What is restructuring and does Nigeria need it? (II)

Continued from Friday last week... y the late military era, coinciding with the democratic wave unleashed by the end of the Cold War, political groups and civic organisations, mainly in the south, were agitating for a sovereign national conference to negotiate the terms on which the component parts of Nigeria will stay together.

Democratic rule was restored in May 1999, following the election of former General Olusegun Obasanjo as president. In 1976, General Obasanjo became the second military officer hailing from the south to become Head of State. In 1999, he became the first from the south to take office as an executive president. The calls for a sovereign national conference became slightly muted in the period leading to the 2003 elections, but came alive again in 2005, as Obasanjo’s tenure was coming to an end.

There have been two national conferences in the Fourth Republic, convened by sitting presidents, but both were trailed by suspicions that they were arranged to advance some kind of personal or sectional political agenda. The conferences instituted by Presidents Obasanjo (2005) and Goodluck Jonathan (2014) did not lead to the restoration of federalism or advance democratic consolidation.

BWhere We Are as APC Administration:

As observed earlier, in recent months, there has been a resurgence of the clamour for restructuring. Some of the advocates have not bothered to define what restructuring means to them: is it devolution of powers, resource-control, regionalism, or even selfdetermination, or all of these? Restructuring is the new buzz word, and some of its advocates demonize anyone not using the same registers as them, while many a politician espies in it opportunities for media attention, renewed relevance or career-enhancement. Perhaps I have only described the variety of motivations that tend to surround great questions!

As I argued at a recent event, I do not believe that a single, centralised police force can deliver on the necessity to visibly project state power and enforce the law in this vast country of ours with nearly 200 million people. Neither is the exclusive control of overcrowded prisons and an unmanageable number of federal trunk roads and railways!

Amidst these renewed demands for restructuring, our national parliament - the Senate and House of Representatives - had voted against key restructuring provisions in the proposed constitutional amendment bills. The APC has a majority in both chambers of the National Assembly, and the public expected the party to provide leadership on the issue of true federalism, which is one of our manifesto commitments. APC Committee on True Federalism: In response to these developments and due to the need to clearly articulate our roadmap for political and constitutional reform, the APC set up a Committee on True Federalism to help to give structure to the debate, remove the bile and bitterness colouring the matter and transform the discourse into a nation-building event.

The APC Committee on True Federalism, which I chair, has the following Terms of Reference:

1. Examine the Party constitution, manifesto and other publications to ascertain the true intent and definition of the national structure promised by the Party during the Presidential campaign.

2. Review all various ideas being promoted in the current public debate on national restructuring

3. ake a studied look at the report of the various national conferences and in particular that of 2014, its recommendations to identify areas of concurrence with the Party’s promise in (1) above.

4. Liaise with APC caucus in the National Assembly to deliberate and recommend a legislative strategy for addressing the demand for political restructuring and how to use the report of National Conference in the best interest of the country.

5. Arising from (1-4) above, propose appropriate mechanism for implementing the Party position within the confines of current constitutional arrangement without prejudice to the continued unity and shared prosperity of the nation.

The Committee began by focusing its preliminary research and preparatory work in the following four broad areas: Balance in the federation - Devolution of powers to sub-nationals; Review of revenue allocation formula; Citizenship matters including federal character, and review of key recommendations of the 2005 and 2014 national conferences.

The preponderance of opinion is that the Federal Government needs to shed weight, and return powers and resources to the states where most government functions can be more efficiently undertaken. For the states to take on these powers, they need to access a greater share of the nation’s resources. And we need to sort out the notion of citizenship so that every Nigerian can enjoy the protection of the Constitution wherever they choose to reside. In many communities, people still use the notion of ‘indigene-ship’ to consign compatriots to a position of ‘settler’ and, by implication, perpetual exclusion from enjoying the full political, social and economic opportunities guaranteed by the Constitution to every citizen.

Key Issues for Debate:

After a careful review of history, literature and reports on the four broad areas identified above, the APC Committee on True Federalism has reduced the subject matter into the following twelve contentious issues that have consistently featured in virtually all previous debates on the issues around restructuring by whatever name or phrase: Creation or merger of states and the framework and guidelines for achieving that; Derivation principle, bordering on what percentage of federal collectible revenues from mining should be given back to the sub-nationals from which the commodities are extracted; Devolution of powers: what items on the exclusive legislative list should be transferred to the recurrent list, especially state and community police, prisons, etc.; Federating Units: Should Nigeria be based on regions or zones or retain the 36-state structure?; Fiscal federalism and revenue allocation; Form of government - (parliamentary or presidential?); Independent candidacy; Land tenure system; Local government autonomy; Power sharing and rotation of political offices; Resource control; and Type of legislature - part-time or full-time, unicameral or bicameral?

We have since published calls for memoranda, created various social media platforms to tap into the opinions of the younger generation, and commenced public hearings in 12 locations across Nigeria. The final public hearing will take place in the nation’s capital Abuja, targeting National Assembly members and the general public living within the federal capital territory.

With this multi-pronged approach, we are confident we will feel the pulse of ordinary Nigerians and submit a credible report that will guide the leaders of our party, and governments. With this open-minded approach to the question of restructuring, I have no doubt that we will credibly fulfil our terms of reference. Some Concluding Thoughts: As I have argued since 2012, there is no doubt that the Nigerian federation is unbalanced and in dire need of structural rebalancing. This I think we all agree as Nigerians, but the devil is in the details. While some advocates of wholesale abandonment of the existing political structure are probably unrealistic in their expectations, I believe most Nigerians appreciate and cherish our unity in diversity but seek the enthronement of a fairer, meritocratic system that puts social justice above everything else. It is not very hard to achieve this.

Under the current constitutional order, such a system can be achieved peacefully either (i) gradually as shown by the Buhari administration’s devolution of responsibilities and increasing involvement of subnationals in national economic policymaking or (ii) more rapidly through constitutional and legislative actions of the National and State Assemblies well before the 2019 general elections. Both options are already being pursued albeit in a haphazard manner, hence the need for our Committee.

Our expectation as a governing party (and government in office) is that the voice of Nigerians - particularly young people - ought to set the agenda for what is desirable in creating a country where there are equal opportunities for all, and where peace and justice reign.

We intend to submit our Committee’s report to the Party by the end of October 2017 by God’s Grace.

I thank you for the opportunity. Thanks for listening and God Bless.

Remarks by Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, OFR, Governor of Kaduna State, at Chatham House, London; Thursday, 21st September 2017