Monday, November 5, 2012
Planned S/West integration awaits legislatures' nod

By Abiodun Fanoro

INDICATIONS emerged at the weekend that the planned South-West regional integration scheme is awaiting legal backing by the various state legislatures in the region.


Christened Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN), the scheme is put together by the Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG).


ARG's General-Secretary, Mr. Ayo Afolabi, who disclosed this to The Guardian in Ibadan at the weekend, said DAWN had already started to record grant strides and that it had passed the primary and the teething stage as it had now successfully established its operational structure and some of the institutions required to function on a sustainable basis and implement the content of the DAWN document.


According to him, among the operational structure already in place are; DAWN Corporate Office, office of the Implementation Committee (OIC) and office of the Executive Secretary (OES). The OIC, he said, was made up of three members each from the member-states, the OES was manned by a technocrat, Mr. Dipo Famakin.


The three, according to him, worked together to guide and drive the operation and the implementation of DAWN document.
Afolabi further disclosed that they were also working in concert with the various Houses of Assembly to get the DAWN Act.


The DAWN Act, he said, would kick-start the next phase of the scheme, which would involve identifying, establishment and development of common structures, projects, programmes and institution.


The ARG scribe assured that notwithstanding the outcome of the Ondo polls, DAWN's next phase would kick off.
According to the scribe, though DAWN was non-partisan, it would however move to the next stage with or without Ondo State.


Afolabi explained that DAWN was purely about the economic, human capacity enhancement, educational, health and infrastructural development of the region for the overall benefit of all the indigenes and residents.


Afolabi said that the idea, the spirit and the implementation of DAWN had no partisan consideration and could accommodate Ondo State if and any time the political decision-makers in the state decided to key into it.


He, however, noted that having a common political platform for all the states' decision-makers could only be an added advantage that would quicken the implementation of the scheme.


Afolabi however revealed that Ondo State under Governor Mimiko had been part of a number of processes that culminated in the birth of the scheme.

The ARG scribe assured that notwithstanding the outcome of the Ondo polls, DAWN's next phase would kick off.According to the scribe, though DAWN was non-partisan, it would however move to the next stage with or without Ondo State.

Afolabi said that the idea, the spirit and the implementation of DAWN had no partisan consideration and could accommodate Ondo State if and any time the political decision-makers in the state decided to key into it.

cjrane: Yeye people can't find better thing to yearn about. Na to always tok useless tok.

geeez: Take it or leave it, the Yoruba race is far ahead.

I don't know how I'll be feeling if I wasn't Yoruba but right now, I couldn't have wished I was from another tribe. Not now, not ever

Ricky_Ross:

Are you not ashamed you are from a tribe that claims to be intelligent, yet your parents destroy your faces with tiger marks in the name of culture?
Are you not ashamed only Yoruba people shiitt in nylon bags in this modern day?
Are you not concerned that yorrober is the dirtiest, fattest and ugliest tribe in Nigeria? These are pure FACTS

Ricky_Ross:

Are you not ashamed you are from a tribe that claims to be intelligent, yet your parents destroy your faces with tiger marks in the name of culture?
Are you not ashamed only Yoruba people shiitt in nylon bags in this modern day?
Are you not concerned that yorrober is the dirtiest, fattest and ugliest tribe in Nigeria? These are pure FACTS

ODUA_NEGRO:

DAWN must include Ondo State. .....it must!

We are talking about a forward progress for Yorubaland. The focus must be on the Yoruba people, not their political alliance. Here are some suggestions to the llanners

1. Political seat of any member state is not predictable and could shift in future. However, monarchy crowns are permanent and fixed to the land and the people. Monarchs therefore ought to have a primary role in DAWN.

2. Constitutional mandates can handicap a governor in his/her duty to the land and service to the Yoruba cause. Monarchs are immune and can operate outside the container to bring people together or to implement orders which the constitution would notallow to the executive of the state.

