When a nation dances around its problems

Ihave written zillion times on the place of the local government in the structure of our federal system. I offer no apologies for returning to it. It remains a burning issue and one that is a drag on the nature of our federalism. Our inability to decide which, between the federal and state governments, should own and fully fund the local governments, hews to the centralised system of our federalism, a structure that is clearly inimical to both the letter and the spirit of true federalism.

The national assembly once more missed the opportunity to resolve this needless problem. It recently submitted 44 amendments to the 1999 constitution to the state houses of assembly for ratification. The national assembly has acted in the full exercise of its duty to make laws for the good governance of the federation. One of the amendments sought for fiscal and administrative autonomy for the 774 local councils listed in the first schedule to the constitution. It ignored the development areas in some of the states that fully function and are funded indirectly from the federation account.

Eleven state assemblies rejected the proposed amendment for financial autonomy for the local councils. The surprise is that 15 other state assemblies voted for it. Even if all the state assemblies gave the proposed amendment the thumbs up, it would still not solve the problems of the dual ownership of the local councils. As matters stand, the states own the councils, but they are funded entirely from the federation account. It is a clear anomaly.

The national assembly misled itself. It should have proposed an amendment that makes the local governments the sole responsibility of the state governments - owned, created, and funded by them. That would pass the burden of funding them from the federation account to the state sub-treasuries. This was part of the recommendations of the national conference convoked by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2013. That report never saw the light of day.

Our country cannot make meaningful progress with more than 811 governments funded from the same federation account. A federal system of government ventilates the system by giving the federating units such autonomy, including fiscal, as is necessary to enable them function properly. Ours is a centralised federal system. Or, to borrow from Professor Isawa Elaigwu, military federalism. I have consistently argued here and elsewhere that military federalism stifles true federalism. Perhaps it worked during the military regime, but that era is long past and it is easy to see that maintaining a structure that cripples the nature of federalism is anything but wise.

Military federalism imposed uniformity on the country. It is anathema to the federal system. Poor states are forced to pay their civil servants and public officers the same salaries and allowances as those of the richer states. The poorer states must wait every month for their share from the federation account because by reason of their poverty, they are unable to generate enough internal revenue to take care of their business. We know that this is not sustainable, but we choose to pretend that all is well.

A couple of years or so ago, a senator proposed an amendment to end this uniformity and give each state the right to manage its own financial resources and pay its civil servants and public officers what it can afford. I thought it was a right step in the right direction. So far, nothing further has been heard about it. It most probably died on arrival.

We have been running away from restructuring the country to clean up the mess of military federalism and restore to this country the true federalism in the first republic. APC responded to the agitations and committed itself to it in 2015. When it won the elections, it set about the process of fulfilling its promise. It set up a committee on true federalism headed by Nasir El-Rufai, governor of Kaduna State, to examine the modalities for the restructuring of the federation. Article 7 of its constitution of the party obliges it “to promote true federalism in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

The committee submitted its findings and recommendations to the party in January 2018. It tackled all the issues that agitated the public on how best to move this behemoth of a country forward in the true sense of the phrase. I have read the report zillion times. I cannot find a better or a more sensible approach to true federalism than the work of the committee. But the party simply ignored the work of the committee in a rather cynical and arrogant way.

President Buhari is, of course, averse to restructuring as if it is against him or his administration. The agitation for restructuring was in full swing long before he achieved his life-long ambition to rule the country for the second time. If he was confused about it, the work of the committee is sufficiently educative for him should he care to open it.

A president serves the country. Whatever he does must be in the interest of the country. A president acts on the collectively views and wisdom of the people. All presidents take hard decisions even if they are against their personal interests. If his party promised restructuring and took steps to fulfil its promise, Buhari has no reason to go against the collective wisdom of the party because it desires to leave a legacy in the history books. Hard decisions try the soul of a president. They impose on him the burden of rising to the demands of leadership and statesmanship. History will surely remember him for his unwillingness to go along with his own party in its quest for true federalism and what works best for the country.

The local governments are comprehensively crippled by the state governors who steal their allocations from the federation account through the local government joint accounts committees. There would be less inclination on the part of the governors to steal their allocations if they fund them because not many states can give anything near what is allocated to them from the federation account. Three autonomous tiers of government amount to piling it on. The local government are administrative units of the states and should be so treated.

We may continue to dance around restructuring but I believe that someday we will stop dancing and take steps to dismantle our stifling military federalism and restore our federalism in name and in fact. Nigeria was never meant to be a federal system in name but a unitary system in practice.