Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has had a very busy schedule of late attending to an urgent matter of national importance. A Yoruba adage, which literally translated, means we don’t go to sleep while the roof is on fire. Prof Osinbajo cannot afford to go to sleep with the drumbeat of hate and war sounding loudly across the nation.
Some Igbo groups had been clamouring for creation of Biafra out of Nigeria. This undying quest is a fallout of the civil war, which the nation fought 50 years ago, but which contrary to the slogan of ‘no victor, no vanquished’ by the then military government, still left a section of the country with unhealed wounds. Even among the Igbo ethnic stock, that the post-civil war agitation for proper reintegration is strident, there are many who believe that the problem can be resolved without recourse to balkanization of the country. Many Igbo believe Nigeria should remain one united country, but one in which no citizen is a slave to the other and where no ethnic group is superior to another.
Many of us non-Igbo also share in the one Nigeria belief, not for anything else but the huge potential in the size and population of the country. But successive governments erroneously believed that once they appointed representatives from different parts of the country into positions and managed to implement some projects and programmes within their tenure, then the nation was on a good sail with everyone on board expectedly happy and contented.
Almost all the past administrations, which failed to consider restructuring as a means to address sectional agitations and for better governance ended up in the estimation of most Nigerians as having performed below expectation.
The Buhari administration has left no one in doubt since inception that its concern is to ensure security of lives and property, check corruption and rebuild the economy. The administration is unwittingly toeing the same path that would make Nigerians remember nothing good about it in the end if it fails to address the issue of whether the diverse ethnic groups that make up the nation want to remain together and on what terms.
At inception, Nigeria was designed to function as a federation. It did until 1966. Now it’s a federation only in name, not in practice. And until the country runs again as a true federation, no programme, project or appointment would satiate the yearnings of Nigerians and no matter how hardworking the government is, it will be adjudged to have failed in the end. For me, a roadmap to the restructuring of the country is the 2014 national conference convened by former president Goodluck Jonathan. The 2014 confab recommended solutions to many of our problems.
For instance, the confab recommended that only two tiers of government be recognized by the constitution, federal and state, in place of the three-tier, which includes local government. It was recommended that states could create local governments as they deem fit.
The confab also recommended a modified presidential system of government, combining attributes of the parliamentary and presidential models. Under the system, the president would pick his deputy from the legislature. Lawmakers are to serve on part-time basis. This recommendation has the potential to reduce cost of governance and reduce the superiority contest and friction between the executive and the legislature, which has been the bane of the current republic.
To discourage corruption, public officers charged to court for involvement in corrupt practices are to be presumed guilty as charged until proved innocent, unlike as obtained now where the accused is presumed innocent until found guilty.
There is also recommendation for independent candidates to contest elections; stoppage of government sponsorship of pilgrimages to the holy lands; provision that states interested could establish state police, among many others.
Beyond the tension-dousing meetings the acting president has been holding with different stakeholders, the Presidency should change its non-chalance to the clamour for restructuring.
While the Buhari administration is working hard to deliver on its promises to Nigerians, the national talking point is not the progress and successes being achieved in different spheres of life and the economy.
The dominant and recurring issues are possible breakup of the country and restructuring. This development should not only be a source of concern to the government, but a call for action.
Out of its concern, the Senate recently requested that the Presidency submit the report of the 2014 confab to it for legislative action.
Why would the Presidency not take advantage of this suggestion to douse the tension in the country and solve the problem of sectional agitation once for all? Why would the Buhari administration not actualize the restructuring of Nigeria, if that is what Nigerians want? Why keep wishing away restructuring if it’s the main ingredient for rebuilding our country to the enviable status that all of us desire?