3. Mimiko is not Ondo and Labour party is not Ondo. I hope Mimiko continue to support DAWN as he has done in past and I believe he will. If he is disaffected by the recent political gang up against him and should therefore elect to stay out of DAWN, then he is entitled to do that but he cannot hold Ondo back from participating in our jointly owned commonwealth. The monarchs of Ondo must act to join in and move Yorubaland and people forward.

luvinhubby: Politicians will cook up any meaningless idea to remain relevant......only in Nigeria.

geeez:

This isn't an idea by politicians for politicians. It's an idea by Yoruba leaders for Yorubaland

luvinhubby:
Whether in or out of office, they are all politicians. The slogan "Southwest economic intergration" originated and is beng propagated by politicians.

cjrane: Yeye people can't find better thing to yearn about. Na to always tok useless tok.

Ricky_Ross:

Are you not ashamed you are from a tribe that claims to be intelligent, yet your parents destroy your faces with tiger marks in the name of culture?
NO

Are you not ashamed only Yoruba people shiitt in nylon bags in this modern day?

I KNOW A LOFTY ETHNIC NATIONALITY-CALLED YORUBA, DONT THINK YORROBER EXIST.
Are you not concerned that yorrober is the dirtiest, fattest and ugliest tribe in Nigeria?
I KNOW AN INTERNATIONAL ETHNIC NATIONALITY - CALLED YORUBA, DONT THINK YORROBER EXIST.

These are pure FACTS

Ricky_Ross:

Are you not ashamed you are from a tribe that claims to be intelligent, yet your parents destroy your faces with tiger marks in the name of culture?
Are you not ashamed only Yoruba people shiitt in nylon bags in this modern day?
Are you not concerned that yorrober is the dirtiest, fattest and ugliest tribe in Nigeria? These are pure FACTS

luvinhubby: Politicians will cook up any meaningless idea to remain relevant......only in Nigeria.

SOUTH-WEST REGIONAL INTEGRATION AS A WAY OUT OF THE
NIGERIAN SOCIO-ECONOMIC MORASS BY
DR FEMI OREBE


Presentation at the 2011 Ekiti Economic and Development Summit
October 14-15, 2011
The question that first comes to mind concerning this topic is why Regional Integration?
Why has it suddenly assumed this importance and became the refrain, especially
amongst a significant section of the South-West intelligentsia? Indeed, one Dr Sani,
from you know where, just sent me a text message in reaction to my last Sunday article
in THE NATION, asking why we in the South-West would not just quietly pack bag and
baggage and check out of Nigeria. Well, you can trust me to have answered him back
saying we no longer wish to be unequally yoked with do-nothings who merely play the
stomach, gobbling everything in our national life.

Of course, we cannot fake ignorance and claim we do not know those amongst the
Yoruba who would rather die, queuing for handouts from their Abuja lords, especially
now that boards of federal corporations are about being appointed by President
Jonathan. Forget in the meantime that their total emasculation in their party, the PDP,
as eminently attested to in the present federal set-up, both in the executive and the
legislative, not to talk of the judiciary where non-Pharaohs are acting like
Nebuchadnezzar, our brethren are still tying themselves to the apron strings of those
Papa Awo said we would never have cause to prostrate for.

But in spite of our chorusing Regional Integration, I often wonder how many of us here
in the South-West are really as perceptive as to know, like governor Kayode Fayemi, that
Boko Haram, and the post-election crises in the North are not the ramblings of a
Northern ‘hoi poloi’ but incendiary reactions to a perceived loss of power by an elite
stratum that is predominantly “Northern” and also “Moslem” even if religious piety,
simpli cita, counts the least with their leading lights. After all, I have the words of one of
their most distinguished blue bloods, the same Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, our dear
CBN governor, to the effect that, and I quote him: ‘Our elite use the Sharia debate to
divert attention from their own corruption, nepotism, abuse of office and un-Islamic
conduct’, That was in a paper he gave way back in 1999 on ‘ISSUES IN
RESTRUCTURING CORPORATE NIGERIA’, and was published by the Urhobo Historical Society.

Boko Haram, and its attendant dislocations, especially through
suicide bombings, killings and arson, are clearly signs of a clandestine contest over raw
political power and as Fayemi put it: who lost power, who won power, and who wants
power back?

