When we started the #RestructureNigeria campaign, people said we were reacting to the loss of GEJ and that we were here to oppose PMB and the APC. We showed them proof that the demand for True federalism preceded the 2015 general election and that many of us actually campaigned for the removal of GEJ.

Again, they said we were the intellectual wing of the secessionist movements. We showed them proof that we want a restructured Nigeria, not a divided Nigeria.

Again, they said we were sponsored by the opposition PDP. We showed them proof that the campaign team is made up of everybody (including APC & PDP) and even some of us supported the emergence of PMB/APC at the center.

Again, they said true federalism was not part of APC/PMB agenda for Nigeria. We showed them proof that true federalism was the number one promise in the PMB/APC manifesto.

Again, some said we forged that particular page of the manifesto. We said go to APC headquarters and see the original version for yourself and then sue us for forgery.

Again, some said it is too early for the APC/PMB to implement true federalism. We made it clear that PMB/APC cannot build on a faulty foundation. True federalism is the first thing they should have done. You lay the foundation first, before you start other works. No wonder true federalism is the number one promise in their manifesto.

Some others said we are Niger Delta activists trying to use federalism to get resource control. We explained clearly the difference between federalism and resource control and showed why Niger Delta leaders want resource control but not necessarily federalism.

Many people think that as long as PMB has not said anything positive about true federalism, he is against it and they must be against it too. Shallow thinking. Whatever Buhari and the APC opposes, they must oppose. Zombies! We cannot make progress with these kind of people in the majority.

The point is that many Nigerians are too blinded by loyalty that they end up ruining a government they think they are protecting. Let us not make the mistake of thinking that politicians can only be changed by the ballot and in every four years. With constructive criticisms and objective analysis of the situation and their actions, we can change both the government and the way the government officials think on a daily basis.

The call to restructure Nigeria is something every progressive Nigerian should support irrespective of political, religious or ethnic affiliations.

It is not a campaign against Buhari or the APC or against the North. It is in the interest of the entire country and I am sure if many more Nigerians join the call for a restructured Nigeria, President Buhari, the APC and the entire NASS will do same. We have an ignorant majority in this country and we must now do everything to reverse the situation.

True federalism solves over 70% of our political, religious, ethnic, social and economic problems in Nigeria. We therefore have a moral and patriotic duty to make it happen.

We all need to support the campaign in every way we can. If you cannot write for #TrueFederalism, then join the walk that will be coming up soon in your city and state. Be proud to fly the 'Restructure Nigeria' banners and wear the 'Federalism' shirts when the time comes. If you cannot walk for true federalism, then sponsor those who can walk by buying one or two T-shirts or other promotional materials and distribute them free in your neighborhood. In whatever way you can, please support the 'Restructure Nigeria' campaign. We should not handover this mess of a country to the next generation like this. Our parents have failed us, are we going to fail our own children?

To restructure Nigeria is a task that should and can be done.

We the Federalists have always been in the minority but with focus, consistency, objectivity and reason, we will effect the real change in Nigeria.

Nigeria will be restructured in our time.

Is Nigeria a Federal Republic?

I endear all Nigerians interested in the restructuring campaign to read this and understand why Nigeria is not a federation.

The understanding of federalism varies from country to country, however, there are certain basic principles inherent in all federal systems that makes it easy to identify a country that practices federalism.

The most cogent, clearly expressed and the most acceptable definition of federalism is that of Kenneth C. Wheare.
In his book he talked about ‘‘federal principle’’ i.e. the method of dividing powers so that general and regional governments are each, within a sphere, co-ordinate and independent of one another. Thus, Wheare’s proposition posits that the federal principle essentially entails a legal division of powers and functions among levels of government with a written constitution guaranteeing and reflecting the division. Wheare’s formulation of federalism is been drawn correctly from the United States of America which is regarded by him as the archetype of federal government. Since other formulation of federalism from other scholars are variations of his work, the basic tenets or elements of federalism according to K.C Wheare will be use as a templates to determines whether Nigeria is federation or nor or whether Nigeria practices federalism and the extent to which Nigeria has fulfilled the basic tenets of federalism.

The basic tenets according to him are:
1 There must be at least two levels of governments and there must be constitutional division of powers among the levels of governments.

2 Each levels of government must be co-ordinate and independent. Check the meaning of 'co-ordinate' and 'independent'

3 Each levels of government must be financially independent. He argued that this will afford each levels of government the opportunity of performing their functions without depending or appealing to the others for financial assistance.

4 There must be Supreme Court of the independent judiciary. He argued that in terms of power sharing, there is likely to be conflict hence, there must be independent judiciary (for both tiers) to resolve the case.

5 In terms of the amendment of the constitution, no levels of government should have undue power over the amendment process.

He maintained that, once a country is able to satisfy these conditions, such country is said to practice federalism.
Some other of the most basic features of federalism are as follows;

A. The federating units (states and community governments) maintain autonomy over the most basic issues that affect their people. From security to education, resources, taxes, infrastructural developments, elections, judiciary, health care, etc.

B. Powers are shared between the various tiers of government in a manner that unnecessary interference becomes impossible.

C. The government (tier) closest to the people is more empowered to meet up with the needs of the local people.

D. The federal national government is usually a creation of the sub-national (state) governments.

E. The federal government responsibility is usually limited to just foreign affairs, monetary policy, immigration, customs, defense. Al powers not expressly given to the federal government by the federal constitution is reserved for the state government.

F. Governance is run in a bottom-up approach.

G. There is a federal and state constitution

Another interesting definition of federalism is that explained by Prof. Itsey Sagay (the Prof is alive and works for the current FG). Hear him, 'Federalism is, an arrangement whereby powers within a multi-national country are shared between a federal or central authority, and a number of regionalised governments in such a way that each unit, including this central authority, exists as a government separately and independently from the others, operating directly on persons and property with its territorial area, with a will of its own and its own apparatus for the conduct of affairs and with an authority in some matters exclusive of all others. In a federation, each government enjoys autonomy, a separate existence and independence of the control of any other government. Each government exists, not as an appendage of another government (e.g. the federal or central government) but as an autonomous entity in the sense of being able to exercise its own will on the conduct of its affairs free from direction by any government. Thus, the Central Government on the one hand and the State Governments on the other hand are autonomous in their respective spheres.

As Wheare puts it, “the fundamental and distinguishing characteristic of a federal system is that neither the central nor the regional governments are subordinate to each other, but rather, the two are co-ordinate and independent.”
In short, in a federal system, there is no hierarchy of authorities, with the central government sitting on top of the others. All governments have a horizontal relationship with each other.

For those who do not understand the grammar above, let me break it down.

In a federal arrangement, first, the federal government is usually a creation of the preexisting autonomous and independent state governments. What this means is that, the federal government does not exist first and then create the state governments. Rather, it is the peoples who first of all create their state governments and then the state governments come together to create a federal government. The federal government is therefore the creation of the state governments. Why is this first stage important? Simple. The state governments knowing that they exist first and needs to preserve themselves, will determine what powers they will give to the federal governments and what powers they will retain for themselves. In summary, the federal government derives its existence from the states and not the reverse as it is in Nigeria.

In Nigeria of today, it is the reverse. The federal government created the states and therefore has to fund them until it can no longer do so. Wrong.

Second, in every federal arrangement, the federal government has a limited power while the federating units have the rest powers. In Nigeria, Lagos state, despite having the resources and capability cannot distribute the electricity it has generated because the federal Constitution forbids such. In Nigeria, the security (Police) in my community is controlled from Abuja with strangers as Police officers. My state government and community has no control. In Nigeria of today, there is no democracy in the state governments (we the people did not create the state in the first place and do not fund it too) and for this reason we have no control over our leaders. In Nigeria of today, the people of Oloibiri have no control over their natural resources. In Nigeria of today, all the lands and the minerals therein belong to the federal government. In Nigeria of today, the local communities have no control over their LGA politicians because they do not fund the LGAs and therefore have no sense of duty or accountability towards the council. In Nigeria of today, if electricity goes off in my community for two months, I cannot hold my LGA chairman or state governor accountable because even themselves have no control over what they get from the national grid.

In Nigeria of today, there is no governance in our localities (communities/cities/towns) because we practice a top-bottom system. In a federal system, governance begins from the community levels and move upward. In Nigeria of today, the federal government decides what and what should be taught in our basic schools,the federal government issues license to drive vehicles, license to open petrol station, license to open a private university. Even the federal government runs its own universities.

In Nigeria of today, the state governments survive at the mercy of the federal government, meanwhile, in a federation, it is the reverse.

If you think because the state governments have House of Assemblies and therefore Nigeria is a federation, then ask your state house of Assembly to make a law empowering the state government to issue an ordinary license to operate a petrol station in the state and see what happens.

Do not be deceived to believe that Nigeria will become a federation if the current federal government transfers most duties on the exclusive list to the state governments. No. That is not even what restructuring means. For Nigeria to be restructured to become a Federation, we must collapse the existing nonviable and unnecessary 36 state structure and allow the local peoples of Nigeria to create their own state governments and exist as an independent government, after which they would decide whether they want to federate to become a bigger country or remain as a small autonomous state. You do not force people to federate, people and states federate based on mutual interest and understanding.

Most of what we call state governments today do not qualify to be called a state, they have no viability in terms of population, economy and taxation powers. When we talk restructuring, people use the existing state arrangement as a yardstick. Wrong. By the time we begin proper restructuring, half of what we call state governments today will collapse and merge when the reality dawns on them. There are no state governments in Nigeria, what we have are lazy children of the federal government.

Until we do the needful, we are not a federation but a fraudulent unitary-military creation. We do not need to perfect the present system, we need to collapse it and build a better foundation. I told a friend two nights back that under a restructured Nigeria, a state government like Bayelsa might cease to exist without crude oil. He got angry. How do I explain to him that Bayelsa should never have been created in the first place as a state because it has not viability?How do I explain to him that for Bayelsa people to progress they might need to give up their state (which they did not even create in the first place)?

Nigeria is not a Federation. Anybody who tells you that Nigeria is a federation and does not need restructuring is either a con man or a honest ignoramus who needs further education on the subject matter.

We are either a federation or we are not. Argue with the facts above.

Let me end this with a message from Ethiopia, 'Politically, the era of centralization seems to have come to an end, and this is as it should be. A multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious society such as ours cannot and should not be administered in a highly centralized manner. That people in their respective localities have the right to administer themselves, exercise a degree of command over their own resources, and develop their own cultures and languages must be taken as axiomatic…But there must also be unity within diversity. In the past we emphasized unity at the expense of diversity, and we have paid dearly for it. Let us hope that now we will not move to the other extreme and emphasize diversity at the expense of unity.'

When we say we need 'true federalism', we simply mean that what we currently practice is 'false' federalism'. It is not jargon but a deliberate coinage to illustrate our campaign message and aim.

Written by Tony Osborg

#RestructureNigeria
#TrueFederalism

Popular Misconceptions about Federalism & Restructuring in Nigeria

When you hear the phrase ‘Restructure Nigeria’ and ‘True Federalism’ what comes to your mind?

For many, ‘restructure’ and ‘true federalism’ have become a suspicious phrase. This is due to the misconceptions, misinterpretations, misunderstanding, and ignorant understanding of the concept. For some, true federalism means resource control and therefore should not be accepted. For others, restructuring means creating an opportunity for secession and must therefore not be accepted. These two major misinterpretations have greatly hindered the general acceptance of the concepts and have made it difficult for Nigerians across divide to accept it as a pragmatic solution. What then is federalism and restructuring and how is it different from what antagonists think it is.

What is the relationship between federalism and resource control?

