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Title: Restructuring Nigeria: An Overview
Author: Bukar Usman
Publisher: Klamidas Communications, Abuja
Pagination: 125
Year: 2019
Reviewer: Henry Akubuiro
For many Nigerians, the republic, as presently constituted, has outlived its usefulness and should be restructured. But for the retired Permanent Secretary in the Presidency and prolific public intellectual, Bukar Usman, it appears some of us have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick in the lingering debate.
Restructuring Nigeria: An Overview is an offshoot of Usman’s article, “Issues and Challenges of Restructuring Nigeria”, widely published in Nigerian dailies not too long ago. This book elaborates on the issues raised in the aforementioned article, as well as other viewpoints.
The author’s intervention is borne out of a desire to see Nigeria work as an elder statesman, having worked as a bureaucrat for decades for different Nigerian governments. The five-chapter book isn’t totally dismissive of the clarion call for restructuring the country. It leaves us, at the end, with a line to hook a fish –where exactly we need to restructure.
The book takes an extensive look at the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria that has become a major talking point in the country. It examines the role of the National Assembly and the restructuring agenda. It, in addition, analyses perceptions and a plethora of arguments for restructuring Nigeria.
Usman’s Restructuring Nigeria: An Overview went back in time to how regions worked in Nigeria and why it won’t work again in contemporary Nigeria.
There is no ideal constitution anywhere, says Usman in the opening chapter. What matters fundamentally is that the constitution be amended in accordance with the provisions made in it. However, “When most of the stakeholders are willing, when an atmosphere of consensus is created, constitutional amendments can successfully be made,” he writes (p.19).
Rather than waste effort and resources inaugurating another jamboree like the “constitutional” or “restructuring” conferences of the past, such as those held during Presidents Obasanjo and Jonathan administrations, which have yet to produce any constitutional alteration, the author suggests that the reports of past confabs should be formally sent to the National Assembly to see what use they may make of them.
In the third chapter, “Analysing Perceptions and Arguments for Restructuring Nigeria”, the author x-rays the various discordant tones emanating from different corners of the country. To each of these 36 arguments, the author offers a candid response.
Usman contends that, even with the regions in practice today, things can still go wrong with our polity unless we deal with some attitudinal inadequacies that have little or nothing to do with administrative structures. The experience of the former Soviet states, he echoes, “indicates that there is no guarantee that restructuring Nigeria will halt a possible disintegration of the country” (p.39).
The author doesn’t believe that a restructured Nigeria will make possible the introduction of state police, devolution of powers or resource control. Given the right disposition, “all but the last item can be implemented under the current presidential system of government,” he avers.
Though some devolution measures require constitutional amendment, the author says the process can be kick started by the federal government voluntarily transferring some items on the concurrent list, and the associated funds, to the states.
Proponents of restructuring have argued, too, that Nigeria needs to restructure to ensure the installation of true federalism which our founding fathers agreed was the best form of government to serve the multi-ethnic, multi-religious people of Nigeria. Usman differs that true federalism is not synonymous with regionalism and that how strong or weak a central government is depends on the kind of federation the federating units want and the historical and geo-political realities of a given federal union.
Besides, “Cultural bigotry, which includes ethnicity and religious discrimination, is not the by-product of our federal system. It is older than Nigeria itself. It is the ugly side of cultural expression; it is not native to Nigeria; it is to a greater or lesser degree, global in nature,” he writes (p.46).
If you think restructuring will enable us to tailor a presidential system that would be less expensive than what we have today or do away with the 36 largely unviable states and put in place six federating units based on a parliamentary system of government or a re-tailored, less expensive presidential system of government, the author asks us to look ourselves in the mirror, for the solutions may as well be from within.
“Our presidential democracy,” he argues, “is not expensive because we are running a presidential democracy. Our system is expensive because we designed it to be expensive. Nigerians created the problem, not the system.”
Explaining, in the fourth chapter, why the regions may not work again in today’s Nigeria chapter, the author says the country “has undergone a lot of irreversible metamorphosis from 1963 to date”, from population rise to dwindling contributions of agricultural commodities to the revenue of the component units.
What should be restructured then? “The answer to the restructuring question lies more in collective self-examination, in fundamental change of attitude, and in a public-spirited approach to public administration by the current and future operators of our constitution,” says Usman in the concluding chapter. This book urgently invites every Nigerian to revisit a nagging political question. Are you game?