The processes that threw up President Jonathan have worsened everything. Why do I
say that? Simple. The fact of a Southern minority president completely unmakes the
Sardauna’s everlasting ambition, and I quote him in a speech he delivered, 12 October,
1960, a mere eleven days after we got our flag independence:
“This new country called Nigeria should be an extension of the estate of
our great-grand-father, Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a
change of power. We must use the peoples of the Middle Belt as willing
tools, and the South as conquered peoples; and never let them rule over
us, and never let them control their own future.'


That, indeed, has been the history of this country ever since.
What that means essentially, but which many of us cannot verbalise is the fact that we as
Yoruba are wasting away in an unworkable federation, at least, as presently constituted.
No, far be it that proponents of Regional Integration are calling for a separation. We are
only asking to be given the opportunity to be able to develop at our own pace without
the suffocating stranglehold of a inequitable federal apparatus. Which is why, right
down from the late legal guru, Alao Aka Bashorun, through the one they ‘killed’, the
immortal Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome Kuti and the likes of our own dear governor,
the Yoruba have suffered all manner of deprivations, even, including loss of dear lives,
fighting a justified cause for a restructuring of the country.

Failure to achieve that to date is the reason that at the mere mention of Boko, even yet
without its Haram, students of the University of Ibadan writing a semester examination
elected to quickly vote with their legs just as their University of Benin counterparts did
not as much as wait to hear the school authorities announce closure before they locked
up shop and vamoosed from campus. And as SNOOPER loves to put it in THE
NATION, there are many more Harams than Boko.

So what to do?
Again I allow the Ekiti state governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, to speak:
“What then is the connection between regionalism and the crisis of governance that
Nigeria is currently experiencing? The connection, in his opinion lies in the search for
the most appropriate institutional mechanism for promoting consensus, mediating
conflict and managing diversities in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious country, all of which
were greatly attenuated under jackboot military regimes”, and during the
indistinguishable Obasanjo civilian regime where what passed muster as governance
was rule of man, devoid of God and Laws.(that portion in italics are my words please)
He then continues: ‘‘although the challenges we face maybe internal and ethnic in
nature, oftentimes the interlocking nature of these challenges underscore the artificiality
of state boundaries and call for a broader response driven by social consensus.”


[b]For the South-West therefore Regional integration must be seen as our ‘deu ex
machina.’ Leveraging therefore on our communalities, Regional Integration, even
where it is not exactly a silver bullet, will allow us escape the stranglehold to which an
unprofitable union has shackled us for close to a century.
As I put it in a recent article on the subject in my syndicated columns in both THE
NATION and NATIONAL LIFE newspapers, the following are the reasons why regional
integration as a developmental paradigm in the South-West has become an inescapable
desideratum: In a multi-ethnic country like ours, differences in economic development across
regional/ethnic divides are common place.

This has been accentuated in our own case by the differences in our varying exposure to,
and engagement with western education which has created varying levels of appreciation of what
real development and growth are, amongst the various nationalities. Also the concentration of
legislative power and fiscal muscle at the centre has made regional integration a smart option given
that the lopsidedness of Nigerian politics has succeeded beyond description in reducing the
dominant groups in government to no more than ethnic champions; a situation which in
turn has rendered others not so powerful immensely vulnerable.

Equally it is an open secret that in many instances, development in the South-West, for instance in
education, has been deliberately arrested as a ploy to play catch up by the so-called
‘educationally dis-advantaged’ areas. I recall that once at the AGBAJO YORUBA
AGBAYE, under the lead of a sterling leader, LT. Gen Alani Akinrinade, we were forced
to set up a 5-man Rapid Response media team to react to Obasanjo government’s
egregious neglect of the South-West in its award of contracts for dams literally all of
which, in their billions, were going to the North. Of course, a Shagari was the incumbent
Minister of Water Resources.