If you have understood what federalism is, by now you should know that federalism is not resource control but however resource control is a feature of federalism. When you say a people should be autonomous, it also entails that they should have the right to control their resources too. This is a basic principle of federalism. You cannot give the local people more responsibilities and yet deny them access to to exploit their resources and take advantage of their comparative natural advantages.

What exactly is Resource Control?

Prof. Itsey Sagay gives us an interesting understanding of the concept. Resource control in his view involves three major components:

The power and right of a Community or State to raise funds by way of tax on persons, matters, services and materials within its territory.

The exclusive right to the ownership and control of resources, both natural and created within its territory.

The right to customs duties on goods destined for its territory and excise duties on goods manufactured in its territory.

Resource control, which in certain circumstances can be referred to as fiscal federalism, goes hand in hand with true federalism. This was recognized and implemented faithfully in the Independence and Republican Constitution (1960 and 1963).

The Regional Constitutions, in the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions, described each Region as “a self-governing Region of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” To buttress the self-governing status of each Region, adequate provision were made to guarantee the economic independence of the Regions, thus avoiding the hollowness of a declaration of self-governing status totally undermined by economic dependence. Moreover, consistently with the Federal character of the country, i.e. country of many nations, the basis of revenue allocation was strictly derivative.

Section 140 which made provision for the sharing of the proceeds of minerals, including mineral oil, stated that: “There shall be paid by the Federal Government to a Region, a sum equal to fifty per cent of the proceeds of any royalty received by the Federation in respect of any minerals extracted in that Region and any mining rents derived by the Federal Government from within any Region.” For the purposes of this section, the continental shelf of a Region was deemed part of that Region. This is totally consistent with international law which characterizes the continental shelf as a seaward extension of the land of the coastal state.

By Section 136(1) 30 per cent of general import duties were paid into a distributable pool for the benefit of the Regions. With regard to import duties on petrol, diesel oil and tobacco, the total sum of import duty collected less administrative expenses, were fully payable to the Region for which the petrol or diesel oil or tobacco was destined. A similar provision was made for excise duty on tobacco.

With regard to produce, i.e. cocoa, palm oil, groundnuts, rubber and hides and skin, the proceeds of export duty were shared on the basis of the proportion of that commodity that was derived from a particular Region. As noted above, the derivative bases of the allocation of revenue and the proportionate share of such proceeds that went to the Region it originated from, clearly buttressed the operating base of.

From the above historical account, we can see that resource control has been an integral aspect of Nigeria’s short lived federalism.

What is the relationship between federalism and secessionism?

Another popular misconception about federalism is that it will lead to the dismemberment of Nigeria. This is not true. In fact, a restructured Nigeria will lead to a united Nigeria as all issues of marginalization, exploitation and the likes been perpetuated by the federal government will be completely eradicated.

Let us take a look at history, after the debate on Chief Anthony Enahoro’s motion for independence in 1956 which pitched the Northern and Southern Legislators sharply against each other, the Northerners issued an 8-point demand as a condition for remaining in Nigeria as follows:

1 This region shall have complete legislative and executive autonomy with respect to all matters except the following: defence, external affairs, customs and West African research institutions.

2 That there shall be no Central Legislative body and no Central Executive or policy making body for the whole of Nigeria.

3 There shall be a Central Agency for all Regions which will be responsible for the matters mentioned in paragraph one and other matters delegated to it by a Region.

4 The Central Agency shall be at a neutral place preferably Lagos.

5 The composition and responsibility of the Central Agency shall be defined by the Order-in-Council establishing the constitutional arrangement. The Agency shall be a non-political body.

6 The services of the railway, air services, posts and telegraphs, electricity and local mining shall be organised on an inter-Regional basis and shall be administered by public corporations. These corporations shall be independent bodies covered by the statute under which they are created. The Board of the Coal Corporation shall be composed of experts with a minority Representation of the Regional Government.

7 All revenue shall be levied and collected by the Regional Government except customs revenue at the port of discharge by the Central Agency and paid to its treasury. The administration of the Customs shall be so organised as to assure that goods consigned to the Region are separately cleared and charged to duty.

8 Each Region shall have a separate Public Service!

The above historical account explains everything we need to know about federalism and secession. Secession becomes unnecessary when autonomous federating units are in charge of their people and development. It is in fact, the present unitary system that breeds secessionism. The above eight demands from the Northern region as conditions for becoming part of the new country to be called Nigeria is a clear attestation that the lack of self-determination in any arrangement is what leads to self-determination. As we have seen, the North once asked for self-determination (a principle of federalism) as their condition for becoming part of the Nigerian arrangement, and they got it, only for the military to distort the arrangement with their first and counter coups. Today, the rest of Nigeria are demanding for their right of self-determination and we believe they will get it too. Every Nigerian must now come out to demand for this right which is entrenched in true federalism.

There is a lesson from Ethiopia and their recent attainment of federalism that we should learn from. Let us put it here in verbatim.

“…Politically, the era of centralization seems to have come to an end, and this is as it should be. A multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious society such as ours cannot and should not be administered in a highly centralized manner. That people in their respective localities have the right to administer themselves, exercise a degree of command over their own resources, and develop their own cultures and languages must be taken as axiomatic…But there must also be unity within diversity. In the past we emphasized unity at the expense of diversity, and we have paid dearly for it. Let us hope that now we will not move to the other extreme and emphasize diversity at the expense of unity.” [Eshetu Chole, “Ethiopia At the Crossroads…”, DIALOGUE, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia].

jtwest:



I feel the problems are so intertwined and encompassing so much it looks hopeless, any lazy governor has its judiciary and legislative arm there to do the needful (impeachment) the whistleblowers (media) are also there and other NGOs. You feel if the sectors work diligently even the most lazy governor will be trying to improve the states and meanwhile the case of Local governments are worrisome; like they don't even exist. I feel we got used to some political abnormalities and since has turned to norms.

You are right, the feeling is that of complacency. They are not motivated to act or do their jobs and majority of the people are either too docile or just lack common understanding. Why else will anyone applaud a Governor for paying salaries or building roads?

The system encourages mediocrity. Nobody is doing their jobs, have you ever wondered why our Civil Service is the way it is?
Restructuring offers complete independence and autonomy to the States and LGA down to the community level.

See this thread on Community Based Government
https://www.nairaland.com/3659838/restructure-nigeria-what-community-based#54207327

OreMI22:
In the 1960s federalism ensured rapid development. Every Nigerian developed their wealth base without scheming to steal from niger delta which has caused all the crisis in Nigeria

Exactly, there was healthy competition among regions in terms of development with each leveraging on their core competences and areas where they have comparative advantage.

That is the beauty of True Fiscal Federalism, your development is dependent on your abilities to fully harness the resource in your domain.

signz:


Its safe to say that Sarrki is a Unitarian

I support True Federalism. Let every region grow at its own pace, all regions cannot grow at the same pace simply because we don't speak the same language, serve the same God, share the same environment, etc.

I urge us to go study about the Swiss system of governance and copy it.

Op nice write up. Hope this thread gets the needed exposure by MODs. We need to enlighten Nigerians on the merits and demerits of the system of govt we're practicing.

Thanks for your interest, we need to get the message out. I honestly believe Restructuring is the only way to go. If we must achieve a reasonable level of development.
Basic amenities that people need like health care, infrastructure, schools and power have no business being regulated from the centre.

jtwest:
System needs to be purged, not necessarily restructured Because that will take much more time and resources, but if we somehow manage to get the present system to work better then we can start journey of transition to true federalism and most importantly the mindset of average Nigerian needs to be reset.

My one cent.

Take a step and join Kowa Party today, let your voice be heard.

Purging or changing leadership won't amount to much not with the way the country is presently constituted. This 'feeding bottle' system of government is not sustainable and it is the major reason why the country is the way it is, largely underdeveloped.
We have lazy governors who lack the vision to make the much needed change happen in their states just because the of the allocations they get from the centre.

How will Federalism fix Nigeria?

There are basically three revolutionary movements in Nigeria today and each of them have a different perspective on how to solve the Nigerian problem.

The first group, lets call them the Unitarians. They believe that there is nothing wrong with the present unitary system of Nigeria. For them, what is wrong with Nigeria is Nigerians. There is a moral decadence that must be tackled, there is need for reorientation and values. Nigerians have become corrupt and have equally corrupted the political system. In summary, the unitarians believe that it is Nigerians that needs to be restructured and not Nigeria’s political system.

The second movement; lets call them the secessionists. This group of Nigerians believe that Nigeria is in fact a lie and that a lie cannot be restructured! They admit that Nigeria is badly structured and they doubt that it can ever be restructured. So far, they have opted for a complete dismemberment of he union as the only way to save themselves, their tribe, communities and region. They want Nigeria dissolved because they fear Nigeria has never worked and will never work.

The last group is where we belong here; the Federalists. The Federalists believes that something is obviously and fundamentally wrong with the political structure of Nigeria. After an interesting research, the Federalist has reached the conclusion that what is wrong with Nigeria is the structure of its defective federal system and that the solution will be to restructure the country and entrench true federalism.

The unitarians, secessionists and the federalists are now in a battle towards shaping the future of Nigeria's future. The future of Nigeria will be greatly determined by the success of one or more of these revolutionary movements!

Can the Federalists with their Federalism fix Nigeria?

From the foregoing, we can agree that the only period when Nigeria witnessed sustainable economic growth was during the short period of regional government based on federalism.

Federalism brings competition, competition drives productivity, productivity inspires innovation, innovations drives development. This is exactly what Nigeria lacks; competition, productivity, innovation, efficient and sustainable development.

The unitary system has not only distorted the necessary ingredients for growth but has also entrenched an entitlement mentality in the populace and among the federating units, making them less aggressive towards self-sufficiency. Recent statistics has shown that over 80% of the federating units (states and LGAs) are not sustainable without federal allocations. What this basically implies is that if the federal government suffers a major economic sabotage in its revenue generating base, the entire country will likely run into crisis and possibly collapse! How long shall we continue like this?

In summary, Nigeria is in crisis because it was built on a faulty foundation whose existence is now threatened.

Federalism comes with certain principles that guarantees sustainability of economic and political inclusive institutions. Nigeria does not have electricity today is not because she does not have the resources to have electricity, it is simply because of the centralization policy by law which forbids the federating units from competing, generating and distributing their own electricity without federal interference. And many others.

How then will Federalism fix Nigeria’s problem?

There are basic frameworks that come with federalism and that is necessary for the establishment of inclusive institutions that Nigeria currently needs to attain greatness. These frameworks are as follows;

1 Federalism guarantees the autonomy of the federating units thereby making the center (central authority) undesirable for local development issues. Under federalism, marginalization will become unnecessary as every state and community will be solely responsible for their own development or underdevelopment (its their choice to make).

2 Federalism eliminates over-centralization of political and economic powers thereby empowering the local people and their communities to take charge of their own development. States will no longer have to depend on federal allocations to survive and local communities will no longer depend on the goodwill of state governors to develop their communities.

3 Federalism has an in-built mechanism that promotes transparency and accountability. One reason why there is massive corruption in today’s Nigeria is simply because the people are not necessarily involved in the revenue generating process thereby making them less concerned about how the revenue is spent. The federal government simply ‘steals’ crude oil money from the people, collect customs taxes and goes about to share and spend it as it pleases. There is no real tax based revenue system where the people are expected to fund the government. As long as the crude oil keeps flowing, there is revenue for the government. This is the root cause of corruption in Nigeria. Federalism ensures that no tier of government has access to free natural resources without first going through the people who would then demand for accountability afterward. Under federalism, there is a bottom-up approach towards peoples relationship with the government. The local communities and their people control their resources and pays taxes to the various tiers of government. The communities and towns fund the state government and the state government funds the federal government. Each would naturally demand for transparency and accountability. You cannot hold a government accountable when you do not fund the government. Until the government's existence and sustenance is people driven, there can be no accountability and transparency towards the people. In a nutshell, federalism will fix corruption in Nigeria!

