I refer to your Thumbprint column of July 30, 2024 titled, End Primitive Accumulation. I commend you for a wonderful exhortation to the president of Nigeria, Ahmed Bola Tinubu and his advisers. However, I wish to point out that the multifaceted challenges facing Nigeria will be solved by, first and foremost, kick-starting immediate restructuring of the lopsided Federation, to restore realistic principles of federal system of government, as obtained in countries that practice federal system and as obtained in Nigeria in the first republic.
Unfortunately, this appears to be a herculean task, hence the saying that bad governance in Nigeria is beyond redemption, because of the entrenched interest of the feudal oligarchy in North, which ab initio, never believed in one Nigeria where equity, fairness and justice prevails, and all the ethnic nationalities would join hands to build a country that will be on the same development trajectory.
In a situation where past and present presidents, talking especially of the Buhari administration and unexpectedly now, also Tinubu, a supposedly “democrat”, often flagrantly ignore the constitution and enthrone crass impunity, inanities in governance, divisiveness and anti-people policies, it would not be out of place to say that Nigeria has crossed the dreaded “Bermuda Triangle, a point of no return” from disaster, if not total ruin.
If the Tinubu administration had shown signs of being guided by the ethos of democracy, which places premium on the rule of law and accorded top priority to security, which is the primary responsibility of governments the world over, then people would have had some confidence to wait for few more years before assessing it. However, a situation where there is virtually no improvement in security throughout the country, as killings are still reported daily since Tinubu came to power, continues to endanger the country and her citizens. The survival of the country is precarious, as danger lurks in multiple angles.
The only ground for optimism about Nigeria as things stand is if President Tinubu should have a rethink about his strategies and dump whatever covenant is said to exist between him and forces that believe that they would be dictating how Nigeria should be governed. The phalanx has stridently kicked against restructuring the lopsided federation with decentralized security architecture because it would truncate their dream of controlling the affairs of the country.
Unfortunately, Tinubu seems to believe in settlement politics. His outlandish establishment of Ministry of livestock development which will ostensibly use public funds to operate purely private business of cattle rearing is an example of policy motivated by panic politics. If he is sure he is doing the right things, why trembling and caving in to pressure, to compound the source of insecurity in the country?
To reinvent Nigeria, the immediate thing to do which is within the realm of possibility, is restructuring the lopsided federation, along the line of the 1963 Republican Constitution, but using the six geopolitical zones as the new federating units. This new structure will be followed by a decentralized security architecture, call it regional police or state Police. This is not a novel concept in Nigeria, as it was practiced in the First Republic and the country registered quantum leap in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and all-round development. Security was also not a problem then.
To curtail primitive accumulation which is what your article focused on, it will be necessary to convoke a National Conference of selected representatives of ethnic nationalities, to brainstorm on how to fashion out a people’s constitution, agreeable to all ethnic nationalities. Such arrangement will go a long way to curtail waste in government, as a result of everybody running to the center to feed fat on national cake. Unless a new people’s constitution is produced, the 1999 constitution supposedly under amendments, to pander to the venality, inanities and preferences of the vested interests that are holding Nigeria hostage, will soon cause the implosion of the country.
Nigeria should return to two tiers of government viz: federal government and state governments. Local administration should be the sole concern of the state government. This will entail the scrapping of the so-called local government councils’ “autonomy” which is totally out of sync with federations, the world over. But all these plausible suggestions may be in vain because while majority of Nigerians may want a better country that is restructured, those who want to keep the country on standstill will be putting pressure for the old structure to remain in place. How can anybody end primitive accumulation under the present political structure of Nigeria?
Go to southern Kaduna and the Middle Belt states and see how terrorists from foreign countries have occupied the ancestral homelands of people and renamed the communities. Surprisingly, government agencies are said to recognize the new names given to the communities by the terrorists. Who is fooling who?
To assuage angry Nigerians and demonstrate that he is serious about governance, Tinubu must first and foremost drive away the foreign invaders and rebuild the destroyed houses of the people for them to leave the Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps, back to their ancestral homelands. There are important steps to take to correct Nigeria’s disfigured federation before we can succeed in ending primitive accumulation.
• Polycarp Onwubiko
Awka, Anambra State