Additionally, rapid economic development in the South-West as a way of creating
employment opportunities for our huge and ever increasing army of unemployed youth,
without a glass ceiling, is absolutely contingent upon our frontally and seriously
mobilizing capital for economic activities in Yoruba land to accentuate competitiveness.
This has become the case since revenue allocation is, and will always be insufficient to
create the volume of economic activities we require to provide the required level of
economic activity to absorb them substantially. [/b]

Finally, Your Excellencies, distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, the increasing
marginalization of the Yoruba from the commanding heights of the economy, especially
in the regulatory agencies and in banks, finance and telecoms where we used to
predominate but which deliberate federal policies, being driven by elements from the
other nationalities, had rendered otiose, means that we have to either start out ‘de novo’
or fashion out cooperative ways in which our various states can leverage on their
commonalities for a rounded economic development.

Beside God, only we, can save ourselves. The story is told of a delegation of senior
Yoruba citizens which visited with a president of Northern extraction to complain about
marginalisation. Mr. President was said to have looked his visitors straight in the face
and asked what exactly the Yoruba want again. He was reported to have then reeled out
a list of the things which, of course not government, but mostly private capital and
entrepreneurship had brought about in the South-West, and asked his visitors to name
comparable institutions or infrastructure, in his own part of the country. His petrified
visitors returned home with their tails behind their backs.


Such is the total misconception of the place of the South-West in the Nigerian economy
today, that a friend of mine, a very top official of the ACF, could still write to me only
this past week to say he believes, even in our beleaguered economic status, that the
Yoruba are, and I quote, ‘the most educationally and economically empowered’ in the
land and so should, in his considered view, use these advantages and act as a lodestar or
bellwether for the rest of the country. My friend was certainly not making a cruel cut.
However, if eminently enlightened citizens of other parts of the country will dress us,
knowingly or unknowingly, in these borrowed robes, the Yoruba who knows he is no
longer where on the economic plane he/she used to be, had better learn to rethink his
place.

These and more, especially the excruciating unemployment situation in a highly
educated South-West makes it imperative that our governments must co-operate and
birth a developmental paradigm that will ensure immediate employment of huge
numbers of this army of highly educated but jobless young men and women who are the
future of our race.
Collectively, therefore, the governors, our genuine mandate keepers, as opposed to
rigged-in, mandate-less pretender governors of the ‘ancien’ regimes in Yoruba
land, must work hard together to make poverty history in our land.

I thank you all.

cjrane: Yeye people can't find better thing to yearn about. Na to always tok useless tok.

Regional economic integration and national transformation: Implications for domestic security and the role of stakeholders (2)
THURSDAY, 02 AUGUST 2012 00:00 CHIEF T. A. ORJI FEATURES - FOCUS
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Being concluding part of the text of a lecture delivered by His Excellency, Chief T. A. Orji (Ochendo), Governor of Abia State, on the occasion of a public policy forum event, organised by the Business Hallmark Publishers, at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos, on Wednesday, July 4, 2011.(The first part was published on Wednesday, August 1, 2012).

OUR view is that new inter-governmental integrations in Nigeria should focus on promoting collective, sound and stable macro-economic policies within member States,that will on their own induce growth and better utilization of resources. Where these conditions exist, they will on their own attract direct foreign investment. But the success will invariably depend on the stable security of the integrated environment.

The modality of an ideal regional integration proposed here, will need to focus on two broad issues of cooperation activities (See Oyejide, T.A, ADB Economic Research Paper,No. 62, 2000), viz:-

• Policy harmonization across integrating States, on investment and common standards.

• Regional Cooperation arrangements to implement joint infrastructure projects in key areas as Transport, communication development, development of regional water resources, power projects, and educational development.

The emphasis here is the facilitating of critical infrastructure with high cost out-lay and huge indivisible Investments, which end up generating lower cost unit for the group. It is expected that this model of integration will provide both a practical and pragmatic approach to our regional integration questions, and also focus less on intra trade and market expansion arrangements.

When regional integrations and cooperation focus on factors that directly stimulate growth, they have the greater chances of achieving the stated goals of wealth creation and have visible impact on National Transformation. They become an extension of the domestic reform of the larger Nation, by challenging its re-orientation, basic strategies, and restructuring, if possible, - and through that, achieve the transformation of the larger Nation.

