An Igbo adage says that where a child is pointing at and crying profusely, if the child’s father is not there, it could definitely be that his or her mother is lurking in that corner. Commonwealth super star, 92-year-old Emeka Anyaoku, declared recently on Arise TV Prime Time that his greatest wish on earth at that age was to see Nigeria obtain a constitution that fosters peace, unity and prosperity among his countrymen.
As former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations and a brilliant diplomat at that, Anyaoku’s regrets, from indications, is that having successfully brokered peace and stability in other nations of the world, he appears to be failing in a similar assignment in his home country. He was a key figure in pulling down the stronghold of Apartheid in South Africa. He was also part of the mediation in the Pakistani conflict when Bangladesh was pulling out as a new state.
Anyaoku is not alone in this yearning for a new “we, the people…”constitution and a pervading feeling of frustration over seeming intractable problems of the country. He is in the forefront of a potent group of eminent Nigerians pushing vigorously for a new constitution for the country at the moment.
This desired constitution, according to the group, ought to engender a truly federal system of governance in Nigeria, among other things. The group parades an array of distinguished Nigerians – former governors Gbenga Daniel, Aminu Tambuwal, Donald Duke, Boni Haruna, Obong Victor Atta, and Kayode Fayemi. Also sighted among this powerful group were retired General Ike Nwachukwu who had been military governor and a senator, legal luminary Mike Ozekhome, Prof. Pat Utomi, former Information Minister Labaran Maku, Dr. Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosumu, among others.
These personalities are no pushovers in the socio-political circle in Nigeria, and cannot be talking rubbish when they say that the skewed constitution foisted on the people of Nigeria by the out-gone Fulani-dominated military is the reason Nigeria is in a mess today.
They demand, among other things in the new constitution, the devolution of powers to federating units, agreeing that enormous powers are currently concentrated in the presidency. One thing so valid in their submission is the geographical restructuring which they wanted to revert to regional, using the six-zone structure as benchmark rather than the present state structure.
Indeed, the beginning of Nigeria’s recovery is hinged upon this geographical restructuring. A federal system of government must have clearcut and viable federating units. Ab initio, Nigeria can be described as a misnomer in view of how a self-seeking Britain did a poor carpentry job of nailing strange bedfellows together in a Nigeria (Niger-area) where the River Niger did not touch many parts, not even a tributary of the river.
A federation arises when different peoples of fairly homogenous culture and consanguinity gather voluntarily and decide to willingly submit their sovereignty to a federal government. As we gradually come to terms with the bundle of falsehood our nation has turned to be, we begin to realize that federating units are not created in the manner we create states in Nigeria. Federating units exist as entities possessing distinctiveness and affinity. That states are created in Nigeria is an indication that the country is not a federation as it is referred to. In other words, Nigeria must be sure of its federating units to fully claim to be federal.
The Emeka Anyaoku team recognizes that Nigeria, after independence, maintained a semblance of a federation in the regional governments until 1966, when the military struck and instituted a unitary system.
When the war broke out, a smart General Yakubu Gowon, then head of state, used the creation of 12 states to break the fragile oneness of Biafra which emerged as the killing of Easterners in the northern part of the country raged. The action, with intent to help Nigeria win the war, merely pampered some feelings of the time.
The military subsequently continued to gratify the sentiments of sections of the country where intense cries for new states erupted. And surely, they kept erupting because of inequity in the sharing of the nation’s resources, an exercise which is done in the capital, Abuja. Worthy of note is the composition of movements for state creation, often made up of self-styled leaders of the people who, in their innermost recesses, harboured selfish ambitions rather than altruistic ones.
So many citizens of the country had woken up at certain times to find their kith and kin severed from them, much to their displeasure, only contented with the false promise of development. Advocates fail to look beyond sentiments of such a creation of states and see its social and economic implications which included indolence and promotion of corruption.
Once created, the bourgeoisie in the new state quickly organized themselves as commissioners, directors-general, heads of parastatals, etc, went to Lagos (this time Abuja) to collect the federal allocations and return home to plot clever avenues to siphon the funds, sometimes via inflated contracts. They fritter away funds on frivolous projects and claim they were developmental. It might not matter to them to work out the intricacies of revenue generation in the new state, in other words, to establish the viability of the state.
A social implication which was most often ignored was that the oneness which preceded state creation usually melted into sectional chauvinism as soon as the administrative knife ran through the map. The cohesion which derived from language or culture was broken and the divided people saw themselves in the light of which state they belonged to. Antagonism got a fertile breeding ground.
I’m still searching for the country other than Nigeria where states are created at random as federating units. In the United States of America which is a global yardstick of democracy, for instance, the number of states making up that country since inception has remained constant in history save the period the state of Hawaii voluntarily joined them. The United Kingdom has remained England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In these nations, no component readily rises to protest, or to agitate for independence. The separatist tendencies are so mild and are easily resolved by a simple referendum. It is different for Nigeria.
The fragmentation of people and the various boundary adjustments that had been carried out in Nigeria were tools in the hands of neocolonialist leaders who perfected the art of divide and rule. They were good students of the colonial masters who never permitted divisions in their home countries but chose to partition Africa as they scrambled for the resources of the so-called Dark Continent.
The beauty of the six zones as federating units is that they are constituted by people who speak the same language – the Yoruba-speaking South West, the Hausa-speaking North East and North West, the Middle Belt which, though have a variety of languages, possess some affinity, the Igbo-speaking South East and the South South in the Delta region. This structure, originated by the late former Vice President Alex Ekwueme during the General Sani Abacha Constitutional Conference in 1993, perfectly fits as federating units. The Ekwueme proposal also included suggestions for rotational presidency among the zones, recommending six vice presidents, one from every zone who would serve also as administrators of the zones, with the states assuming the status of provinces under the zones for administrative purposes.
In the middle of all these, the National Assembly has carried on with what they call a review of the constitution. Talks about creation of more states are top in the agenda. Of course, the national Assembly members know that they have embarked on an exercise in futility, an exercise which has long remained inconclusive in their hands, an exercise which at best lines the pockets of the legislators in sundry allowances.
The development evokes fears that the political class is in no frame of mind to listen to the Emeka Anyaoku’s group who have, going by their submission, demonstrated unreserved patriotism for Nigeria, as well as zeal to bequeath a peaceful country to tomorrow’s generation. Amid this cacophony, Nigeria finds itself once again at crossroad, with no end in sight for their political headache.
Let’s face it, who wants a one-Nigeria? What if our eminent persons begin from the beginning by pressing for a referendum to determine the number of Nigerians that want an indivisible Nigeria? This will enable us to confirm that a one-Nigeria is not just the desire of the big men holding oil blocks and fearing to lose them if the nation breaks up. What if the Patriots write out the document, float it for studies by the people and have Nigerians react? What, if the youths rise in unison to demand a new constitution or nothing? What if Anyaoku uses the Commonwealth connection to get Britain involved in the matter and for them to untie the unholy knots they laced up a century ago?
Dr. Odu can be reached through [email protected] or SMS 07016722929
