Follow Us on Google
By Coker Onita
It amounts to no exaggeration saying that Nigeria is in a state of flux, gliding down the slope precipitously. So awful, painful and precarious is the descent that many are wondering, which way forward? Any hope that she will survive? Our economy is in dire straits, unwitnessed and unprecedented in the annals of Nigerian history. The falcon, they say, can no longer locate the falconer. The time has come for us to look further, reform and modernise our ways, else we perish. But God forbid!
Chief Emeka Anyaoku, 90, respected elder statesman and former Secretary General of Commonwealth, lent his barritone and highly dignified voice to the clamour for a better nation. His admonition was that Nigeria should create a brand new constitution.
You would have expected such clarion call to be echoed by men and women at the citadel of power but not a single word from them, which is most unfortunate. They are presently engrossed with the battle for their own survival, politically, socially and economically.
Chief Anyaoku laid bare his reasoning for the clarion call: Part of it was the military intervention of 1966 and the unnecessary balkanization of Nigeria’s territorial space. It’s clear to everyone that our nation has never been this divided, as it is today. Which is partly responsible for our poor showing in all spheres of human endeavour. Or how do we explain a situation where over 140 out of 200 million of our people live in “multidimensional poverty” and hopelessness? How? l tire, joor!!
Another elder statesman, former Nigerian ambassador to Australia also recenty interacted with me on the same subject, lamenting on the parlous state of our nation. Ambassador Adetunji Soule, 84, a retired civil servant and permanent secretary, with doctorate (PhD) degree in Economics from University of Leicester, England, almost 50 years ago, also shared his thoughts.
The sum total of our discussion is encapsulated in the following: The first concern is his quest for a new constitutional order. There is no doubting the fact that a new constitution is sine qua non to the continued unity, peace, coexistence, progress and prosperity of our nation.
Said Chief Anyaoku: “The way forward for Nigeria is a new constitution to arrest the ongoing deterioration of the situation in our country. He further submitted that to achieve the desired transformation, the country needs a system of government that not only addresses Nigerian diversity but can also be correctly described as “Nigerian peoples’ constitution.”
“Every successful federation should evolve a devolution of powers from central government to a fewer and more viable federating units with strong provision for inclusive governance at the centre and in the regions as was agreed by our founding fathers.”
Dr. Soule’s submission was in the same direction. He asked: “Any hope that our nation will survive these current travails and chart a new path forward? What major achievements have we made? The pace of development has slowed down considerably. The era of ‘First in Africa” has long gone.
To him, the First Republic succeeded because the federating units at the time enjoyed a reasonable level of autonomy and were therefore able to develop at their own pace and compete with themselves.
“When Chief Obafem Awolowo was premier in the old Western Region, the area saw progress that it became the envy of the rest. And since 1966 when we had the first military coup, what did we achieve? It’s been reversals in our wheel of progress.
“The immediate need is for us is to start reforming and modernizing our national architecture in the political, economic, social welfare and security fields. We need to revisit the recommendations of the national constitutional reform conferences, especially the one produced by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in 2014. A committee of reverred elders and leaders of thought, respected professionals should be constituted to revisit the document, make recommendations and put the key elements of change to a national referendum.
Dr. Soule added that all changes, especially those affecting our electoral laws should be re-examined. “All electoral litigations must be completed before inauguration of a new regime.The federation, as presently constituted cannot be sustained in the long run. Reform it through devolution. Let’s return to the era of competitive federalism.
“This is the only country in the world where a new regime is sworn in when litigations are yet to be completed. Even in America, all litigations are completed before 90 days when a new regime is sworn in.
“Electoral body like the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and their counterpart in states should not be constituted by the president or the governors since they are politically partisan and are interested in the outcome of the elections. At present, they always score 99.9 per cent for their parties àt local government elections. The institution should be constituted and supervised by a body of elders and leaders with high moral rectitude, high class professionals, but not politicians with partisan interests. And ditto for the states.
“The entire national structure of governance needs to be decentralized. This is responsible for the ineffectiveness of some vital government agencies like the Police, the Prisons (now called Correctional Contres), power generation and distribution, etc. The same with construction of intra state highways and bridges, unity schools and federal government universities, all are symbols of over centraliisation, waste, corruption, excessive bureaucracy and red tapism. Only major trunk roads linking states from north to south, east to west should be the responsibility of the central government.
The “Big Brother” approach by which federal bodies like the Federal Ministry of Works, FERMA and other agencies of government operate has been ineffective in tackling the road transport challenges of the country. The present arrangement where states undertake repairs of their important “federal roads”and seek reimbursement thereafter is most untidy, beset with corruption and political manipulations. These must change.