WHY THERE IS THE NEED TO INTEGRATE THE NATIONAL REGIONS OF NIGERIA, SPECIFIC EXAMPLES

Virtually all the regions of the Nigerian Federation, including the South-South, the South-West, the South-East and the Northern geopolitical region, have expressed inclinations to form a regional Integration of their people. These moves arose from compelling needs to harness economic development of the regions, and as a reaction to the growing economic stagnation, poverty and growing unemployment of the Nigerian Nation.

The conclusion has also come from the belief that from a structural and resource point of view, only few Nigerian States will be capable of going it alone to reverse its present economic trends. Therefore, the need to seek integration of contiguous States, especially those already bonded together by cultural and historical affiliations, has become imperative, for States to be in a position to harness and accelerate their economic development.

Such ideas are not just a challenge to the operations of the Nigerian Federalism, they constitute a look at the past, and how this compares with the present.

In Nigeria at the point of Independence, it was clear to both Colonial Britain and Nigerian Nationalists, that they would prefer to live under a truly Federal system of Government. Both at the Ibadan General Conference of 1950, the Constitutional Conference of 1953, and Lagos Conference of 1954, Nigerians accepted a Federal System of Government.

This arrangement challenged the founding father of the modern Nigeria - Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello, to develop their regions along an integrated unit of many tribes with shared links.

Each of the three regions, - later four, in postcolonial Nigeria sought to exploit their potentials to develop, and we could hear of the groundnut pyramids in the North, the cocoa merchants in the South West, the palm oil Barons of the Eastern Region, and the rubber merchants of the Mid-Western region.

Each of the regions found a reason to prosper through collaborations with the contiguous localities, and the Federal Government was the beneficiary in its transformed economy. This was the reason that made the leaders of the various regions, to prefer to stay back in the regions, rather than operate from the centre.

[b]Nigeria lost its innocence with the discovery of oil as the mainstay of the Nigerian economy, and was further worsened by military intervention, which foisted a lop-sided, but powerful centre and distorted federalism on the political sphere. By imposing a unitary garb on Nigeria’s federalism, especially in the area of revenue allocation and resource ownership, the Federal Government made the Nigerian Federation unworkable and bereft of development initiatives beyond oil rents.

Nigeria’s potentials have since been stifled and there is a failure to transform the National economy. This has led to the assumption that a return to true federalism – the foundation of Nigeria, will reignite the engine of development and national transformation of the economy.

This is perhaps the strongest support for the promotion of intra governmental regional integration, along previous regional trends. It is expected that this will lead to a healthy rivalry among the political zones, and with the harmonized policies of the regions, economic development and National transformation will follow.

Perhaps, it is believable that effective economic development and transformation will occur, if there is harmonization of policies of the many unviable States of the Federation through regional integration and restructuring of the Nation, beginning from constitutional changes.[/b] This will give vent to regional integration, through transfer of resources, and the harnessing of effective regional leadership to produce results.

This should be the driving force of the new regional integrations discussed here.

SOUTH-WEST STATES REGIONAL INTEGRATION

In the South-West of Nigeria where the Governors have come up with a bold idea f regional integration, the program is designed to assist the States in tapping from the resources of the member States with comparative advantage.

While it is essential that these States take cognizance of their economic situations and the infrastructural needs of their citizens, the success of this integration will depend on the existing structure on the ground to drive the process.

Also, while the contiguity of States with similar culture and ideological framework may provide the strong basis for integrating the region, participation need not be initially based on political affiliations and alignments as a controlling factor. Instead, the presence of some pressing needs, which can be shared by integrating States, such as agricultural viability and the funding of shared high capital intensive infrastructure- such as railway network, shared power project, and security imperatives, should form the basis of a formidable integration scheme.

The fact is that where the integration of a political zone is based on the exchange of policies that promote better living of the people of the zone, it stands the chance of succeeding, especially as stakeholders in policy formulation and implementation, begin to see the benefits of leveraging on the ideas and expertise of one another.

SOUTH-SOUTH STATE REGIONAL INTEGRATION

The South-South Region is equally set for regional integration through the auspices of the BRACED Commission. The aim being to launch the region made up of: Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Edo and Delta States, into a socio-political integration. It is hoped that this will create a prosperous region, with nationally and globally competitive economy.

