By
Coker Onita
It amounts to no exaggeration saying that Nigeria is in a state of flux, gliding down the slope precipitously. So awful, painful and precarious is the descent that many are wondering which way forward? Any hope that she will survive? Our economy is in dire straits, unwitnessed and unprecedented in the annals of Nigerian history. The falcon, they say, can no more locate the falconer. The time has come for us to look further, reform and modernise our ways, else we perish. But God forbid!
Chief Emeka Anyaoku, 90, respected elder statesman and former Secretary General of Commonwealth, lent his baritone and highly dignified voice to the clamour for a better nation. His admonition was that Nigeria should create a brand new Constitution.
You would have expected such clarion call to be echoed by men and women at the citadel of power but not a single word from them, which is most unfortunate. They are presently engrossed with the battle for their own survival, politically, socially and economically.
Chief Anyaoku laid bare his reasoning for the clarion call: Part of it was the military intervention of 1966 and the unnecessary balkanization of Nigeria’s territorial space. It’s clear to everyone that our nation has never been this divided, as it is today –which is partly responsible for our poor showing in all spheres of human endeavour. Or how do we explain a situation where over 140 million, out of 200 million, of our people live in “multidimensional poverty” and hopelessness? How? l tire, joor!!
Another elder statesman and former Nigerian Ambassador to Australia also recently interacted with me on the same subject, lamenting on the parlous state of our nation. Ambassador Adetunji Soule, 84, a retired civil servant and permanent secretary, with doctorate (Ph.D.) degree in Economics from University of Leicester, England, almost 50 years ago, also shared his thoughts.
The sum total of our discussion is encapsulated in the following: The first concern is his quest for a new constitutional order. There is no doubting the fact that a new Constitution is sine qua non to the continued unity, peace, coexistence, progress and prosperity of our nation.
Chief Anyaoku said: The way forward for Nigeria is a new Constitution to arrest the ongoing deterioration of the situation in our country. He further submitted that to achieve the desired transformation, the country needs a system of government that not only addresses Nigerian diversity but can also be correctly described as “Nigerian peoples’ Constitution.”
“Every successful Federation should evolve a devolution of powers from central government to a fewer and more viable federating units with strong provision for inclusive governance at the centre and in the regions as was agreed by our founding fathers.”
Dr. Soule’s submission was in the same direction. He asked: “Any hope that our nation will survive these current travails and chart a new path forward? What major achievements have we made? The pace of development has slowed down considerably. The era of ‘First in Africa” has long gone.
To him, the First Republic succeeded because the federating units at the time enjoyed a reasonable level of autonomy and were therefore able to develop at their own pace and compete with themselves.
“When Chief Obafemi Awolowo was Premier in the old Western Region, the area saw progress that it became the envy of the rest. And since 1966 when we had the first military coup, what did we achieve? It’s been reversals in our wheel of progress.
“The immediate need is for us to start reforming and modernizing our national architecture in the political, economic, social welfare and security fields. We need to revisit the recommendations of the national constitutional reform conferences, especially the one produced by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in 2014. A committee of revered elders and leaders of thought, respected professionals should be constituted to revisit the document, make recommendations and put the key elements of change to a national referendum.”
Dr. Soule added that all changes, especially those affecting our electoral laws should be re-examined: “All electoral litigations must be completed before inauguration of a new regime. The Federation, as presently constituted cannot be sustained in the long run. Reform it through devolution. Let’s return to the era of competitive Federalism.
“This is the only country in the world where a new regime is sworn in when litigations are yet to be completed. Even in America, all litigations are completed before 90 days when a new regime is sworn in
“An electoral body like the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its counterparts in states should not be constituted by the President or the governors, who are politically partisan and are interested in the outcome of the elections. At present, they always score 99.9 per cent for their parties at local government elections. The institution should be constituted and supervised by a body of elders and leaders with high moral rectitude, high class professionals, but not politicians with partisan interests. And ditto for the states.
