The truth about the sorry state in which we have found ourselves can be located in one terrible attitude we have as people and as leaders. We know solutions to our challenges but never bold to confront them head on. We know answers to our troubles and issues of development. Rather than going ahead to implement them so as to have sustainable development and peace that would naturally follow it, we prefer to shy away from them and take the unrealistic pathways for various very discomforting reasons.
Situations are choking and making a mess of life and living and it is time to take a firm decision sure to rectify anomalies and restore sense of balance, we demure, sometimes choosing to run on an entirely different path, many times in the wrong direction even in the hope that time and providence will take us to our desired destination. As we have seen, things, especially those pertaining to human beings don›t work out that way. The longer one stays or travels on the wrong route the farther one is from his target. This is the lesson of life.
We have made so much issue of poverty ravaging the land yet it hasn›t occurred to anyone that our society is still a primitive enclave. Modernity is not synonymous with big urban centres, few good roads, latest cars and speaking in funny phonetics, no, it is about an entity being a productive one. Can the people provide for their basic needs? Governments come and go mouthing the problems and the answers we have all known and internalized; they spend years in office yet leave us and our society dependant on the goodwill of external forces for survival.
We have crude oil. Today as you read this, refined petrol is very costly in the international market, in fact difficult to even see to buy because of the ongoing Russia/Ukraine war but we can›t benefit from the high cost of petrol. In fact it is negatively affecting us because we are almost like those who don›t even have crude oil. More than 60 years after independence we sell raw crude and wait like the less fortunate countries without crude to buy refined petrol. Our governments tell us building modern refineries is very costly yet one man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has just finished building one in a part of Lagos. He will sell to us at international market price. The government that should have built many refineries across the country and turn our society to one exporting petrol has said it will invest billions of naira in a private business at a time they tell us “government has no business being in business.”
There are many examples to give to show how we see solutions and deliberately avoid them because some people and their group have something to benefit in the short run and to leave all of us «castrated» in the short and long run. We are where we are today in the valley because of this shortsightedness. The point to be highlighted today which many of us think is very crucial and cardinal, if we must make success as a country, is the fact that more than anything else we need a new Constitution to push thorough development of our space in a very short time. Constitutional amendment, patchy works some call it on the grand book won›t amount to anything. It won›t produce any positive results. If anything it would only amount to vain attempt to delay the Amageddom that is almost here with us.
The main challenge of our society is the “buy in” by the citizenry. The main reason is that most of the so called citizens don’t believe in the entity called Nigeria. It is no new phenomenon; it has been so even before we became independent in 1960. In the sixties, Chief Obafemi Awolowo had this to say about country: “Nigeria is not a nation, it is a mere geographical expression. There are no Nigerians in the same sense as the English, Welsh or French.” He foresaw what we are seeing today. Strongest man in the North in that era Ahmadu Bello had his own view. “Nigeria,” he told an audience, “is a mistake of 1914. Nigerian unity is only a British invention.”
It took the North some placating to see sense in one Nigeria, otherwise, they wanted a separate state. Both West and North wanted secession inserted into the first Republic Constitution only Nnamdi Azikiwe objected. Before the Civil War, North called for separation and Gowon the military officer of northern extraction who took up the reins of government after General Aguiyi-Ironsi was brutally murdered in the aftermath of the second coup also said “the basis for unity” wasn’t there. It was the accurate reading of the will of the people and intendment to check possible future upheavals that produced a federal constitution for the union, a constitution that was later to be destroyed by the military in power, state officials dominated by officers of Northern extraction who did not only do away with the constitution but went ahead to institute unitarism as state system of governance, in addition to carving the national administrative architecture in the vision of the northern political establishment.
The worst these military officers did was to create states and local governments according to their whims and caprices, with deliberate efforts to confer political advantages to their areas of origin. Many states and local governments were created to reward friends, wives and girlfriends. Lagos State and Kano have hit the 40 million population mark with Lagos having a huge edge but while Lagos has 20 local governments, Kano has 44. Old Sokoto state has become three states while big states like Rivers and Cross River have remained one. Mistrust stokes the land when the basis for sharing national benefits include states and local governments.
Every challenge hindering development in our country today has its roots in the lack of «buy in», consequence of inability to gather ethnic and professional leaders to sit and agree on the necessity of Nigeria as presently constituted and the terms for coexistence. Northerners know they have taken an early advantage, unduly secured, hence they are quick to point to the National Assembly to resolve all matters. Even in the vain attempt to paper over deep cracks there is honesty and patriotism in the handling of the related matters. They place the cart before the horse by taking on amendment even when it is clear to every first year graduate that authenticity of the document in question should precede action on it. Was it right for the military to give us a constitution?
Local government autonomy which our parliamentarians have made so much fuss about is just a wicked attempt to divert focus from the real matter of federalism. They want autonomy for local governments without defining which tier of government between state and federal should supervise them. Of course, it cannot be federal. If state is to make laws for their smooth running as currently provided, including joint accounts, then where lies the autonomy thing? If the units were to stand on own, so many power points will create terrible problems too. Local authorities should be units under states and by so doing we avoid big government and expenditures that on recurrent.
We have not been able to untie our productive capacities because of the unitary system. Unemployment and insecurity are the by products. All over the world only Nigeria with our size has a unitary policing system. Others have democraticised policing. Same for fiscal responsibility and others. It is wrong and even terrible to pick indigeneship and say if one has lived in an area for five years he becomes an indigene. This can only come from people taking undue advantage. Nigeria is not like Europe where majority tribes formed countries. Taking cognizance of indigeneship yet finding vent for citizens rights would have made more sense if intentions were noble. As we can see they have never been and won’t be perhaps for a long time to come. And for as long it takes, the altercations will continue.