NIGERIA: NOTES ON WAY FORWARD

Agboola Sanni argues for the restructuring of the polity

The major problem that had been facing the country since 1999 is that we have not really experienced the benefit of democracy. What we have been witnessing since 1999 is a civilian government rather than a democratic government. In the actual sense, a civilian government can best be described as a synthesis between the thesis and antithesis of a military and democratic government. In this context, a civilian government can be best described as a little of democracy and a little of military. However, in our own context it is a little of democracy as against big military. This can best be explained by the 1999 constitution which in the real sense is a replica of an over centralised government, typical of the military version.

One would have expected a true democracy to be a full return to true federalism as it was before the military intervention in 1966. A so-called federal constitution that allows a Federal High Court to operate side by side with a State High Court that allows a centralised internal security system via the Nigeria Police is nothing but a direct assault on our supposed democracy. A federal constitution that recognises local government as a tier of government drawing revenue from centre is nothing but a mockery of democracy.

Fiscal autonomy of federating units is the hallmark of true federalism just as it was in the first republic and even to some extent in the second republic between 1979 and 1983. But under the military which is still applicable now, every sector depends on oil revenue.

How can we expect the Niger Delta people to be comfortable with the arrangement whereby people from far away Potiskum or Mubi, Owo or Ikare depend on their God-given resources for their livelihood? It is nothing short of exploitation. Whereas, the truth of the matter is that there is no zone to which God has not been generous to like the Niger Delta. The only difference is that the quick nature of oil returns has led to indolence on others to tap and search for their own resources.

Lack of true federalism had led to mutual mistrust and total lack of confidence among the hitherto friendly components constituting the federation. All actions of the government at the centre, no matter how well intended, is either given religious or ethnic colouration. The reason for this is not far-fetched. Under the present dispensation, the only functional government is the one at the centre, otherwise called the federal government.

The Fulani herdsmen menace continues escalating across the country because the local communities i.e. state governments do not have the constitutionally recognised local security outfit i.e. state police to curb it; and the State Commissioner of Police cannot take orders from the State Governor because he is not under him.

Because the commissioner of police could not get quick response from his headquarters, that had to some extent led to the misreading of the body language of the federal government as tacitly endorsing the herdsmen as a design to Islamise the country.

The absurdity of this thinking can be seen in the paradox of using arbitrary killing of the innocent as an agency of spreading a religion. The absurdity can be further buttressed by the fact that some of these so-called Fulani herdsmen do not even observe the mandatory Islamic five daily prayers. In that respect, they are not true Muslims. But how many people will believe even if only for their selfish political motive?

The truth is that such menace like Boko Haram, herdsmen and other militia groups could not have been existing were we to run a true democracy. Suffice to say that another index that separates democracy from civilian regime is that whereas democracy is governed by respect for rule of law and constitutionalism that of civilian rule is governed not only by arbitrariness but by whims and caprice.

That is why whereas under a civilian rule, the president is more of emperor or king while in democracy, the president is a leader.

It is because we are under arbitrary rule that private residences of serving judges and leadership of the National Assembly can be looted and ransacked without following due process of law.

In a true democracy, the three arms of government coexist with mutual respect within the provisions of the law. But in a civilian government, the king/emperor does not compliment but subordinates all other agencies.

It is an irony of history that none of the four rulers who had served as presidents under the so-called democracy since 1999 has ever been associated in the struggle for true democracy in the country. In the case of President Olusegun Obasanjo, not only that he has never hidden his contempt for any struggle for true democracy, he had always tagged all political pressure groups for defence of liberty and justice as a gang of miscreants.

That was how he tagged NADECO during the Abacha regime. He preferred a most draconian government of Abacha to any democratic government that will have any form of progressive colour. But by an inscrutable design, the same man became the first beneficiary of a political struggle to which he totally distanced himself. It was therefore no wonder that he ran an Abacha style of arbitrariness in a civilian garment. Like Obasanjo, the incumbent president is even worse as far as democratic struggle in the country is concerned. Unlike Obasanjo, he did not pretend with his romance with Abacha under whom he served as Chairman of the PTF.

It was the total hatred for anything progressive that led him to break into the private residence of Chief Awolowo in 1984 as military Head of State. A search for imaginary hidden public funds was conducted on his house. When nothing incriminating was found, they took away his international travelling documents thus denying him access to his doctors in England on schedule. He died three years after. Unless they repent remorsefully before then, those who misled the South-west for a Buhari support in 2015 will have a big question to answer.

One other phenomenon in our current polity and which is very alien to western democracy is that under the current political dispensation, it is very difficult to identify a ruling party. That is in spite of the fact that the All Progressives Congress really campaigned for the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as president of the country. Painfully however, President Buhari since assuming office has reduced the role of the APC to that of political consultants whose main brief was to see him emerge as president and thereafter hands itself off the administration. That perhaps explains why the party up till now does not have such bodies like BOT, Caucus or even the national executive committee (NEC). With the absence of all these bodies, how can the party have an input into the administration of the government? In a nutshell, what we have at the moment is a ruling group and not a ruling party.

In the context, as far as the search for the enthronement of true federal structured democracy in the country is concerned, no Nigerian living today has paid his dues as much as Turaki Atiku Abubakar.

First, he joined politics in the late 80s when democracy was at the most slippery stage under Babangida’s Maradona antics. Only an enduring mind could withstand IBB’s gimmicks; but he did. Sanni, a veteran journalist, wrote from Ibadan