By working closer together, the integrating States hope to utilize opportunities for cooperation and growth, to strengthen their economies, and for the benefit of their region and their States.

It is just as good that the BRACED Commission has seen the need to call on the Federal Government to review its policies on regulation on Power and Gas Production – all mega and costly projects, to enable the integrated Commission to generate, transmit and distribute electricity to their members with lower cost per unit, and as a compliment to the efforts of the Federal Government. This is tantamount to calling for constitutional review and restructuring.

The BRACED Commission will also focus on security and safety of the region to encourage collective Food and Job security, as well as protect the collective investments made in the region. There is no doubt that if the region is successfully integrated, and benefits derived from implementation of agricultural production and its value chains, employment will be created for the teeming youths of the region, and conflicts and criminality curtailed. These are equally the goals of the Federal Government’s economic transformation, which would be further accelerated.

But the Commission should boldly address the security situation of the region to improve the environment of its activities, This suggests that it should be in the vanguard of the advocacy for reforms and restructuring of the Nigerian Federation, especially in areas of State policing, resource control and fiscal federalism. Without these, the Region will make little progress in its integration.

INTEGRATION OF THE SOUTH-EAST AND THE NORTHERN POLITICAL ZONES.

Regional Integration in the South-East and the Northern Regions of Nigeria has been the slowest in gathering steam, even though for different reasons. However, there is no doubting the question that successful regional integration of these regions ‘can help them attain greater economies of scale, rationalize location of industries, and encourage specialization of production’, while tackling the funding issue involved in high cost projects that can provide shared value ( cit. Business Hallmark, May 2012).

While the quest for South-East integration commenced a few years ago through the formation of the South-Eastern Nigeria Economic Commission (SENEC), the idea has not been seriously advanced further.

The truth is that the South-East region has been the most misunderstood region in the Nation, to the extent that even such an innocuous economic initiative as regional integration, can gain the misinterpretation of some hawkish Nigerians.

However, there are other issues that have dictated the pace of the regional integration idea in the South-East, and these include the perceived structure of the market supporting businesses in the region, which are dominated by external linkages and less of internal expansion, the balkanization of the region which exorcised the most affluent States with resource endowment such as Rivers, Bayelsa, Cross River and Akwa-Ibom – all through the painful experience of conflict which will take time to heal.

South-East region is therefore left with the core linguistic group of Abia, Imo, Enugu Ebonyi and Anambra – whose economic outlook is external-dominated, as a result of low infrastructural development and poorly developed internal market structures.

While these situations may appear peculiar and limiting in vision, the homogeneity of the region, the virtual absence of Federal Government presence and its poor infrastructure, make the region a good case for regional integration, if only for the purpose of building collective approach to dealing with its development problems. This is necessary to support the aggressive foray of the Igbos, who developed extensive business empires outside their region.

One major impediment for this will remain the problem of collectively, managing the security challenges of the region internally, and the recent security threat imposed on the region through the threat of Boko-Haram insurgency. This is now affecting the business of South-Easterners residing in the Northern Region, and created the issue building the confidence structure to accommodate the returnees and their business with- in the South-East region.

The other problem relates to the idiosyncratic variables of South-Eastern leader, especially the individualistic dispositions of both the leaders and citizens alike, which do not encourage collective adventure or enterprise, with everyone wanting to go it alone.

But ideally, by its lean public financial muscle, the South-East Region has a very good reason to support the restructuring of Nigeria’s politics to enthrone true regionalism, resource control, State policing, and other demands, which today connotes regional integration. Besides, the recent idea of regional integration appears to have come of age in Nigeria and is unstoppable. The South-East region can only ignore this at its own perils.

On the other hand, a review of REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN NORTHERN REGION appear less definitive than in any of the other regions of Nigeria. Despite the size of the region, and its balkanization through States creation, it remains the most homogenous of the regions of Nigeria.

