experience in the not too distant past in the form of militancy, which happily was amicably brought to an end by the graciousness of the Central government through the instrumentality of amnesty and the resultant truce now being sustained by the faithful implementation of the amnesty program by the Federal Government. In restructuring therefore, lies in my view perhaps the best possibility of revival of the positive competitive spirit of the federating units as is was in the heydays of Regionalism in Nigeria in the early 1050s through 1963.
Nigeria in its present system of governance, anchored on the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended), appears in form only to be a federation without true federalism. Under the old Regional system of governance as was operated under the 1963 Constitution, each federating Religion has significant powers and was authorized to raise the revenues needed to fund themselves and contribute to the Central Government. The leaders of that era competed to do their best for their respective people, leading to the scoring of many first by Nigeria in the continent of Africa: for example; the Western Region launched the first by public Television Service in Africa; each of the three original Regions founded its own. In other words, is the talk about restructuring mere rhetoric or is restructuring legally feasible or realizable in Nigeria? If realizable then what are the legal realities and framework to bring in into fruition or reality beyond the rhetoric? This is what we shall explore in this paper: how to bring into reality, if possible, the concept of restructuring in Nigeria. Thus, while restructuring talks is akin to a rhetoric legal reality of restructuring is in truth the substance of restructuring in Nigeria. For a long time in Nigeria, there has been this conception by a growing population of Nigerians that true federalism has eluded us. Immense, enormous and over lording powers have been entrusted at the Centre instead of being sufficiently appropriated and devolved to the other levels of government.
Truly, and in all honestly, there are several reasons why restructuring is imperative for Nigeria. Principally, it is needed to halt the continued drift towards under development despite genuine efforts at development of the Country. Some of these many reasons for restructuring of Nigeria would therefore, include the following namely:-
1. A Nigeria earnestly restructured, is a Nigeria positively restored, restored to its previously travelled path of developmental progress, rapid educational advancement, robust and committed Public Service, which genuinely and competently served the Nigeria public both at Federal and regional levels.
2. A Nigeria restructured is a Nigeria with enhanced leadership building culture, where a truly-federal system allows each region to locally identify leadership for spirit of public services, focused on the development of each region, at a pace and a rate that reflect the quantum of each region’s effort and efficient use of local resources; indeed, the revelry-for-regional-success resulting from a truly-federating Nigeria, will boost sustainable development across all zones of the country.
3. A Nigeria restructured will be one where the process of recruitment into public leadership could be better subjected to closer local scrutiny for reputation, character and track record.
4. A Nigeria restructured is a Nigeria where the Central Government, along with its federating units will, and must, be stronger, where every level of government is strong for the right reasons, and in the right areas of responsibility.
5. A Nigeria restructured is a Nigeria enhanced by the removal of the inequities in the incentive system, where many people seek elected and appointive government positions, not to develop the God-given resources of their communities, but instead for personal selfish reasons.
6. A Nigeria restructured will be a Nigeria in which the Central Government will no longer be able to automatically pool funds un-evenly but re-distribute the same on basis of size and needs inequitably and at the expense of the major contributors.
7. A Nigeria restructured is a Nigeria where every area, region or zone of the country will be able to devote more quality time, conceptualization, research, exploration and analysis of its mineral and agricultural resources, with a view to developing an economic value- chain from them for the benefit of their own people and the Central government.
8. A Nigeria restructured will make every region of the country an Economic-Growth and Wealth Creating Zone, which will make the country a true economic giant in Africa.
9. A Nigeria restructured is a Nigeria where each federating units will develop along and in line with its capability and comparative advantages and ‘quota’ in all its ramifications will be a thing of the past.
10. A Nigeria restructured will enhance and engender efficiency to bring into becoming the prosperous Nigeria of the dreams of our founding fathers.
11. In a restructured Nigeria collaboration and not subjugation between the Centre and the Federating units will be irreducible minimum requirement, with no longer any level of imperial authority lording it over the federating units.
(An excerpt from a paper presented by Sir Biobele Abraham GEORGEWILL JCA, DSSRS, KSC at the 3rd Justice Aniagolu (JSC) Memorial Lecture at Godfrey Okoye University. Enugu on 25th October 2018)
Nigeria in its present system of governance, anchored on the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended), appears in form only to be a federation without true federalism. Under the old Regional system of governance as was operated under the 1963 Constitution, each federating region had significant powers and was authorized to raise the revenues needed to fund themselves and contribute to the Central Government. The leaders of that era competed to do their best for their respective people, leading to the scoring of many first by Nigeria in the continent of Africa.
THE ECHO 