BY Prof. Alex O. Atawa Akpodiete, Esq. In The Pointer of Tuesday, February 7, 2012, there
was a headline captioned “We Want True
Federalism, Says Balarabe Musa, Others.” I now
asked myself do all these pundits and the masses in
general understand what federalism really means,
whether it is the true one, the fake type, the hybrid
type or the naija type.
According to the article “Eminent Nigerians… have
canvassed for true federalism as the panacea to the
myriad of problems facing the nation.” The
question (or problem) is whether the Nigerian
constitution embodies true federalism. Mr.
Balarabe Musa is a former Governor of Kaduna
State who made the statement at a national
dialogue organized by the National Summit Group
in Lagos. .
One interesting thing to note is that the 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is
similar in many parts to the 1979 Nigerian
Constitution. Both were handed to us by the
military. The 1979 constitution was modeled after
the American Constitution. So, by implication, it
means the 1999 constitution was modeled after the
US constitution. While doing my doctorate degree
in Jurisprudence at the University of Miami School
of Law from 1991-1994, I wrote a research paper on
the similarities between the 1979 Nigerian
Constitution and the American Constitution. For
clarity, when I say America, I mean the United
States of America. I will borrow from that research
paper to elucidate the issue of “true federalism.”
Before delving into the issue of true federalism, let
us touch on SONACO. It is not the name of an oil
company, but rather the latest way of abbreviating
Sovereign National Conference. When I was a small
boy (I still am to many people), I used to
understand that every Nigerian was born with a
love for initials or acronyms. That is why we have
the NLC, PDP, DPP, NFF (or is it NFA?), and NEPA
(sorry I mean PHCN)). Anyway, just like PHCN used
to be NEPA, SONACO used to be called SNC. So
what does SONACO mean? In a nutshell, it is about
a supposed meeting of all the ethnic groups (I
guess all 250 or so) in Nigeria to decide whether we
still get to exists as a nation, and if we do, how to
share (or eat) the national cake. I am not sure who
will pay for the meeting, how many days it will last
and how the representatives will be chosen.
NADECO (here we go again with another set of
initials) was one of the early champions of the call
for SNC (sorry again, I mean SONACO). I understand their clamor for even a constitutional
conference. Both the 1979 and 1999 constitutions
were handed to the country by the outgoing
military regimes. The other notable Nigerian
constitutions include the Arthur Richard
Constitution of 1946, The First Republic Constitution
of 1963 with Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe as ceremonial
President, and the 1958 constitution amended by
James Robertson, the last Colonial Governor of
Nigeria. The 1999 Constitution starts with the
following preamble
“WE THE PEOPLE of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,
HAVIING firmly and solemnly resolve, TO LIVE in
unity and harmony as one indivisible and
indissoluble sovereign nation under God, dedicated
to the promotion of inter African solidarity, world
peace, international co-operation and
understanding
AND TO PROVIDE for a Constitution for the purpose of promoting the good government and welfare of all persons in our country, on the principles of
freedom, equality and justice, and for the purpose
of consolidating the unity of our people, DO
HEREBY MAKE, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES the
following Constitution:-“
I understand that we did not really give ourselves
the constitution. Na soldier dash us. But we copied
the language from US Constitution which states:
“WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to
form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure
domestic Tranquility, provide for the common
defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure
the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our
Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.”
See my textbook Nigeria & U.S. Legal Systems for a
thorough treatment of this topic. In other words,
since the First Republic, we have not had a truly
civilian originated constitution. Even with that said,
can't our grievances be handled by our 109
Senators or 360 Federal House of Representatives
members? See Section 71 of the 1999 Constitution.
So maybe SONACO is really about true federalism.
Now back to the issue of true federalism.
Federalism is defined as “a system of government
in which the individual the individual states within a
country have control over their own affairs, but are
controlled by a central government for national
decision.” A republic, on the other hand, is defined
by the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary as “a
country that is governed by a president and
politicians elected by the people and where there is
no king or queen.”