“Another approach which may be considered for an accelerated road development is the use of PPP, a partnership between the public and private sectors of the economy.. Even to developed countries, the approach is still very much utilized. Consortiums of big banks, civil engineering companies bid for and undertake the construction of major bridges and roads and recover their costs through collection of tolls.
“Turnpike roads are still being undertaken in the United States of America up till tomorrow. This method accelerates the opening up of the countryside to development. It is an irony that a country like Nigeria where governance is profligate and wasteful and always short of money, the tolling practice has not taken roots as a means of accelerating the opening up of our countryside and rural areas. Road construction should not only be seen as social service but more as a major ecenomic tool for national development.
“For power generation, ours is one of the lowest in the world when compared to our population and needs. This again is because of overcentralisation. The old colonial structures which we inherited are thoroughly inefficient, coupled with bad management policies and bureaucratic red tapism. Let each state government and contiguous ones come together using resources that give them comparative advantage and lower cost to produce power for their communities. With these resources they can produce energy from Solar, wind, hydro electric and fossil fuel like coal and gas. For the past 40 to 50 years, the nation, through the central government, had been putting billions of dollars on fossil fuel electricity expansion programmes with nothing to show for it till date. We still suffer from ‘system collapse’ and other overcentralisation challenges.
“The current structures dominated by regional monopolies of DISCOS, are more interested in making money for their billionaire owners than in coming up with new technological nnovations to ease the sufferings of their clients. Furthermore, we need to move away from fossil fuel expansion in the production of electricity for our people. We should start laying emphasis on Green Energy and sustainable power development.
With this comparative advantage of having sun overhead almost throughout the year, Nigeria should have been in the forefront in the research and development of Solar energy. As a matter of urgency, we should start investing massively in this field and the benefits will turn up quicker than the elusive turbine gas generators we have been investing billions. We will also be complying with world’s clamour for Climate Change and Green Revolution.
“On the economic front, the new administration met an empty treasury and excessively large amount of debts both local and foreign incurred by both Federal and State governments. The economy has been badly mismanaged in the last eight years. Nothing really to show for the excessive borrowings except import based inflation and collapsed foreign exchange rate regime. Our foreign exchange reserve have been badly depleted and mortgaged. We must restructure our economy to be foreign trade focused, improve our tax revenue collection and greatly reduce our wasteful consumption of imported goods and services.
“Government policy, at this point in time, should be austerity, austerity and austerity because the financial resources are not there. What we have now are being used to service our debts and our penchant for foreign travels. We must stop foreign loans except the extremely soft ones from multilateral agencies and re-examine the basket of loans we now have with a view to weeding out bad ones, re-negotiate the repayment terms of others and seek for loan forgiveness and conciliation in the coming months,” he added.
In Dr Soule’s opinion, the only way we can bring down the naira exchange rate to the United State Dollar to around N200 within the next two to three years is by expanding our exports (both oil and non oil) by 20-30 per cent and reduce our import by the same margin within the same timeframe. It can be done if the government and the people of Nigeria have the courage and will to do so.
“The Agencies and parastatals of governments both at national and state levels are far too many and with blurred areas of operation and jurisdictions. They run into thousands. The result is the consequent heavy overheads in day to day operations, leaving very little resources for capital expenditures, growth and development.
“For an economy to grow, it will strive to invest an average of 30 to 40 per cent of the annual budget in capital expenditures. I doubt if the level has ever been achieved at the federal level since independence. We waste too much money on consumptive expenditures, luxury cars, foreign tours, extacodes, etc. The time to stop all these waste is now.
“The costs of running our national and state assemblies are among the highest in the world. Their salaries and allowances are unjustifiable and unconscionable, considering their level of output and productivity and in relation to the per capital income of the country.Their income must be limited to what is officially approved for them as obtained in other countries.
Dr Soule is of the opinion that some unviable states of the Federation should be collapsed and absorbed into contiguous ones to engender economic and financial viability, sustainability and promote their sense of belonging. This will further reduce large overhead costs, wastages and high cost of governance to provide more resources for economic development.
Dr Soule reminded us that in implementing the proposed changes of descentralization, the revenue allocation formula currently in use at the national level must be adjusted considerably in favor of the states to cater for the additional functions being assigned to them particularly on roads, policing, housing and education.
It is Dr. Soule’s submission that once we are determined to pursue these suggestions, the road to recovery will be shorter, smoother and more sustainable than expected.. “Let’s move away from things that divide us and embrace with open mind, things that surely but steadily unite us as a nation. What Nigeria needs is a new national order imbued with high sense of patriotism and sacrifice from both the leaders and followers alike,” he concluded.
• F. COKER ONITA, a veteran journalist, was Publisher/Chief Executive, Today’s Choice
Magazine and Consultant/ Columnist, Independent Newspapers Limited.