“The entire national structure of governance needs to be decentralized. This is responsible for the ineffectiveness of some vital government agencies like the Police, the Prisons (now called Correctional Centres), power generation and distribution, etc. The same with construction of intra-state highways and bridges, unity schools and Federal Government universities, all are symbols of over-centralisation, waste, corruption, excessive bureaucracy and red-tapism. Only major trunk roads linking states from north to south, east to west should be the responsibility of the central government. The “big brother” approach through the ministry of works, FERMA and other agencies has shown itself of lacking the capacity to effectively cover the whole country.”
The present arrangement where states undertake repairs of their important “federal roads” and seek reimbursement thereafter is most untidy, beset with corruption and political manipulation. The distribution of the Federation Account should be accordingly adjusted to transfer required funds from federal to states for all services ineffectually carried out by federal bureaucracies.
This is sure to constitute major policy change and modernisation for construction companies. Also necessary for accelerated road development, is the expansion in the use of PPP, a partnership between the public and private sectors. Even in developed countries, the approach is still very much prevalent. Consortiums of big banks, civil engineering companies bid for and undertake the construction of major bridges and roads and recover their costs through collection of tolls.
Turnpike roads are still being undertaken in United States of America up till tomorrow. This accelerates the opening up of the countryside to development. It is an irony that a country like Nigeria where governance are profligate and wasteful and always short of money, the tolling practice has not taken roots as a means of accelerating the opening up of our country side and rural areas.
Road construction should not be seen only as a social service, but also as a major economic tool for national development
“For power generation, ours is one of the lowest in the world when compared to our population. This is because of over-centralisation. The old colonial structures are thoroughly inefficient, coupled with bad management policies and bureaucratic red-tapism. Let each state government and contiguous ones come together using resources that give them comparative advantage and lower costs. With this, they can do solar, coal, wind, hydro electric, gas fired, etc. Until recently, the nation was putting billions of dollars on electricity expansion with nothing to show for it. We still suffer from ‘system collapse ‘ because of over-centralisation. The new regional monopolies in distribution are more interested in making money than coming up with new ideas at catering for the welfare of their customers.
“What the economy needs are concrete austerity measures rather than the business as usual approach. The Agencies of government and parastatals are far too many. They run into hundreds. The result is the consequent large overheads, leaving very little resources for growth and development.
“There is an urgent need to decentralize the Nigeria Police Force for effective policing. The federal police should operate in Abuja, the nation’s capital, while states and 774 local governments should operate theirs.”
Dr. Soule added that some unviable states of the Federation should be collapsed and be absorbed into contiguous ones to engender economic viability, sustainability and promote their sense of independence. This will further reduce large overheads, wastages and high cost of governance.
He submitted: “The cost of running our National Assembly is one of the highest in the world. It is unjustifiable, considering their output and level of productivity. The revenue allocation formulas should be adjusted to favour the state governments. This will ensure that states have enough money to discharge their responsibilities. These include construction and maintenance of roads and bridges, policing, housing, education, agriculture, etc.
“Finally, we need to move away from fossil fuels expansion in order to improve provision of electricity. We should lay more emphasis on solar, wind, etc. Part of the comparative advantage is adequate availability of sunlight, wind, gas, etc. With this, we will be complying with the world’s clamour for Climate Change. If we do this, our rate of energy expansion will be exponential.”
It is Dr. Soule’s submission that once we are determined to pursue these suggestions, the road to recovery will be shorter, smoother and more sustainable than expected.
“Let’s move away from things that divide us and embrace with open mind, things that surely but steadily unite us as a nation. What Nigeria needs is a new national order imbued with high sense of patriotism and sacrifice from both the leaders and followers alike,” he concluded.
F. COKER ONITA, A VETERAN JOURNALIST, WAS PUBLISHER/CHIEF EXECUTIVE, TODAY’S CHOICE MAGAZINE AND CONSULTANT/COLUMNIST, INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS LIMITED.