So, that means that the Federal Republic of Nigeria
is supposed to be a country where we are ruled by
a president and elected politicians, but each state
should have autonomy and only controlled by
Abuja for national decisions. The Federal Freedom
of Information Act (FOI) and Minimum wage, are
critical examples. The federal FOI cannot be
enforced on state level until it is passed by the
individual state houses of Assembly. Whereas, the
minimum wage is a national decision that is
enforceable nationwide. This is because the Second
Schedule to the 1999 Constitution, Part 1, which
lists the exclusive legislative powers of the Federal
government to include:
“Labour, including trade unions, industrial
relations; conditions, safety and welfare of labour;
industrial disputes; prescribing a national
minimum wage for the Federation or any part
thereof; and industrial arbitration.”(Underline and
italics are mine).
You must read the above with Sections 4 that gives
the National Assembly the above authority, along
with Section 4(7) (a) which states that:
“The House of Assembly of a State shall have power
to make laws for the peace, order and good
government of the State or any part thereof with
respect to the following matters, that is to say:- (a)
any matter not included in the Exclusive Legislative
List set out in Part I of the Second Schedule to this
Constitution.”
You can make a comparison again with the US. In
Florida, they have a sunshine law that allows
average citizens to watch legislative proceedings
and a federal minimum wage.
Generally, countries that we believe have true
federalism usually allow the member States within
to maintain financial autonomy. Since we copied a
major part of our constitution from the US, we
should look at how they practice their own
federalism. First the States have their own source
of income, their own State police, their governors
are independent and don't have to run to
Washington Dc every month for allocation. In fact,
it is usually unheard of for the President to come
and commission a project in say the State of
Hawaii. One other interesting thing is that they have
representative democracy, meaning that they use
what is called an electoral college to elect their
President. Of course in the over 224 years of
American history, they usually do not clamor for
state creation. Instead, States or independent
regions usually seek to be admitted into the Union
called United States of America. That is how the
original 13 colonies (States) grew to the current 50
States, except for the ones purchased such as
Florida from Spain or Louisiana from France.
In fact, most people do not realize that Americans
have over 60 political parties, just like Nigeria. We
may only hear of the Democrats and Republicans
because they are the two dominant parties, but
they have obscure parties like. Freedom Road
Socialist Organization, Blue Enigma Party or
Objectivist Party. Of course they have something
we do not have, which is the ability to run for
election as an independent candidate without the
need to be sponsored by a political party as
mandated by Sections 65(2) (b), 106(d), 131(c) and
177(c) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution and Section
106(e) of the 2010 Electoral Act (Amended) of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
So, we are really just like them and they will tell you
that they are practicing their own brand of
federalism. Their constitution has only 27
amendments since it was created in 1787. The first
ten (10) amendments to the US Constitution (called
the Bill of Rights) were all ratified on December 15,
1791, while the last amendment was on May 7,
1992. Of course, it will not be unreasonable to be
concerned that the Nigerian constitution has
undergone too many amendments in 11 years.
However, if the American constitution went through
ten amendments in four years, maybe we are not
doing so badly in Nigeria.
If true federalism is what SONACO is all about, then
the proponents have missed the mark. SONACO
will not result in true federalism. Our foundation as
a nation may not be perfect, but we should be
stressing the proper application of federal
character as enshrined in our military-hand-me-
down constitution, strengthening the judiciary,
resource allocation and reduction of
ethnocentrism. Discouraging religious fanaticism
won't be a bad idea either. Let us make sure we
have free, fair and credible elections, along with
incorruptible Judges. Then we can hold our elected
representatives accountable and recall them for
non-performance. Most of the issues raised can be
handled in the National Assembly by those we have
allegedly given our mandate.
Our growing brand of democracy and federalism
needs to be nourished to grow properly. Let us all
get on board the transformation train. In my opinion, if Nigeria won't divide into atleast 3 individual countries, I believe the USA Federalism system best suits a country like Nigeria, Nigeria is way too big to be under one central government.. Individual states that can't survive on their own should be scrapped and absorbed by other states. |