4 Federalism will bring a new ‘think home’ philosophy among Nigerians in diaspora. With every community having a community based government to handle its most basic needs, Nigerians in diaspora will be excited and willing to support their annual community based budgets for both recurrent and capital community development projects. Development will be centred around people and places. The local people and their communities will become the biggest beneficiary of a restructured Nigeria because most economic and political powers will be removed from Abuja and the state governments and sent down to the local people and communities. Until there is governance and government in our various localities, there is no democracy in Nigeria. True Federalism will bring governance closer to the people.

5 Abuja (federal government) will no longer be blamed for the underdevelopment of the states and local communities. Everybody will simply be in charge of their own development. Under a restructured system, nobody will blame the Presidency for lack of electricity in his locality. The Presidency will no longer be in charge of so many things. This will in turn improve our local democracies and enable us hold our local politicians more accountable.

Like Professor Claude Ake once said, 'development is a process of social transformation in which the people (local) themselves are in charge of the process.' Federalism puts the needed economic and political powers in the hands of the local people and away from the politicians, making the local people in charge of their own development.

It is time to restructure Nigeria and entrench true federalism. It is time to put the local people in charge of their own development by giving them a system of government that constitutionally empowers them to do so.

Is Federalism Compatible with Nigeria's Heterogeneous Nature?

Let us consider the contribution of the most consummate student of federalism Nigeria has ever known- Chief Obafemi Awolowo (see ‘Thoughts on Nigerian constitution’, pp. 48-49). From our study of the constitutional evolution of all the countries of the world, two things stand out clearly and prominently. First in any country where there are divergences of language and of nationality- particularly of language- a unitary constitution is always a source of bitterness and hostility on the part of linguistic or national minority groups. On the other hand, as soon as a federal constitution is introduced in which each linguistic or national group is recognized and accorded regional autonomy, any bitterness and hostility against the constitutional arrangement disappears. Secondly, a federal constitution is usually a more or less dead letter in any country which lacks any of the factors conducive to federalism. From the facts and analysis quoted from Chief Obafemi Awolowo book, the two following principles can be deduced:

If a country is bilingual or multi-lingual like Nigeria, the constitution must be federal, and the constituent state must be organized on linguistic basis;

Any experiment with a unitary constitution in a bilingual or multi-lingual or multi-national country must fail, in the long run.

It is surprising that Nigeria only operates federal system on paper. The federal structures have never existed in Nigeria society. The reasons are not far fetch; First, the federal government, ever since the intervention of the military in government has always assumed superiority over the state government, Because military federalism had been more common than civilian federalism, this model made the federal government the ‘‘master in relation to the dependent’’ state governments. At independence largely autonomous regions possessed the residual powers in the federation and functioned almost independently and efficiently. The regions had independent revenue bases; separate constitutions, foreign missions, and the primary and secondary education were under the residual list while the university education was under the concurrent list. All these changed under military rule. Attempts by the state governments to reassert their autonomy during the second republic were aborted by the return of military rule.

Let us now take a review of Nigeria’s past experience with federalism and see how compatible it was.

The Independence and Republican Constitution (1960 and 1963)
It is hardly surprising that the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions epitomised true Federalism. The 1950 National Conference had been followed by others in 1953, 1954, 1957 and 1959, in which the practice of true federalism were perfected.

It can thus be said that the period 1950 to 1959 represented a 10-year period of negotiations between the major stakeholders in the Nigerian project and that what they finally arrived at in the form of 1960 Constitution was, subject to minor, non-structural modifications, the only legitimate basis of association of all the different nationalities in Nigeria.
One important feature of the 1960 Constitution is the extensive powers granted the Regions, making them effectively autonomous entities and the revenue arrangements which ensured that the regions had the resources to carry out the immense responsibilities.

Under the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions, a true federal system made up of strong States or Regions and a Central or Federal ‘state’ with limited powers, was instituted. Both the 1960 (Independence) Constitution and the 1963 (Republican) Constitution were the same. The only differences were the provisions for ceremonial President (1963) in place of the Queen of England (1960) and the judicial appeals system which terminated with the Supreme Court (1963) rather than the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council (1960).

The following features, which emphasized the existence of a true federal system composed of powerful and autonomous Regions and a Centre with limited powers are worth noting:

Each Region had its own separate Constitution, in addition to the Federal Government Constitution.

Each region had its own separate Coat of Arms and Motto, from the Federal State or Government.

Each Region established its own separate semi-independent Mission in the U.K. headed by ‘Agents-General’.

The Regional Governments had Residual Power, i.e., where any matter was not allocated to the Regions or the Federal Government, it automatically became a matter for Regional jurisdiction.

Thus, apart from items like Aviation, Borrowing of moneys outside Nigeria, Control of Capital issues, Copyright, Deportation, External Affairs, Extraction, Immigration, Maritime Shipping, Mines and Minerals, Military Affairs, Posts and Telegraphs, Railways, all other important items were in the Concurrent List, thus permitting the Regions equal rights to legislate and operate in those areas. The most significant of these included; Arms and Ammunition, Bankruptcy and Insolvency, Census, Commercial and Industrial Monopolies, Combines and Trusts, Higher Education, Industrial Development, the Regulation of Professions, Maintaining and Securing of Public Safety and Public Order, Registration of Business Names, and Statistics.

It is important to observe once more that anything outside these two lists was exclusively a matter for Regional jurisdiction. Other features indicative of the autonomous status of the Regions included:

Separate Regional Judiciaries and the power of the Regions to establish, not only High Courts, but also Regional Courts of Appeal.

The Regions had their own separate electoral commissions for Local Government elections. However, the Chairman of the Federal Electoral Commission was the statutory Chairman of the State Commission.

The Revenue Allocation system under the 1963 Constitution was strictly based on derivation.

It will be observed that Mines, Minerals, including oil fields, oil mining, geological surveys and gas were put in the Exclusive Legislative List in the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions. This was a carry over from the provisions of the 1946 Minerals Act, under which the Colonial Government gave itself the exclusive ownership and control of all minerals in Nigeria. This was understandable under a Colonial Regime whose objective was the exploitation of the colonised peoples, but certainly not acceptable in an independent country constituted by autonomous (Federal) Regions. It is, therefore, not surprising that what was lost by placing mines, minerals, oil fields, etc., in the Exclusive Legislative List, was regained by the very strict adherence to the principle of derivation in the revenue allocation formula, particularly the allocation of the proceeds from mineral exploitation.

Did Nigeria make progress under the short lived federal system?

Omoh Gabriel, a journalist described the period of Nigeria’s federalism as such; NIGERIA after Independence was on the right path of economic growth and development. It had visionary leaders who were interested in the welfare of the people. Industries were springing up in every region of the country. In the North, Ahmedu Bello who held sway was occupied by setting up farm settlements, textile industries. It was the same story in the East where Michael Opera set up farm settlements and a number of manufacturing companies. In the West, Chief Awolowo, apart from the popular free education, set up a number of industrial estates which attracted several companies from abroad. It is this simple reason that the West is the most industrialized part of the country.

At this time, the Nigeria economy was in top shape and at take off stage in economic development. The Nigerian economy was rated along the same indices with Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia and the rest of the now talked about BRICKS countries. Then Nigeria had development plans that guided the nation.

Autonomous entities

In the North pyramids of groundnuts and cotton were part of foreign exchange earning commodities. In the West, cocoa was found in abundance.

It brought pride to the nation. The various regions were autonomous entities and there was competition among the regions on internally generated revenue. The military intervention and the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantity seemed to have radically altered the course of Nigeria’s economic development.

While the military discarded the fiscal federalism structure of the country and made the states to become federal allocation collector, the discovery of oil made Nigerian leaders to sleep walk and refuse to plan believing that the money flowing from the ground will solve all the nation’s problems.

As the military leaders were sleep walking and basking in the euphoria of petrol dollar earnings, Nigeria’s population was growing faster than the resources.

From the foregoing and from historical accounts, we can see that federalism is not just compatible with Nigeria but has equally worked in the past until it was discarded by the military.

What exactly is Federalism?

The understanding of federalism varies from country to country, however, there are certain basic principles inherent in all federal systems that makes it easy to identify a country that practices federalism.

The most cogent, clearly expressed and the most acceptable definition of federalism is that of Kenneth C. Wheare.

In his book he talked about ‘‘federal principle’’ i.e. the method of dividing powers so that general and regional governments are each, within a sphere, co-ordinate and independent of one another. Thus, Wheare’s proposition posits that the federal principle essentially entails a legal division of powers and functions among levels of government with a written constitution guaranteeing and reflecting the division. Wheare’s formulation of federalism is been drawn correctly from the United States of America which is regarded by him as the archetype of federal government. Since other formulation of federalism from other scholars are variations of his work, the basic tenets or elements of federalism according to K.C Wheare will be use as a templates to determines Nigerian federalism and the extent to which Nigeria has fulfilled the basic tenets of federalism. The basic tenets according to him are:

a) There must be at least two levels of governments and there must be constitutional division of powers among the levels of governments.

b) Each levels of government must be co-ordinate and independent.

c) Each levels of government must be financially independent. He argued that this will afford each levels of government the opportunity of performing their functions without depending or appealing to the others for financial assistance.

d) There must be Supreme Court of the independent judiciary. He argued that in terms of power sharing, there is likely to be conflict hence, there must be independent judiciary to resolve the case.

e) In terms of the amendment of the constitution, no levels of government should have undue power over the amendment process.

He maintained that, once a country is able to satisfy these conditions, such country is said to practice federalism.

Some other of the most basic features of federalism are as follows;

The federating units (states and community governments) maintain autonomy over the most basic issues that affect their people. From security to education, resource control, taxes, infrastructural developments, elections, judiciary, health care, etc.

Powers are shared between the various tiers of government in a manner that unnecessary interference becomes impossible.

The government (tier) closest to the people is more empowered to meet up with the needs of the local people.

The federal national government is usually a creation of the sub-national (state) governments.

The federal government responsibility is usually limited to just foreign affairs, monetary policy, immigration, customs, defense. Al powers not expressly given to the federal government by the federal constitution is reserved for the state government.

Governance is run in a bottom-up approach.

There is a federal and state constitution

Like Prof. Itsey Sagay rightly stated Federalism is, therefore, an arrangement whereby powers within a multi-national country are shared between a federal or central authority, and a number of regionalised governments in such a way that each unit, including this central authority, exists as a government separately and independently from the others, operating directly on persons and property with its territorial area, with a will of its own and its own apparatus for the conduct of affairs and with an authority in some matters exclusive of all others. In a federation, each government enjoys autonomy, a separate existence and independence of the control of any other government. Each government exists, not as an appendage of another government (e.g. the federal or central government) but as an autonomous entity in the sense of being able to exercise its own will on the conduct of its affairs free from di
rection by any government. Thus, the Central Government on the one hand and the State Governments on the other hand are autonomous in their respective spheres.

As Wheare put it, “the fundamental and distinguishing characteristic of a federal system is that neither the central nor the regional governments are subordinate to each other, but rather, the two are co-ordinate and independent.”

In short, in a federal system, there is no hierarchy of authorities, with the central government sitting on top of the others. All governments have a horizontal relationship with each other.

Another scholar by the name Nwabueze has identified the following additional characteristics in a federal system:

The power sharing arrangement should not place such a preponderance of power in the hands of either the national or regional government to make it so powerful that it is able to bend the will of the others to its own.

Federalism presupposes that the national and regional governments should stand to each other in a relation of meaningful independence resting upon a balanced division of powers and resources. Each must have powers and resources sufficient to support the structure of a functioning government, able to stand on its own against the other.