The Northern region is riding on the crest of an equally homogenous religion of Islam and traditional culture, as well as on a cohesive political leadership structure, that has gained its strength from decades of dominance of Nigeria’s distorted federalism, and its many noticeable benefits.

This is perhaps why the Northern regional base, has threaded with more care in following the path of regional integration, which is so exciting to many other regions. This perhaps, presumes the inevitable consequences of restructuring, and devolution of Federal powers, especially on the issues of resource control and fiscal federalism.

But a major issue that will determine the prospects of regional integration in the Northern region and perhaps create the need for the integration of - many Nothern regions, - will depend on the success of the Nation in dealing with the Boko-Haram terrorism.

But like all other regions prospecting for regional integration, the North stands to benefit from the sustainability of the economic development inherent in regional integration, especially in the tackling of major joint projects and infrastructure such as dams, regional water schemes, and the structuring of improved exchange markets for agricultural products and livestock, to other regions.

The implication we draw from the above, show that the various prospective regional integration schemes in the Nation, if pursued with prudence and peacefully, have the capacity to provide the much needed hope of accelerated economic development and transformation in the National economies. Intra-State Integration in the Nation also stand to provide the much needed life-line for the sustainability of Nigeria as a united country under one overreaching umbrella as a Nation.

Under such condition, the fairly autonomous regional units, become the balanced and stable engine of development to drive the infrastructure, including railway networks, inter-state highways, waterways network, etc while collaborating with the Federal Government.

Such conditions however, depend on the capability of the leadership, in addressing the issues of Nigeria’s lop-sided federalism and restructuring. Only then will the integrated regions be expected to have the funding capacity to initiate and drive expected responsibilities of integration.

But primarily, the impact of existing domestic threat to the regional integration enterprise and the role of stakeholders, must be addressed as a priority.

REGIONAL INTEGRATION, NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION VS CONFLICTS AND DOMESTIC INSECURITY

Just like the emergence of numerous democratic regimes in the last 50 years of Africa’s independence, which soon revealed the quality of the new governments through the incessant conflicts and security challenges that rocked their stability, the nascent drive to regional integration in Nigeria, may already have within them, domestic security issues, capable of stifling the progress of this Enterprise.

It is therefore necessary to begin early to track the emerging regional Integrations from existing hostile domestic security complex of their environments, in order to fully understand what security strategy must be employed to ensure better success.

Whilst we acknowledge the potential roles of economic factors in stimulating cooperation in a region, it could be argued that a focus on security difficulties within the integrating States, ought to precede economic regional integration.

Economic growth and national transformation will certainly hinge on the creation of stable economic and political environment that promote business confidence, especially amongst external governments. This has made the centrifugal forces of domestic security, greater than the political and economic forces in the integrating regions (see,Grey Mills, South Africa and Africa: Regional Integration and Security Cooperation, 1995).

We need to recognize that there is a growing trend in the domestic insecurity of Nigeria today, which is closer to the situation that preceded the devastating Nigerian Civil war. Almost all the regions now positioning for regional integration, are locked in one form of debilitating domestic security threat or the other, notably kidnapping, accelerated violent criminality and terrorism. These certainly have serious implications to the successful implementation of the ideals of regional integration.

Domestic insecurity affects regional integration in two parallel lines, but of different directions:

It has the capacity to prevent consensual implementation of the ideals of regional integration, making the project cumbersome from the initial take-off.

It has the capacity to even accelerate regional integration on a different perceived direction of a crisis note, where the integrating region ends up in isolation from the entire Nation, thus preventing the initial desire of National Economic Transformation.

In both the South-South, the South-East and the Northern Regions of Nigeria, the domestic threats from kidnapping and the boko- haram insurgency, portend serious consequences that may achieve the opposite goals of isolation, or entire break down of law and order, capable of leading to disintegration of our unity as a Nation .

In such a situation, the genuine needs of regional integration, now under a conflict and domestic threat environment, may also come under obtrusive and challenging scrutiny that become misinterpreted in terms of national security violations.

It therefore requires the concerned role of stakeholders in addressing this question, in order to guarantee future negotiated regional integration model.

