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The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, is often described as a military document. The received impression is that the military, which didn’t quite prepare to leave office at the time it did, hurriedly cobbled the document together when circumstances dictated that the junta must yield ground to civil rule. Essentially, the Constitution is largely seen as a product of military fiat and therefore not representative of the popular wishes and aspirations of Nigerians. Critics of the Constitution particularly fault its preamble, which proclaims thus: “We the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria….do hereby make, enact and give to ourselves the following Constitution”. The argument is that the peoples of this country, contrary to the preambular declarations of the constitution, never met or sat to deliberate on the making of the constitution. Any claim to the contrary is, therefore, seen as a fraudulent imposition.
Apart from this faulty takeoff, there is a myriad of loopholes that makes the 1999 Constitution such a distorted document. One of the most telling is the provision on resource control. In the constitution, mineral resources of states belong to the federal government, with a little chunk left for the goose that lays the golden egg. The push has been in favour of an arrangement where states will control their resources while paying royalties to the federal government.
Another contentious provision is the allocation or distribution of local government areas across the country. The bone of contention here is that the distribution as contained in the 1999 Constitution was arbitrarily done. People wonder why a state like Kano without huge land mass but high population will have 44 local government areas while Lagos without large land mass as well but with a higher population will have only 20 Local government areas. Bola Tinubu as governor of Lagos State tried to do something about this anomaly. However , his effort to give Lagos more local government areas was frustrated by the constitutional provision on creation of local governments.
There are lots of other provisions of the constitution that have given well-meaning Nigerians much cause for concern. Surprisingly, however, the national legislature which has, at every turn, claimed to be amending the constitution, never broached any of these contentious issues. It prefers instead to scratch the matter on the surface. To demonstrate further that the National Assembly has been toeing the line of least resistance in this matter, it never considered it necessary to integrate the six geopolitical zones into the constitution. Yet, successive governments, since the Abacha years, have been working with that geopolitical template. For instance, the creation of six states by the government of Sani Abacha in 1996 was done on the basis of the six zonal arrangement.
Now, the National Assembly Committee on Constitution Review is at it again. They are, like the Assemblies before them, working towards amending aspects of the constitution. At the end of the day, there will be nothing that will show that the highly defective Constitution has been made any better through an amendment. It will be the same story of dodging issues that matter while paying heed to inconsequential provisions. But before the National Assembly wastes our time on issues that do not matter, let me give them an idea of how to make a remarkable difference in the national life of a people through constitutional amendment. One issue that will make all the difference in the ongoing effort at constitutional amendment is regionalism. We need a constitution that will return the country to the regional arrangement of yesteryear.
I am fully aware that this issue came up for debate on the floor of the Senate very recently. I am also aware that some senators, particularly of northern extraction, were suspicious of the idea. The overriding impression among the not-so-informed among them is that regional arrangement has the potentialities of leading to the country’s breakup. Some did say that Biafra arose because Eastern Region, like other regions of the era, was somewhat autonomous. Those who put up this argument need to be reminded that Biafra was not a product of a semi-autonomous regional arrangement. It was borne out of extreme historical circumstances, which no Nigerian should contemplate in the 21st Century. If the events of 1966 to 1967 rear their ugly heads again in Nigeria, something more disruptive than Biafra will spring up, region or no region.
Beyond the cheap sentiments against regional administration in Nigeria, the idea has a lot to commend it. Democratic governance, by its very nature, is about the welfare and security of the people. When this is in place, peace and progress will be guaranteed. Where this is absent, the existence of government becomes questionable. It is an indisputable fact that the purpose for the existence of government is not being served under the federal order of the 1999 Constitution. Here, the welfare of the people does not feature in the agenda of government. Life is short, nasty and brutish as in the Hobbesian state because the very basis for the existence of government is sorely lacking. Insecurity has grown wings because the distorted federal arrangement we have in place hamstrings the constituent units. States have no control of any security apparatus, yet governors are supposed to be chief security officers of their states. The result is that state governments lack the wherewithal to stem the tide of insecurity.
Development has remained at a very low ebb in Nigeria because there is no spirit of healthy competition among the states of the federation. Our federalism is one that renders states impotent, forcing them to rely on allocations from the centre. A regional arrangement will leave regional development in the hands of the regions. It is an arrangement that will give states control over their natural resources. Those that are not richly endowed will explore other ways of growing their economy.
A regional arrangement will also make the scramble for the presidency less fierce. This is because the centre will be less attractive. The action will be in the regions whose responsibility it will be to ensure that good governance permeates the grassroots. Under the regional order as well, regions which, of course, will retain the existing states structure, will determine for themselves the number or sizes of their local governments. Whatever arrangement that holds will be in the ultimate best interest of the regions in particular and the country in general. These gains cannot be overemphasized. To this extent, those who view regionalism from the lenses of separatism are being myopic and backward in their thinking. A regional arrangement will save Nigeria from the present dog-eat-dog order that is stifling peace and progress in the country.