From the separate and autonomous existence of each government and the plenary character of its powers within the sphere assigned to it, by the constitution, flows the doctrine that the exercise of these powers is not to be impeded, obstructed or otherwise interfered with by the other government, acting within its powers.


From the foregoing, we can see that Nigeria is not a 'Federal' Republic.

It It is time to restructure Nigeria and entrench true federalism.

Understanding True Federalism from Nigeria's Historical Perspective

IN the beginning, there was no Nigeria. There were Ijaws, Igbos, Urhobos, Itsekiris, Yorubas, Hausas, Fulanis, Nupes, Kanuris, Ogonis, Gwaris, Katafs, Jukars, Edos, Ibibios, Efiks, Idomas, Tivs, Junkuns, Biroms, Agnas, Ogojas and so on. There were Kingdoms like, Oyo, Lagos, Calabar, Brass, Itsekiri, Benin, Tiv, Borno, Sokoto Caliphate (with loose control over Kano, Ilorin, Zaria etc) Bonny, Opobo, etc. Prior to the British conquest of the different nations making up the present day Nigeria, these Nations were independent nation states – and communities independent of each other and of Britain.


Prelude to the Creation of Nigeria

The bulk of what is now Nigeria became British Territory between 1885 and 1914, although some autonomous communities were not conquered and incorporated in the protectorate until the early twenties. Between the 15th and 19th Centuries, European relationship with West African States were trade/commercial, with little or no political undertones. The Europeans depended on the coastal rulers not only for securing trade, but also for the safety of their lives and property. Thus European traders went out of their way to ensure they were in the good books of Native rulers.


It should be noted that the main commodity during this period were human beings. This was the era of slave trade. It was in a bid to protect the lives, properties and trade of British traders that the British Prime Minister, Palmerston appointed John Beecroft as British Consul in Nigeria in 1849. This was the beginning of piecemeal British colonisation of the independent nations of what later became Nigeria.

The Pre-Independence Constitutions

Governor as the sole Executive and Legislature

During the period 1900 to 1906, the Governor of the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, exercised full executive powers and was also the legislature. This applied to the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria from 1900 to 1914. The Governor in each case made laws by proclamation. Such proclamation was, however, subject to approval by the British Government. In 1900 the Southern Protectorate and the Colony of Lagos were amalgamated under the title “The Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria.” In the same year, a Legislative Council was created for the protectorate. At this sage, the Legislative Councils were, however, constituted by officials of government.

In 1914, the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, and the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, were amalgamated, and ruled by one Governor-General, Lord Lugard. The Legislative Council of the Colony was restricted to making laws for the Colony alone, whilst the Governor-General made laws for the whole country.

The 1922 Constitution – The Clifford Constitution

In 1922 a new Constitution revoking the 1914 Constitution was promulgated under Governor Clifford. Under this Constitution, a Nigerian Legislative Council was constituted, but its jurisdiction was limited to the Southern Provinces, i.e. the Colony of Lagos and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. The Governor continued to be the legislative authority for the Northern half of the country. Also an executive council was established for the whole country.



The 1946 (Richard) Constitution

In 1946, Governor Arthur Richards promulgated a new Constitution which came into effect on 1st January, 1946. Prior to this Nigeria had been divided into three Regions in 1939, the Northern, Western and Eastern Regions. The following features of the 1946 Constitution are worth noting:

The new Council was composed of the Governor as President, 16 officials and 28 unofficials (the latter including the four elected persons). This meant that for the first time the non-officials were more in member than the officials.
The majority of the non-officials were elected or nominated by the Regional Legislatures which the 1946 Constitution also brought into being. This meant that the unofficial majority were not subject to the Governor’s control.
The Regional Houses were not competent to legislate, even for their own Regions. They could only consider bills affecting their regions, and make recommendations or pass resolutions for the central legislature in Lagos to consider. It was the latter only that could pass legalisation.
The 1951 (MacPherson) Constitution
The 1951 Constitution was the one that really introduced fundamental changes into the Imperial/Native relationship and the relationship between the Native Nigerian groups themselves. The following points need to be noted:

The 1951 Constitution came into being after an unprecedented process of consultation with the peoples of Nigeria as a whole. In accordance with the directives of the Legislative Council, meetings and consultations were held at (a) village (b) district (c) divisional (d) and provincial levels before the (e) regional and finally (f) the national conference.
The reports of each region from village to the regional level were then submitted to the Legislative Council. These reports and recommendations were published in October 1949 and reviewed by a drafting committee of the Legislative Council.
On 9 January, 1950, a General Conference of representatives from all parts of Nigeria started meeting in Ibadan to map out the future system of Government in Nigeria with the recommendation of the Regional Conference as the working documents.
The General Conference was composed of 25 unofficial members drawn from the earlier regional conferences as representatives of the three regions, 25 unofficial members from the Northern Legislative Council, 3 official members and the non-voting Chairman who was the Attorney-General of Nigeria. The Conference rose on 29 January, 1950 with recommendations which were accepted and implemented by the Governor of Nigeria.
The new Constitution represented a major advance on the existing state of legislative competence of Nigerians by (i) introducing elected majorities in the Central Legislature and (ii) in the Regional Houses of Assembly (iii) endowing the Legislative Houses with independent legislative power in many areas of state activity (iv) and establishing a Federal System for Nigeria for the first time.
The elected majorities in each Regional House were as follows: North – elected 90, non elected -14, West – elected 80, non-elected – 7, East – elected 80, non-elected 8.
The modes of election were a combination between direct and indirect elections. The Central Legislature had 136 elected members and 13 nominated members. Of these, 68 were from the North and 34 each were from the East and West. The representatives of the Regions in the Central Legislature were elected by the Regional Legislatures from amongst themselves.
This marked the first formal introduction of Federalism into Nigeria. Thus the Conference noted that: “We have no doubt at all that the process already given constitutional sanction, and fully justified by experience, of devolution of authority from the Centre to the Regions should be carried much further so that a Federal System of Government can be developed.” And that:
“The Central Legislature and Executive must retain both residual and overall powers, but since the Central Legislature and Executive will themselves be made up of representatives of the Regional Legislatures and since the policy of greater regional autonomy is so widely accepted, we do not fear that there will be any desire at the Centre unnecessarily to interfere with purely regional legislation or administration”.
In his book, “History and the Law of the Constitution of Nigeria”, Dr. Udo Udoma noted that for the first time in the history of the foundation of British-Nigerian relationship and the establishment of Nigeria’s regions by the Richard’s Constitution of 1946, Regional Legislatures were granted powers to legislate over a variety of subjects within the Region. These included: Local government; town and country planning; agriculture and fisheries; education; public works for the region; public health in the region; forestry; veterinary services; land; welfare; local industries; native courts; (subject to central legislation regarding appeals to courts outside the regions); direct taxation (other than income tax and companies tax).
The General Conference was of the view that over-centralisation would be a grave error “in this vast country with its widely differing conditions and needs”, and that the policy which had received enthusiastic support throughout the country was the policy of achieving unity at the Centre through strength in the Regions. It was confidently expected that when the Regions felt that they had wide powers to run their own regional affairs, they would be more likely ready to co-operate with the other Regions through their representatives in the Council of Ministers and the House of Representatives in serving the interest of Nigeria as a whole.

The Period 1954-60
Between 1954 and 1959, all officials in the House of Assembly and the Central Legislature, were progressively withdrawn. In 1954, there was, for the first time, direct elections into the Federal Legislature. In 1958, all modes of indirect elections were abolished and throughout Nigeria, all elections from then on were by direct polls. The Governors ceased to preside over the Executive Councils in the East and West by 1957 and in the North, in 1959.
In 1954, the office of Premier was created in the Regions and the office of Prime Minister was established at the Centre in 1957. Subsequent changes were not fundamental, but merely in further preparation for full independence. For example, the Western and Eastern Regions attained self-government (with the Regional Governor becoming a mere titular figure) in 1957 and in the North in 1959.

Irresistible Inferences
From the very brief account given of the background of the establishment of the State called Nigeria, the following inferences are irresistible.

Contrary to the assertions of some scholars, the Federal Structures of Nigeria did not operate from the ‘top’ to the ‘bottom’, but from the ‘bottom’ to the ‘top’.
In other words, it was not a question of a country that was originally unitary, being broken into federating units, but of formerly totally independent Kingdoms, Empires, Nations and Autonomous Communities being forcefully brought together, and ending up in a Federal Union. Nigeria started as a Unitary State and then opted as a Confederation afterwards.
It is also clear that it is the coming together of these Autonomous Communities that gave rise to a Federal Government. In other words, the Federal Government is an agency of the Nigerian Nationalities which make up the various States. The subsequent “creation” of States by Federal Military Governments must be discounted as part of the distortions and mutilations of the true political order, brought about by unlawful military usurpation of power. Nigeria is, therefore, supposed to be a ‘Federation’ of former Kingdoms, Empires, States, Nations and Autonomous Communities.
Before and right after independence

Bernard Bourdillon the Governor-general at that time initiated and laid the foundation of federalism in Nigeria in 1939 by creating three provinces. He later handed over the constitution to his successor Arthur Richards and it became the Richards Constitution of 1946. At the beginning of formal British indirect rule in 1901, Nigeria was divided into two regions: Northern and Southern, both of which were divided into provinces. From 1901 to 1958, the number of regions was increased to three through both acquisition of territories and partition from existing provinces. However, while native-born chiefs and clerks were appointed to govern the provinces, the regions were governed by the British-appointed colonial authorities, and such regions were made dependent upon the colonial authorities for martial law, manpower and management of resources.

With the approach of independence, power over the regions was given to Nigerian-born citizens, and regional legislatures were established. By the time that Nigeria had declared itself a republic and replaced the post of Governor-General with the post of President, a national bicameral parliament was established and the country was considered a federation of the three regions. The Mid-Western Region was formed from the Western Region in 1966, and Lagos, the capital, was effectively governed as an unofficial fourth region outside the bounds of the Western Region.

First coup, counter-coup and the new states

After the first coup and under the short-lived military government of Aguiyi-Ironsi, the country was reorganized under a central government. Following the counter-coup which resulted in Aguiyi-Ironsi’s deposition and assassination, Nigeria was reorganized as a federal country, with three of the regions being divided into newer entities and all first-level subdivisions being renamed as states:

Eastern Region was divided into East-Central (Enugu), Rivers (Port Harcourt), and South-Eastern (Calabar) states;
Northern Region was divided into Benue-Plateau (Jos), Kano (Kano), Kwara (Ilorin), North-Central (Kaduna), North-Eastern (Maiduguri), and North-Western (Sokoto) states
Western Region was divided into Lagos (Lagos) and Western (Ibadan) states.
Mid-Western and the states of former Eastern Region made a bid to secede from Nigeria as the states of Biafra and Republic of Benin, resulting in the Nigerian Civil War.

1976

In 1976, six years after the end of the civil war, the states were further reorganized:

Benue-Plateau state divided into Benue (Makurdi) and Plateau states;
East-Central state divided into Anambra and Imo (Owerri) states;
Federal Capital Territory (Abuja) formed from parts of Niger and Plateau states;
North-Eastern state divided into Bauchi (Bauchi), Borno, and Gongola (Yola) states;
Niger (Minna) state split from Sokoto;
Western state divided into Ogun (Abeokuta), Ondo (Akure), and Oyo states
State boundaries and names were also reorganized.