THE ROLE OF STAKEHOLDERS IN THE SECURITY MODEL OF IDEAL REGIONAL INTEGRATION

It is the regional and national stakeholders that stand to gain in the emerging regional integration models, now being canvassed in the Nation, and they should therefore be at the fore in addressing the security issues that can impede it.

The required model of security must therefore be collective, collaborative and must involve the followings:

• All levels of Government, Federal, State and Local, including their agents.

• Citizens – ordinary active people, including traditional rulers, religious organizations and private security agents.

Effective involvement of these stakeholders, only begin with the moment of acceptance, that prevailing domestic threat in the regions have the capacity to affect future peaceful integration, and economic transformation of the regions. This is the first principle in dealing with all forms of domestic threat, such as kidnapping and terrorism now evident in our regions. Without this primary assertion, stakeholders will not be able to maximize their roles in regional security.

Stakeholders need not see their involvement in domestic security as only a question of protection of lives and property, but as a question of the preservation of the expected values of their region and National Unity. This is the first principle in the creation of a peaceful environment, required for the advancement of the goals of regional integration.

The focus of stakeholders in the domestic security of the region, become effective when it improves effectiveness in the gathering of credible intelligence information that is usable in checking threats, such as kidnapping, terrorism and other forms of violent crime. This becomes possible where there is tolerable cooperation between government agencies and other relevant stakeholders- including traditional rulers, in the building of relevant data on human intelligence and surveillance to support activities of security agencies.

In spite of all pretensions, the security of our regions and our Nation cannot be guaranteed by Governments alone. It is only Nigerians and our community of citizens, including all active stakeholders that can provide the necessary intelligence and support to achieve a coherent domestic security that stabilizes all our regions, and this must precede all the clamors of regional integration and national economic transformation.

CONCLUSIONS

To conclude this lecture, I will state unequivocally that the broad basis and protest movement leading to the general clamor for regional integration is for lives and properties of citizens to be protected, including their cherished ways of life, their economic well-being, and the general transformation of the National economy.

It is the dream of all well-meaning Nigerians to have our children inheriting the same free, safe and a more prosperous Nigeria that our founding fathers wished for, worked for, and we even fought for. Our children expect their lives to be improving and not worsening, and if the structure of our federalism bears the seed of our stagnation, then it is time to revisit it, and enthrone the appropriate model of federalism and regional integration model that can develop and transform the Nation.

Our growing population of unemployed youths, certainly encourage the flagrant abuses that create evident security threats in our regions. A population of either ill-trained or highly educated but un-employed youths, is a veritable recruiting ground for crude and violent activities that impact on our domestic security.

Getting our active population back to gainful employment has therefore, become a critical issue in re-invigorating our economy, our social values and our unity as a Nation.

The urgency of these required solutions, demand a systemic restructuring of the Nation to enthrone a structural and fiscal federalism, including resource control, revenue sharing formula, and State policing, all of which intensify collaboration between the Federal, the State and the regions, in dealing with the economic and security needs of Nigerians.

But most important in this process, is that our Governments need to ensure an elective democratic system that is honest, accountable, accurate, free and with reduced corruption. It is within this context that a peaceful and negotiated regional economic integration of willing States can emerge, to further drive and promote the well-beings of its members, while promoting the economic transformation of our Nation.

luvinhubby: Politicians will cook up any meaningless idea to remain relevant......only in Nigeria.

whitecat007: The only tribe that should be ashamed in Nigeria is ibo, you ibos have nothing to live for, you cant't stay in your land, you are always looking to live with dirty people who "shit in nylon bag". You ibo drifter need to tell us the part of human flesh you are having for breakfst. Oloshi dou.che bag, impotent wanderer.

luvinhubby: Politicians will cook up any meaningless idea to remain relevant......only in Nigeria.

ndu_chucks: lt is actually quite offensive to continue to call this scheme Regional Integration, instead of Regional Economic Integration. If you people have latent plans of leaving the union, be bold and say so. In the meantime, the SW will definitely get 2 more states according to my reliable sources.

Political rregionalism should only be pursued constitutionally. Those who try to do so outside of the constitution will not be spared by the law, and if need be, JTF. Nuff said.