Revisiting Nigeria

I consider the self-indulgent posturing of federal legislators on those days when their sittings or hearings are briefly covered by live TV as gratuitous insult. You see well-fed, expensively-dressed, incredibly well-paid elected representatives angling for  a few minutes of exposure in the hope that a constituent has the TV set, time, the electricity, the resources  […]

I consider the self-indulgent posturing of federal legislators on those days when their sittings or hearings are briefly covered by live TV as gratuitous insult. You see well-fed, expensively-dressed, incredibly well-paid elected representatives angling for  a few minutes of exposure in the hope that a constituent has the TV set, time, the electricity, the resources  and the interest to subscribe to the DSTV channel as well as enough interest to hear what contributions they make to national development, peace and security. By sheer coincidence, I was at a place last week where courtesy demanded that I paid attention to what was obviously a gripping business on TV for my hosts. It turned out to be a discussion at the Senate on a motion for relief and response to victims of banditry, kidnappings and sundry organized violent crimes that appear to have stirred our leaders to the reality that we live in one of the most dangerous nations on earth. So I sat through one hour of passionate and eye-catching lamentation by senators over the plight of “their” people and what needs to be done about it.

When elderly Senator Adeyeye from Osun State stood up and waved the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as the culprit and the fundamental cause of all our national woes, the room sat up. He did not link the routine outrage in Zamfara, Kaduna and Katsina directly to the constitution. Nor did he show the connection between the persistent attempts by factions of Boko Haram to register major coups against mainstream official narrative that the insurgency has been defeated. His contribution was to draw attention to the defects of our constitution which has created a monster in the nature of our federal system, and made victims of all Nigerians. Fix the constitution which gives power to the federal government and renders federating units impotent, he said, and all else shall be added on to it. Rise to the occasion, he pleaded with colleagues who know where the problems and the solutions are, and do justice to your positions. All in all, I was glad that I was afforded a rare glimpse of hope and hypocrisy regarding the future of our not-so-great-nation anymore.

The hope is represented by the passion of an articulate Senator who was convincing in his arguments that the fundamental philosophy and structure of our federal system is incapable of building a working, united and prosperous nation. He is going to be in the next Senate to keep reminding his colleagues that our only house is built on faulty and decaying foundations, and they have a responsibility to reinforce it. The hypocrisy lies in Senator Adeyeye being an APC Senator, a member of a party that would only whisper the word restructuring during campaigns, and an important member of an administration that shot down even the tepid attempts of the current National Assembly at constitutional amendments. Adeyeye must know that his broad constituency of the south-west which is wrestling for the championship of restructuring knows better. The Vice President chose to attempt to sell the dummy of a south-west presidency in 2023 over a clear commitment to engineer support for, and deliver genuine restructuring during Buhari’s second term. If it has clever people doing an election post-mortem, APC will know that the votes from that region were products of two major factors: indifference to restructuring the federation and an emerging restructuring of south-west politics without the overbearing influence of Tinubu.

Nothing reminds us of the need to re-visit the manner we allocate responsibilities and hold leaders to account in our unique federal system than the near-total absence of security of life and property. There is indeed a strong connection between the huge responsibilities to protect and defend citizens which our constitution assigns to the federal government, and the manner entire villages are routinely attacked and sacked, dozens are kidnapped daily, an insurgency that refuses to lie down and urban violence under an amorphous title of cultism operates with wanton impunity. The connection is the weak capacity of the federal government’s security and law and order institutions, and even weaker political will of leaders at that level to accept responsibility for failures and the need for major reforms.

President Buhari does not accept responsibility for failures to stop banditry in Kaduna, then Zamfara, then Katsina. It is someone else’s mischief that villagers are killed in hundreds in Benue, Plateau, Taraba and Kaduna.  The IGP, Commissioners of Police and other security heads are not to blame for the proliferation of conflicts and crimes. The gallant, professional and well-motivated military is led by an able leadership, and it is not its fault that the Chibok girls and Leah Sharibu are still hostages to a decade-old insurgency. His administration is not to be blamed when or the population creates multiple security challenges that require only the military to deal with. The fall of Ghaddafi in Libya is responsible for the deluge of small arms into Nigeria, a nation getting richer in conflicts, and no one is held to account for them. We all know that neither the military nor the police do its job well, but you will not hear complaints or blames from those with responsibility for making sure that they do. Now that the worst victims of the state’s failure to protect them appear to have given him and many governors’ new mandates, there is even less reason to believe that President Buhari and second-term governors will think they have to change the manner they handled security and welfare of citizens.

State governors have their incredibly comfortable jobs cut out for them by the manner policing gives them protection and muscle, while they cry to high heavens that it is neither responsible nor accountable to them. It is the most classic case of power without responsibility. Most of them create poverty, not wealth. Poverty breeds desperation and crimes. Dealing with these is police left to policing. Police is not theirs to deploy, direct or instruct as their mandates will demand. Citizens are left at the mercy of poor governance and each other. The circle drags the nation into a downward spiral.

The constitution which frames this living nightmare is the one Senator Adeyeye demands to be revisited. His party and the Buhari administration in particular have never been avid supporters of major restructuring, the type that should substantially change the manner the federal system allocates power, responsibilities and resources to improve the quality of governance, free the federating units from crippling powers of the center, create a stronger basis for accountability and accord diversity and unity the places they deserve in our lives. An APC-dominated federal legislature is even less likely to champion restructuring with a reluctant or indifferent executive in place. There is no section of the nation that opposes some form of basic restructuring. Indeed, there is no consensus on many issues involved in restructuring, but there is a universal agreement that the current arrangement regarding the security of lives and property needs a critical overhaul. Nigerians should not look up to the Buhari administration and legislators to anchor this, although they will have to be involved in significant ways. This is the time for civil society, ethnic and cultural groups, professional interests, labour and the youth to begin to create an inclusive momentum that will result in far-reaching and genuine restructuring. Nigeria has no future without a major overhaul.

Jamila Abubakar wrote this piec from Abuja