1987/1989

Akwa Ibom state split from Cross River;
Katsina state split from Kaduna
1991-1996

Abia State split from Imo;
Bendel State divided into Delta and Edo;
Enugu State split from Anambra;
Gongola State divided into Adamawa and Taraba;
Jigawa State split from Kano;
Kebbi State split from Sokoto;
Kogi State formed from parts of Benue and Kwara;
Osun State split from Oyo;
Yobe State split from Borno.
1996-Till date

Bayelsa State was split from Rivers;
Ebonyi State was formed from parts of Abia and Enugu;
Ekiti State was split from Ondo;
Gombe State was split from Bauchi;
Nasarawa State was split from Plateau;
Zamfara State was split from Sokoto.

fanficgirl:
YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. NIGERIA NEEDS RESTRUCTURING FROM THIS DESTRUCTIVE UNITARY SYSTEM.
WE MUST BE OUTSIDE MARCHING AND PROTESTING.
UNFORTUNATELY, NIGERIANS ARE TOO PASSIVE AND MYOPIC. MOST WON'T READ OR SEE THIS OR ACT. THEY WILL RATHER SPEND PAGES INSULTING OTHER TRIBES.

I totally agree with you, it is time all Nigerians take the bull by the horns and demand for what we know it is right. The time is now.

You can join the Retsrtucture Nigeria movement in your state. Find out how by visiting...http://www.restructurenigeria.ng/

The Hypocrisy of National Leaders on True Federalism;the way Forward

In April 2012, the present Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, published an article titled ‘A Federation without Federalism’. In this article, El-Rufai gave a passionate and critical review of the skewed unitary federalism which Nigeria practices and advocated that the structure of Nigeria’s federalism is faulty and should therefore be restructured to reflect true fiscal federalism so to allow the states (or regions as the case maybe) compete among themselves so as to drive a productive, fair, efficient and sustainable Nigeria.

As part of the argument put forward by El-Rufai, was the need to revisit the 1963 constitution and decentralize power so as to enhance fiscal responsibilities to the governments closest to the people. Like he rightly said in that article, ‘from one perspective, there might be a nexus between our anomalous federal structure and the lack of accountability, particularly at the state and local government levels.  If we reflect on our distant past, the 1963 Republican Constitution was close to an ideal federal structure, with clear guidelines on how the Nigerian federation and the federating units were to be financed without undue reliance of one on the other.  Unlike the 1979 Presidential Constitution and its successors including the current 1999 version, the 1963 Constitution set clear parameters for territorial and fiscal federalism and carefully avoided undue centralization.  For instance, section 140(1) (a) & (b) of the 1963 Constitution foreclosed any agitations in the guise of ‘resource control’.  While all minerals – solid or liquid - remain unequivocally the property of the government of the federation, the Constitution provided thus: “There shall be paid by the Federation to each region a sum equal to fifty percent of – the proceeds of any royalty received by the Federation in respect of any minerals extracted in that Region; and any mining rents derived by the Federation from within that Region…In reciprocal terms, the regions were contributing towards the costs of administration of the federal government at the centre in the proportion of what they received as their own share of proceeds of export, import and excise duties collected in each region by the region on behalf of the government at the centre. In the case of oil production, the same applied with the unforeseen exception that the federation will go into joint ventures and production sharing contracts that bring in revenues other than rents, royalties and taxes. This system was maintained until the circumstances of the civil war changed it radically in favour of retention of most of the revenues by the centre, in order to prosecute the war. Things have never been the same since then.”

If there is one thing all patriotic and intelligent politicians will agree upon, irrespective of political inclinations, it would be to admit that the structure of Nigeria’s federalism is faulty and this is mostly responsible for the unlimited abnormality we have experienced in Nigeria. In one of our early articles on Fiscal Federalism, we insisted that the politicians and their political parties are actually not the cause of our national problems; they are not the solution either. The cause of our national trouble is grounded in our skewed system of unitary ‘feeding bottle’ federalism. PDP did not cause it, APC will not solve it, only Fiscal Federalism will. Even the massive level of corruption we see at the centre is only a byproduct of the system we have chose to practice; a skewed federalism breeds inevitable corruption and underdevelopment.

Sometime in 2011, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu made an appeal to the elected lawmakers on the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) platform. In that appeal, as like in subsequent appeals, Senator Tinubu urged the lawmakers to support true fiscal federalism. Tinubu was not only stating his personal opinion, he was expressing the philosophy of the ACN. Like Senator Tinubu rightly stated in that appeal ‘only fiscal federalism can accelerate Nigeria’s development’. He was obviously right. He went further ‘What should be our agenda? What we stand for is what we are saying. And the stability of our country. We have Federal Republic of Nigeria and we are running a federal constitution. Then, we are here to ensure true federalism and I hope I am clear. Now fiscal federalism is mandatory for us. It is only the legislature that can effect the change in the revenue sharing formula…In the last 12 years, I have not heard that the revenue allocation has been reviewed and implemented. We have a lopsided revenue sharing formula…Critical to that, you have a lopsided revenue formula giving the Federal Government 52 per cent of the commonwealth of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is not acceptable. The real people are there in the states and local government levels. The Federal Government should not take more than 25-30 per cent of the revenue…In the federal principle under the constitution, it is the state who ceded power and trust to the Federal Government to hold certain aspects in trust on behalf of the states. Without the states, there is no federal. The situation is sad…we have not been running an effective federal system; it has been unitary system and it has to stop. And we have to work hard on that.’

Those were the words of an opposition leader who understood the metaphysical foundation of Nigeria’s challenges.

By 2012, Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar had become an advocate for fiscal federalism. In one of his debates, he regretted his refusal to support regionalism in the past and expressed his disappointment in the present structure.

“I was among those who opposed it (fiscal federalism) because I thought that Ekwueme, coming from the defunct Republic of Biafra, wanted to break up the country again…Now, I realise that I should have supported him because our current federal structure is clearly not working.  Dr. Ekwueme obviously saw what some of us, with our civil war mindset, could not see at the time.  There is indeed too much concentration of power and resources at the centre… And it is stifling our march to true greatness as a nation and threatening our unity because of all the abuses, inefficiencies, corruption and reactive tensions that it has been generating…There is need, therefore, to review the structure of the Nigerian federation, preferably along the basis of the current six geopolitical zones as regions and the states as provinces…The existing states structure may not suffice, as the states are too weak materially and politically to provide what is needed for good governance.” He went on “Why should we be talking of federal roads and federal secondary schools?  Decentralisation is not an invitation to the breakup of the country and national unity should not continue to be confused with unitarism and concentration of power and resources at the federal level.”

That was Atiku in 2012.

The issue of Fiscal Federalism was once the major objective of the opposition party. And its proponents were from various parts of the country. Fiscal Federalism was therefore not even a regional ideology. It was a national concept championed by opposition men such as El Rufai, Tinubu, Atiku and even Muhammadu Buhari. In March 2011, the then presidential aspirant of the Congress of Progressive Change (CPC), General Muhamadu Buhari (rtd) stormed Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, promising to practice true fiscal federalism if elected into office.

It is indeed confusing to see all these men who once believed in the power of true fiscal federalism become mute upon gaining control of the central government. One would believe that true fiscal federalism would become the impressum of their government. Alas; they have all gone mute. President Buhari who once preached about fiscal federalism in soliciting for South-West vote did not even have the courage to mention the word ‘fiscal-federalism’ in his inauguration speech. And the rest of the leaders agreed with him. Is this not the height of national hypocrisy and deceit? Even Sen. Bola Tinubu has gone mute!

Just before the 2015 general elections, the All Progressive Congress (APC) published its party manifesto which it titled ‘Securing Nigeria’s Future – A Roadmap to a New Nigeria’. Two pertinent points are to note in these documents. The manifesto begins with a promise on true fiscal federalism by asserting that if the APC is voted into the central government, it would "Initiate action to amend the Nigerian Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties, and responsibilities to states in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit…". It also went further to state that it would "Make sure people at a local level benefit from mining and mineral wealth by vesting all mineral rights in land to states."

The APC is now in full control of the central government. By full control we mean, controlling both the executive and the legislative houses, both at the state and federal level. Yet, two months into the government, no attempt has been made to at least begin the debate for true fiscal federalism.

Again, we ask, is this not the height of national hypocrisy both by the APC and its leaders?

Nigeria cannot continue to practice this skewed unitary ‘feeding bottle’ federalism. The change that Nigeria desires is not a change of politicians nor political party, it is a structural change. Until this is done, we shall continue to have the experience of ‘the more things change, the more they remain the same or get worse’.

True Fiscal Federalism is the solution and the APC led Federal Government has a moral, legal and patriotic obligation to make this happen.

Like El-Rufai once said “Without question, I believe the situation would have been different if true federalism in which every state generates the bulk of its recurrent needs, lives within its means and gets help from the centre on need basis; operated as in the 1963 Constitution. Rather than blame the government at the centre for the woes of the states, citizens would have learnt to hold state governors and local government chairmen responsible for their neglect, and the incessant scramble for political positions at the federal level would have been less desperate and divisive. As it is, the attitude is one of “it is our turn to rule and chop” - with dire consequences for national cohesion, transparency and accountability in governance…A sound federal structure with balanced devolution of powers among the federating units would provide a respite for the security challenges currently facing the country...”

President Buhari and the APC must save themselves from the pitfalls of our present skewed structure by doing the needful- restructure the country. That is, if they wish not to be overwhelmed by the criminality of the present structure, just like the leaders and party before them.

One thing we must note is that the central  (federal) government has so much power, resources and control, this is why politicians become hypocrites and insane once they are connected to this central government. They only regain their senses once they are disconnected from the central government.

We as Federalists and members of this Movement must now begin to act as a way of getting the government to understand that the call for restructuring is beyond politics.

We must be ready to hit the streets, fund ourselves and confront the government with our own facts and demands. We must now take back our country from the politicians and put an end to the national hypocrisy. We must now bring the government from Aso Rock and state government houses and bring it down to our localities.

The Hypocrisy must stop.
By Tony Osborg

How will true federalism resolve the epileptic electricity problem in Nigeria?


There are over thirty communitues in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria with 24/7 power supply! Some of these communities have had it like this for over two decades and in most cases (if not all), the electricity is free! Yes, in this same Nigeria. Do you wish to know the secret behind this success? Well, this is what our lecture is all about today.

Surprisingly, none of these Niger Delta communities are connected to the national grid nor a centralized grid system. In other words, the only reason these communities are able to enjoy 24/7 power supply is simply because they are not connected to the national grid. The federal government is not in charge of their electricity supply! They are connected to what we call a decentralized electricity system. The same model we believe comes with true federalism which we now advocate that Nigeria should adopt.

It might interest we all to know that within the past decade, the federal government of Nigeria has spent over $20 billion trying to fix power, yet what we get is more darkness. Will it not be stupid of us to continue doing the same thing when we have an alternative choice?

What then is exactly wrong with the Nigerian electricity arrangement?

First, under the present skewed unitary system, the federal government has absolute control over power generation and distribution (it has recently given up some powers on generation but still holds distribution), this makes it difficult for state governments to have full control over the sector. The present arrangement allows states to generate but forbids them from distributing what has been generated without first supplying the national grid. In other words, the federal government through its control partners (Discos, Gencos, etc) decides how electricity should be allocated to locations without the states having an input. Wrong system.

Second, because the state governments have no control over this process, their states only get what is allocated without them having a say in the arrangement. Wrong system. Why should the federal government be in charge of a critical but basic need like electricity? Why can't my state and city have the right to generate and distribute electricity within and giving us steady power and without supplying to the national grid?

The reason why we do not have regular electricity in Nigeria is not because of corruption but because of the unitary national grid system. The national grid is expensive to build and expensive to maintain, therefore making the entire business of power generation and distribution unprofitable. It is an unnecessary wasteful way to solve our electricity problem. With the present unitary national grid system, we might never have regular electricity even if we pump in $2billion into the sector yearly.

There are more than twelve states that we are sure of that can have regular supply of electricity once we put an end to the national grid system. Lagos state for example has the resources, manpower and whatever to give Lagosians 24/7 power supply. The reason why it cannot do it is because the constitution (federal government) will not let it do it. The best Lagos can do is supply electricity to public infrastructures. This is a crazy system. Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Niger and many other states have the same potential yet they are restricted by the unitary arrangement.

If every Nigerian state had the autonomy to generate and distribute electricity since 1999, we are sure by now, we will have up to ten states celebrating 24/7 power supply. The reason why not even a single state can boast of 10/7 power supply is because the federal government is in charge. This must change.

If oil companies operating in the Niger Delta can give over 30 communities free uninterrupted power supply for over a decade, have you not wondered why Nigeria (FG) cannot give at least just one city (not state oh) uninterrupted power supply for just one month? Can't you see that something is wrong with the Nig
erian arrangement?

Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) supplies power to Omoku, Obrikom, Aboh, Beneku and Okpai communities, all in Delta state. Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas Company (NLNG) supplies power to Bonny and Finima towns in Rivers State. These communities don't pay for the electricity. It is supplied free of charge by the IOCs. And it has been like this for over a decade!

Why can't the FG give just one city in Nigeria 24/7 power supply?

Again, we repeat, if these IOCs can comfortably power these host communities at ease and for free for years, why can't NIGERIA power at least ONE major city in the whole of Nigeria, despite the charges? Why can't just one major city be proud of having 20/7 power supply in Nigeria?

Can't we all see that something is fundamentally wrong with Nigeria?

If electricity generation and distribution was strictly a state government affair and there is no such thing as a national grid and federal control, by now, at least ten states of Nigeria would have been celebrating at least fifteen hours of uninterrupted power supply per day and many more states would have been warming up to join the list. Competition!

Today we have a centralized electricity generation and distribution system. We have a national grid. We have a situation where if a gas pipeline is blown up in Bayelsa, electricity goes off in Kano and Lagos states. We have a situation where a court is deciding for investors how much they should charge Nigerians for electricity supply.


Because of overcentralization, the electricity generation and distribution business is now so complex that we do not even know who to blame for lack of electricity in our cities. It is shameful that despite the numerous power plants we have in Nigeria, we do not yet have a single city that can boast of twenty hours of uninterrupted power per day. Just one city! The most annoying part is that the electricity business is now so complex that it is almost practically and impossible to decentralize the sector without running into technical and legal problems. From generation to distribution to gas supply to regulated rates, and you name. There is one body or the other claiming regulatory rights.


This unitary overcentralized system of doing things in Nigeria has killed almost every sector of the country and it js time for us to speak against it.


Electricity generation and distributiom is not rocket science. The IOCs are doing it in the Niger Delta. Electricity generation and distribution licenses and issues should be a state government affair. States should be allowed to explore their natural comparative advantage so to provide power to their people.


Federal Government should have no business with electricity anymore. National grid should be discarded. Competition should be introduced. States and cities should be allowed to generate and distribute their own electricity and bear the risks.


Surprisingly, Babatunde Fashola and Rotimi Amaechi who were once championing this cause of decentralization of electricity are now at Abuja and in the right ministry and yet they have all gone dumb. Maybe their hands are now tied by the unitary philosophy of 'One Nigeria One Electricity'


#RestructureNigeria
#TrueFederalism

omoiyamayor:
So Nigeria will be like the UK and UAE.that can serve us all right.

Exactly, each Federating unit would develop according to its own pace while focusing on areas of core competencies and maximizing available resources.

Will Community Based Governments (CBG) as a last tier Bring Government Closer to the local People and Communitiesof Nigeria?

One of the evils of the present skewed, flawed, corrupt, military ‘feeding bottle’ unitary system that we currently practice in Nigeria is that it has completely destroyed community-locality governance in the local areas of Nigeria, thereby depriving the local people and their communities their right to self-development. People in the localities of Nigeria have no government, have no constitutional right to organize themselves, generate revenue and manage the most basic things of life as it affects their communities. They do not even have the right to fire an irresponsible teacher working in any of their community but state government funded schools. We believe is the major cause of widespread poverty and lack of basic infrastructure in the local places of Nigeria. In essence, there is no government in the areas where the real people live in. There is no government in my village, city and town as there is none in yours!
This is exactly what we seek to address in this lecture.


Federalism as a system of government is designed to guarantee a high level of autonomy for the federating units while they share few other relationships with the central authority. The importance of this autonomy is that it allows a certain people take control of their development or underdevelopment (as they please) without accusing another tier for their predicament. In essence, under federalism, the people of a particular federating unit are completely in charge of their own development. That is what federalism means. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, our federalism is an aberration, a calculated fraud designed to underdevelop the local communities, deny them access to their resources and deprive them of government presence; all in the bid of favoring the Abuja and state government house politicians and giving them a god-like status. What we seek now is to correct this anomaly and design a new system that would entrench productivity, competition and economic sustainability across the country and in the remotest places of Nigeria.



Another evil of the present system of government that we practice is that it alienates the local people and their communities from actively participating in the affairs of governance in Nigeria. The local people and communities have no input in their state government budgets and yet they would not be allowed to raise and fund their own local budgets. People would say 'but we have the LGA to attend to these issues'. The present LGA system is not designed to meet the needs of the communities or the local peolle, it is a mini version of the federal government in a local area! It is designed to empower the local political elites and not the local people and their communities. The Local Government Chairmen and the local governments do not technically need the local people and communities to survive. Their survival depends on Abuja allocation; free oil money. Not from within their local economies. This is why we at the local level cannot hold them accountable because the money they steal technically belongs to nobody! How can we hold a government we do not fund to be accountable to us?


What then is community governance and why is it important that we have it in Nigeria?


Community governance as an aspect of true fiscal federalism is a system which guarantees the autonomy of communities (villages, towns and cities) in the generation of revenue, provision of fiscal responsibilities, and upward contribution to the central government in taxes, royalties and otherwise. It is a system that allows every single community (villages, towns and cities) in Nigeria to operate as an independent government taking charge of the most basic things that affects the community and it's local people. Issues like basic education, primary health care, security (community police), water, local taxes and other basic issues are solely under the control of the Democratic community based government. Under t
his system, communities will be allowed to design their annual budgets, embark on taxation, explore natural resources in their domain, manage basic social amenities and pay royalties/tax to the state and federal governments (where applicable). Communities will have the right to hire and fire teachers in its public schools, it will have the power to determine what school fees in public schools should be and of it can afford to provide free education to its people. It will have full control of its own security. It will have constitutional powers to tax local businesses and use such revenues to run the public services of the community. Communities that have the resources should be allowed to generate and distribute electricity within the community and also generate revenue through the process. The CBG will be a government owned by a community, funded by a community and managed by the community. This is the first catalyst of local development that is missing in Nigeria today. The idea of having each community have its own government and take charge of its own basic development will bring in local competition amongst communities which will in turn lead to local development.


Under the present style of government in Nigeria, communities do not see the public schools in their communities as their property that should be protected, promoted and developed. Likewise security, environmental sanitation, taxation, maintenance and construction of public utilities and general public services. This is why some communities go as far as 'allowing' their indigenes steal and vandalize newly built and renovated schools and water systems in their communities. To them, it is government property and government property belongs to nobody! This is as a result of the level of alienation the present system has conditioned them to become.


The idea of a community based government (CBG) is to ensure that communities are empowered by the constitution to have certain fiscal responsibilities to do certain things for their communities without state and federal government intervention. By entrenching such a system, there will be grassroot development and participation in the business of governance at all local levels. There become a sense of communal ownership and responsibility towards government efforts and towards that he development of the community.


The CBG can be funded through a proper taxation system. Property tax, petroleum tax, education tax, diaspora contributions, state and federal governments grants, motor park tax, shop tax, and many more taxes should be exclusively left for the CBG to utilize since the CBG will be taking over some of the state government responsibilities. With these funds going directly into the CBG account, the CBG should be able to have adequate revenues to meet up with its responsibilities. As long as the CBG's survival is tied to the revenue sources within the community, the leaders of the CBG will be accountable to the people and corruption will be less. We all will agree that it is easier to steal a state government fund than to steal a community owned fund. The CBG system therefore has its internal mechanism to fight corruption and make it more transparent to the people.


If local governments (LGAs) must continue to exist alongside CBGs, then their funding should be from the local communities (CBGs) that constitute the local government and not from free federal allocations from Abuja. This is the only way to introduce accountability, commitment and sincerity in the management of local public fund.


Unfortunately, the concept of CBG cannot happen under the present skewed, flawed, corrupt, unitary 'feeding bottle' system that we practice in Nigeria. For this (CBG) to happen, we must first restructure Nigeria into True Fiscal Federalism so as to allow communities have an active role in governance at the local level. Communities must be allowed to have fiscal responsibilities such as generating revenues and having annual budgets and meeting the basic local needs of their people. Communities must be allowed to own
and control the natural resources in their domain and pay taxes to the central government. Under a restructured Nigeria, every community must learn to generate and spend its cash based on its internal capacity, and equally even pay tax to the state government. The state and federal governments will continue to provide its own regulatory responsibilities as may be defined in the new arrangement and constitution. This is the basic foundation upon which true fiscal federalism is built around the world; bottom-up approach to governance. Government begins from the local level and moves upward to the state and then federal levels. Unfortunately, in our system of today, we are doing the reverse.


There become an urgent need to replace allocations with IGRs and stop the monthly ritual of sharing money on a monthly basis at Abuja. Abuja should be funded from contributions of all the federating units and not it funding the federating units as it presently is. It is time to discard this ‘feeding bottle’ federalism and replace it with an efficient, productive, competitive and locally driven system.



We believe the concept of CBG will not only help to decentralize economic and political powers to communities but will also help to drag development to the local areas of Nigeria.


People would become more interested in who becomes the Mayor or Chairman of the government of Ojota town than they would be interested in who becomes the governor of Lagos state, knowing fully well that the Mayor and his government will be handling the most basic things that affects Ojota town. This is the beauty of the CBG.


The concept of CBG is still open to reviews, amendments and inputs.

By Tony Osborg

TrueSenator:
You speak like an Elder which is Wisdom. I understand your focus and appreciate your perspective too, but a spade is a spade

However, I give the benefit of doubt in this context.....thanks for acting wisely.

I appreciate the kind words. Thanks
I really think it is time Nigerians, especially the youths take a stand and demand for what is right. Restructuring is the only way forward as this Unitary system of government was forced on us by the military for their own selfish agenda and it is clearly not working.

You may want to check out this lecture by Professor Godini G. Darah, titled; Who is Afraid of Restructuring?
This a detailed analysis of the struggle for True Federalism right from independence...

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/02/whos-afraid-restructuring-nigeria/

Also check out the Restructure Nigeria website, see my signature

oyinkinola:

...pls dont shy away of the truth, if the 3 tiers of the gvernment can't favour Nigerian, the sole regional administration cannot safe us, the call for restructuring is polical game play by the fail politician! it's like rush out of lion jungle to hunter forest by animals!
why accused North!

This renewed call for restructuring has nothing to do with any politician. This is borne out of the recognition that the only meaningful way we can make actual progress is to devolve power to the States or Regions and putting an end to this unitary system of government that has done nothing but hamper the development of all us as individuals and states.

Check out this lecture delivered by Professor Godini G. Darah, titled; Who is Afraid of Restructuring?
This a detailed analysis of the struggle for True Federalism right from independence...

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/02/whos-afraid-restructuring-nigeria/

Also check out the Restructure Nigeria website, see my signature

Is Nigeria Ready for State and Community Police System?



On the 25th of December 2016, Goska, a community in Southern Kaduna was attacked by suspected Fulani Herdsmen, houses were destroyed and people were killed. For several hours that this operation went on, there was no response from the Nigerian Police Force. The affected communities could not defend themselves, likewise the state government. This is not the first time invaders have successfully invaded Nigerian communities, committed atrocities and escaped uncaught. From the East to the South, Middle Belt and the North, communities have remained vulnerable to attacks.

There is a reason why such attacks have been successful across Nigerian communities. There is a reason why communities cannot react to attacks. It is the same reason why communities will continue to remain vulnerable in the face of invaders. The reason is quite simple. Communities have no control over their own security and the federal controlled Police is too inefficient to be trusted in managing local security. Moreover, most (if not all) officers of the Nigerian Police share no cultural and historical ties with the community they police over, there is therefore no sense of duty! In essence, there is no local police system in Nigeria!

Nigeria has a highly centralized police system that is controlled by the Presidency! The state governments and communities have little control over their own security. There are hundreds of Nigerian communities without the presence of this federal police, yet the law has made it impossible for such communities to establish their own police force, secure their people, property and territory. What kind of system fails to provide you security and yet denies you the legal right to provide security for yourself?

Analysts have argued that if Nigeria had a state and community Police system, communities like Goska in Southern Kaduna would have simply responded to the invaders by defending themselves with their local police force and possibly attacking the invaders. State police would be on standby if they (the Goska Community Police) become overwhelmed by superior fire from the invaders. None of this is in existence right now; neither community nor state police exist in Nigeria.

One aspect of federalism that the present APC led federal government can easily implement without rancor is the demand for state and community policing. This is one aspect of true federalism which both Northern and Southern politicians have agreed Nigeria is ready for.

Security should not be managed in such a highly centralized manner as it currently is in Nigeria. Security should be managed by both the state and communities and not solely by the federal government. Over-centralization of security through the Nigerian Police has turned out to be less effective way of managing security crisis. The Nigerian Police Force presently comprises of about 400,000 officers yet it is still considered as grossly inadequate. There are hundreds of Nigerian villages and thousands of neighborhood without any Nigerian Police presence. This is in fact a threat to local and national security.

Just like every other federal owned institution, the federal police is not only inefficient but also poorly funded. By devolving security duties of the Police to both state and communities, the federal government will be killing two birds with one stone. How? By devolving the present Nigerian Police Force into state and community control, the federal recurrent expenditure will be drastically reduced and the blame on the federal government for certain crimes (i.e. herdsmen attack) will be pushed to the states and community governments. There will be no job loss as states will simply absorb its resident officers from the existing federal police force and establish its own state and community police system. Quite simple!

Abuja cannot continue to control everything in Nigeria and receive all the blames. This unitary system of government is old fashion and redundant. It it time to push certain responsibilities from the federal government to the state and community governments and the issue of security is obviously one of such. The vigilante system in most states and communities have proven to be far more effective than the federal police system. What we must now do is to legalize such vigilante system, empower the local people and put them in charge of their own security. That is federalism in action! Standard practice. Nobody protects a community better than the local residents of the community.

Until we restructure Nigeria and entrench true federalism (state and community policing are features of federalism), our communities will remain vulnerable and the Presidency will continue to take the blames for the security crisis. State and community police system is now imperative.

By Tony Osborg

mandarin:
14 autonomous regions/states and FCT. All resources under new regions/ states with 30% federal tax. Federal control of FCT, foreign affairs, defense, federal security apparatuses, maritime security while it can also control federal funding to states/ regions.

Regions / states must emerge to protect minorities especially in the North and Niger Delta based on both ethnicity and religion.

The decision to merge or not will be determine by the people based on the adopted constitution of the state or region.

TrueSenator:
Not in this age..... the quality of the message also depends on the quality of the messenger..... That's why you employ the best if you need the best

True, no doubt but we can't afford to lose the substance of the message because of the frailties of the messenger.

gartamanta:
Restructuring Nigeria into six Regions aint bad, but it is never going to happen.

Restrcturing into 6 Regions would mean:

The dissolution of all 36 states and their state assemblies

The divolution of powers from Abuja to the Regions

The dissolution of the Senate


The abrogation of 'executive president' and commander in chief. In its place, ceremonial president who will also be commander in chief and Primeminister who will be head of Government.

The complete dismantling of the unitary system


They wont allow this. As far as the North is concerned, there is no difference between a restructured SW/SE/SS and Oduduwa Republic/Republic of Biafra/Niger Delta Republic and they are right.

Retructuring is not going to happen in Nigeria unless those who want it are prepared to go to war with the North.

It will happen soon. The struggle for a true Federal system of government and Restructuring has nothing to do with Secession. Almost every Nigerian is disenchanted with situation of things except for the few political elites who are currently comfortable with the current flaw system.

see...https://www.nairaland.com/3659255/what-restructured-nigeria-look-like

The north must realise that it is in their interest to restructure also. The region is blessed with agrarian land and abundant Mineral elements but all these are not being optimally utilized to create jobs for every youth because of the lazy money politicians receive and depend on from Abuja

TrueSenator:
Where has he been since......Everyone will start talking now before PMB comes back

Take the message and ignore the messenger.

CROWNWEALTH019:
south west man is now on the throne, they now want to restructure.... trust them at ur own peril

He actually gave this lecture before Buhari travelled. He has always been an advocate of restructuring.

See
http://punchng.com/fulltext-nigeria-restructured-pastor-bakare/
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/01/tunde-bakare-joins-calls-restructuring-nigerias-federal-system-2/

WE NEED IT SERIOUSLY


Long overdue.

:
After a slow start characterized by series of policy somersaults, the current government has created laudable medium term plans for socioeconomic growth and recovery. However, it is yet to demonstrate the audacity and courage required to address the foundations of the Nigerian problem, a critical factor that will determine the success or failure of the government and its plans at the end of the day. That factor is the restructuring of our nation.

The Fundamental Flaw in our Federal System

The hues and cries for restructuring in our nation appear not to have been well received by this present government. The inquisitive may ask: “Why must we restructure?” We must restructure to correct the flaws in our federal system.

A federated state is defined as “a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federal union.”

In a true federal system, previously sovereign states agree to confer their individual sovereignties on a central government. In other words, the states create the federal government, as was the case with the original thirteen American colonies. This was also the case when the Nigerian federal system was originally conceived by our founding fathers.

Prior to the coming of the colonialists, sovereignty was domiciled in empires, kingdoms, city-states and republican villages. It was, however, taken over by the colonialists at which point it resided in the British Crown.

At Independence, as negotiations for the framework of a new sovereign entity took place, sovereignty had taken another geopolitical form – regional. It was these regional units that had agreed to federate at the London Conference which led to the Lyttletton Constitution of 1954.

Our founding fathers agreed that Nigeria would be “a truly federal state with limited and specific powers allocated to the federal government and residual powers inherent in the regional governments.”

This agreement was the social contract upon which the Nigerian state was formed, but this social contract was broken on May 24, 1966 through the Unification Decree by Gen. J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi’s administration. That was the day Nigeria died. Five decades later, in spite of the reversal of the Unification Decree by Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s administration resulting in the division of Nigeria into twelve states, this deviation from the landmarks set by the fathers is a crucial reason for our disjointed nationhood and the perennial socioeconomic decay. It is why efforts at economic diversification by government after government, including the present government, have failed to yield the expected results. It is what has led to the infrastructural decay. It is why we run bloated governments that hitherto spend over 70% of annual budgets on recurrent expenditure.

The Imperatives of Restructuring

To understand why we must restructure, let us take a quick look, for example, at the administration of education in Nigeria. At Independence, the entire Northern Region, which comprised the current nineteen northern states, had one Ministry of Education headed by one Minister. The entire Western Region, which comprised the current six states in the South West and roughly two states in the South South, had one Ministry of Education headed by one Minister. The entire Eastern Region which comprised roughly five states in the current South East and four states in the current South South had one Ministry of Education with one Minister.

Therefore, there were only three Ministries of Education headed by three Ministers in the entire country and they were responsible for the rapid educational advancement that took place in that era as the regions competed through such policies as free education to achieve socioeconomic development.

Today, we have thirty-six Ministries and thirty-six Commissioners for Education which, together with the Federal Ministry of Education, consume a huge chunk of the limited education budget through recurrent expenditure. This is a very huge drainpipe in our economy. It ranks pari-passu with the cancer of corruption in hampering our growth and development
as a nation. Imagine how much we could save with six efficient and effective ministries in education and other relevant socioeconomic sectors in six geopolitical zones.

Restructuring Made Easy

For those who still question the need for restructuring, I have for you a simple analogy that may cause you to have a rethink. For sixteen years, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was the governing party in Nigeria. For about twelve years, as individual parties, the so-called opposition parties tried unsuccessfully to wrest power from the PDP. In 2003, the Action Congress (AC), dominant in the South West, the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP), dominant in parts of the North, and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), dominant in the South East, presented individual candidates for federal elections, particularly the presidential elections, and were overwhelmed by the PDP. The same scenario played out in 2007 despite the change in name by the Action Congress to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). In 2011, three parties, ACN, ANPP and a new party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), once again individually took on the PDP and were beaten as before by the power of incumbency.

However, in 2015, following the merger of these major opposition parties to form the All Progressives Congress (APC), the PDP was finally defeated and today, we have an APC-led government in power. Fellow Nigerians, this is a prime example of leveraging on relative strengths. As with those small preceding political parties, our 36 states, most of which generate insignificant internal revenue, are not viable enough to overcome our economic challenges and facilitate accelerated economic growth.

These thirty-six states, overwhelmingly sustained by 24 allocations from Abuja, cannot guarantee functional infrastructure such as world class roads, railways, airports, housing and urban development. These thirty-six states, largely unable to pay workers’ salaries, cannot guarantee standard educational and healthcare systems, or facilitate rural development.

These thirty-six states should, in fact, become districts headed by Mayors within the framework of six geopolitical zones, because they will be stronger and more productive within a zonal structure. As zonal structures, they can pool resources to build transportation infrastructure; as zonal structures, they will empower local governments to bring effective governance directly to the people. As zonal structures, they will efficiently coordinate socioeconomic policies for the benefit of every Nigerian – every Nigerian like Mama Blessing, whose petty trading business will be expanded and transformed by vibrant regional agricultural and transportation policies; every Nigerian like Mazi Kelechi, whose electronics business can have a globally competitive made-in-Nigeria supply from regionally backed industrial clusters; every Nigerian now just selling suya who can build a whole range of businesses around hides and skins sourced from regionally coordinated ranching systems; every Nigerian like Baba Bukky, who will no longer rely on generating sets for power supply due to regional coordination of multimodal resources for efficient power generation, transmission and distribution.

The Search for a Well-Structured State On the question of how restructuring will be done, let me state that we have had engagements with this government, as well as with the preceding administration under President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, in which strategies and documents were put forward towards restructuring. One of these proposals called for a Presidential Commission for National Reconciliation, Reintegration and Restructuring guided by, among other frameworks, the 2014 National Conference.

I do not have the time to delve into the specifics of that Commission in this address, but I must state that I am inclined to a zonally structured governance system due to the reasons I earlier alluded to.

However, in the spirit of trustful give and take, let all the proposals be brought to the table. Inasmuch as it is in the interest of
our nation, whatever governmental structure results from the process, a people deserve the right to determine the structural and functional parameters of governance in their nation. Let the Nigerian people decide. From the United Kingdom’s European Union membership referendum, to the constitutional plebiscite in Italy, we have seen examples of how this is done.

The notion that the Nigerian nation is non-negotiable will remain contested through agitations, until we summon enough courage to put it to the test, and prove, through the outcome, that we are indeed prepared to become a truly united nation. 26 Conclusion During the presentation of the 2017 budget, President Muhammadu Buhari rightly observed that the current economic situation also provides a climate of great opportunity.

Truly, in the words of Allan K. Chalmers, “crises refine life. In them we discover who we are”, and, as declared by Jawharlal Nehru: “Crises and deadlocks have one advantage: they force us to think.” AND THINK WE MUST! As individual citizens, we must be accurately positioned to harness these opportunities. Prayer has its place but God will not come down to solve problems He has already equipped us to solve. He is looking for patriots who will become responsible for their families, for their communities, for their organizations, for their nation, for the continent and for the world. He calls everyone, irrespective of religious, ethnic, gender or other distinctions, and such people of destiny must receive God’s visions for their environment, articulate and communicate those visions plainly and galvanize others to run along with them, knowing that the Giver of vision is the God of All Sufficiency who will make provision for the vision.

For us at The Latter Rain Assembly, we have accepted responsibility for our nation and that is why we do what we do. As watchmen over our nation, we are propelled by our God-given vision of the New Nigeria, a nation on a journey to oneness and greatness; a journey the nation of 2 Israel embarked upon. Israel began as twelve tribes and then transited to two kingdoms, the Kingdom of the North and the Kingdom of the South. Eventually, the two kingdoms became one nation with David as king over them.

In like manner, we seek Nigeria’s transition from 36 states to 6 geopolitical zones that will become harbingers of a united nation led by patriotic and selfless leaders. The current government, under President Muhammadu Buhari, has the opportunity to provide such leadership by being at the forefront of the quest for change. Guided by the indicators of good governance in a well structured state, and propelled by a true unifying national vision, Mr. President and his team must summon the courage to make hard choices, especially the choice to restructure and the choice to embrace the necessary self-sacrifice that precedes economic recovery. May 29 this year will mark two full years of this administration in government. We have no more time to waste. Mr. President must galvanize his team to get the job done; square pegs in round holes must be removed or put in appropriate places; the wicked who surround the righteous must be led away from the presence of the king.

Those who cannot stand the heat must get out of the kitchen. It is time to demonstrate leadership, wise judgment and astute public policy that guarantees stable and prosperous nationhood upon a foundation of peace; it is time to build a well-ordered nation with strong institutions dispensing justice; it is time to arise with patriotic zeal to build a great nation such that, years from now, generations yet unborn will look back at their history, not with disdain, but with gratitude to God that our generation preceded theirs.

May 2017 be the year we look into the future with the eyes of faith and take steps to accomplish all that we know is possible.

Thank you for listening; God bless you, and God bless Nigeria.

Pastor ‘Tunde Bakare Serving Overseer, The Latter Rain Assembly; Convener, Save Nigeria Group (SNG)

Title; What Will a Restructured Nigeria Look Like?

The most important question before us right now is envisaging what a restructured Nigeria would look like. We have agreed that Nigeria needs restructuring based on the principles of federalism. The next big question should be; what should a restructured Nigeria look like? This is what we have set out to answer in this lecture.


How should responsibilities be shared between the federal and state governments in a restructured Nigeria? We believe it will be inappropriate for us as a Movement to impose regions or even states on the people of Nigeria. This is why we believe the people (ethnic nationalities) themselves must be given the opportunity to decide whether they want regions or states as the federating units. Whatever the case may be, these twenty rules must be followed.To answer these questions, we have drawn up twenty rules that should guide us in our debate. Find below the twenty rules that we consider as fundamental to a two-tier system of federal structure and which we think is best suitable for a country like Nigeria.


The first rule towards restructuring Nigeria is to allow the peoples, ethnic nationalities and communities come together and create their own autonomous state governments as they please. It is only after the various ethnic nationalities have created their own autonomous state government that they can they then come together to create the federal government. There is nowhere in the world where the federal government creates the state governments, rather it is the autonomous state governments that come together to create the federal government and decide what and what political and economic powers should be given to the federal government and what will be retained by the state. This is the first principle of federalism that is currently absent in Nigeria's pseudo federalism. The federal government created the states, instead of the reverse.


These twenty rules highlight the basic principles of true federalism.


1. There should be two tiers of government recognized by the federal constitution; a federal and state government. Each of them should have a separate constitution.

2. The state government should have the exclusive right to create another tier of government as it wishes. We suggest that a community/city based government be recognized and established by the state as the last tier of government. Community/City based government should therefore replace the existing local government style tier of government. The constitutions must guarantee the autonomy of each tier of government. The community based government should have full control over the most basic things that affect the community. Issues like basic education (management and funding of basic schools), security, water, maintenance, health care, etc should be done by the community based governments. It should also have the right to raise its own taxes to fund its needs. The community based government should be the most empowered tier of government.


3. The federal constitution should limit the federal government responsibilities to only defense, monetary policy, foreign policy, immigration and customs. All duties not given to the federal government should become the duties of the state governments.
The federal constitution should be written by the representatives of the already existing autonomous states that now wish to create a federate (create a federal government). In the same manner, the state constitution should be written by the representatives of the the people, tribes and communities that would make up the state.


4. Ownership of all federal owned assets and institutions that are no longer under federal jurisdiction should be transferred to the states where they are located. Arrangement should be made to ensure that there is a fair balance of payment for the transferred assets. Where the states fail to offer a fair bargain for the new assets, the general public should be invited to take ownership of the assets. Federal institutions (i.e federal universiti
es) capable of being autonomous should be declared as autonomous institutions and free from federal interference.


5. The federal government will no longer build hospitals, universities, rail lines, refineries, power stations, etc. These shall become exclusive duties of the state governments and the private sector. The federal government duty shall be limited to the items listed in number 2.


6. The federal constitution shall forbid both the federal and state governments from embarking on business ventures and shall limit their sources of revenue to only taxation and royalties.


7. The federal constitution should recognize the right of ownership of land and natural resources as belonging to communities and individuals and should therefore forbid both the state and federal governments from upturning this inalienable right. The implication of this rule is that resource control will now be in the hands of the individuals and communities and not the state or federal government as it currently is.


8. The state and federal governments should have two independent judiciary with each having up its own Supreme court.


9. Right to self-determination should be enshrined in the federal constitution. Communities/towns should have the right to secede from a state and seek membership of another state within Nigeria while states should have the right to secede from Nigeria and seek membership of another country or form an independent country of their choice. The process of doing this must be by referendum.


10. States should be entitled to receive irregular annual grants from the federal government in the same way communities/towns should be entitled to receive irregular grants from their state governments upon meeting certain strict conditions. There shall be no more monthly allocations.


11. Parliamentary democracy could be adopted to replace the present presidential executive system. The House of tribes (House of Reps) should be abolished and a single parliament retained comprising of tribesmen, professionals, and town/city/state representatives.


12. The federal constitution shall guarantee the decentralization of the civil service.


13. The federal constitution shall recognize indigeneship and residency as qualification for occupying public offices in both state and federal offices.


14. Taxation shall be the major source of revenue for both the federal and state governments. Federal taxes shall be limited and deducted from the state governments while state taxes shall be unlimited and deducted at source.


15. Both basic and tertiary education shall be the exclusive rights of the state and community based governments. The federal government shall have no business with building and managing basic or tertiary institutions. Power generation and distribution shall also be the exclusive rights of the state and city governments.


16. The federal constitution shall guarantee the autonomy and need for federal, state, community and institutional police system with each having its own limit and jurisdiction.


17. Issuance of licenses (whatever kind be it exploration or social license) should be the exclusive right of the state governments while regulations of such licenses should be jointly done by both the state and federal governments.


18. The federal and state constitution shall guarantee the autonomy of every tier of government in conducting their own elections. Each tier of government shall be solely responsible for the conduct of its own elections without interference. The people of the communities, towns and cities that make up a state shall be solely responsible for electing the state government officials in the same way the people of the state government shall be solely responsible for electing the officials of the federal government.


19. The federal constitution shall separate religion from the state and state from religion.


20. The federal parliament shall be structured in such a manner that a bill can only become law if and only if it receives support from a minimum of 2/3 representatives from each state and
not a 2/3 of the general House.


The above twenty rules are what we consider as fundamental principles of true federalism as may be applicable to the Nigerian society. Once we are able to establish these rules in Nigeria, Nigeria has become a true federal state! The rules will expand and be modified as the debate goes.


For us to achieve the above objectives, there is need for us to have a sovereign national conference. We strongly doubt the possibility of restructuring Nigeria through a constitutional amendment. This is why we have resolved to push for a sovereign national conference. For those of us who have studied the table of content of our proposed national conference bill, you will notice that we designed the conference in such a way that if implemented, the above twenty rules will be followed without any hitch.


If we agree with most of the rules above, then we must now move to the next level of getting this bill ready, sensitizing Nigerians about the bill, mobilizing Nigerians to demand for the implementation of the bill and finally participating in the restructuring process.

By Tony Osborg

Thursday, March 02, 2017 6.43AM / Christian Udechukwu 

I have observed that people do not understand the restructuring option for Nigeria as it is being discussed. Let me attempt a simple explanation.

Restructuring of Nigeria does not mean that a Yoruba man in Bauchi has to return to Ijebu Ode nor that the Hausa man in Onitsha has to return to Kano, no one has to move to anywhere. Nigeria will be like the European Union where citizens are able to exercise the freedom to live, work and play where they choose without prejudice. 

The proposed restructure of Nigeria is simply be designed to enable all of the six regions of Nigeria to decide on and have full control of matters of health, education, industrial development policy, power, agriculture, transport infrastructure, local policing, revenue mobilisation, mining, investment guarantees, local taxes and then leave the federal government in Abuja to decide only matters of national defence, foreign  affairs, immigration, international cooperation, national security and others.  No more free money from Abuja to the three tiers of government for unaccountable expenditure.  

Any region that wants to employ only their best and brightest to govern them can do so; and those who want rascals and illiterates in government can have them. Regions will be free and have power to name, shame and punish the criminals amongst them without recourse to ethnicity, religion and party politics at the centre in Abuja.  People can insist on local laws and order enforcement to protect their lives and property

For example, any region that does not want to invest in world class education for its people can choose to do what they like.  Any region that wants free education can introduce the policy at all levels only  if it has the money to pay for its own people  Any region that wants 2000 full time legislators can have it and pay for it from their own internally generated revenue.  The same principle applies in everything else. 

Regions that want 100 states and 1000 local governments can create them if it has money to pay for such big government.  They can no longer rely on free money from oil and gas. Each region will have to be productive, innovative and creative to be progressively develop for a secure future for its people. This is very simple. If this form of restructuring were to happen;  then people will become more prudent and  thoughtful in their daily choices. 

A situation where one part of Nigeria wants be like Singapore, Shanghai or Dubai and other wants to be like Yemen and Pakistan; but both are forced to continue co-existing under the burden of a poorly conceived federal structure under a mediocre leadership which is based on quota system, chop chop politics  and turn by turn corruption ridden government are not sustainable.  Lagos aspires to be a global city where the world's people can come to do business freely and without prejudice; other parts are angry that national resources are being invested with concentration in Abuja to exclusion of other strategic regional centres, and more regional component parts want the right to pursue the best health and education policy they want but they can't do so because such decisions  are made in Abuja. These situations create tensions and low intensity conflcts such as Boko Haram, MASSOB, IPOB, OPC, AVENGERS, and more. So this has to change. Indeed, it will change inevitably, however long it takes unless we have an enlightened leadership that treats the different regions with equity, justice and fairness without limiting the aspirations of any group of people in the federation. 

For now,  there are clear evidences that the aspirations of certain regions or groups of people in Nigeria are not getting the right and fair consideration.  Restructuring is one of the only pathways to future sustainable peace and progress for Nigeria. A nation that ignores it's best and brightest people cannot make sustainable progress. A nation which does treat all of its citizens with equity, fairness and justice will not know sustainable peace. It is difficult for citizens to feel obliged to the state if they do not feel free to pursue their happiness without limitation or prejudice in safety and security.

ok, thanks