The
aim here is to summarise my current position on the question of geopolitical
restructuring of Nigeria. I say “current” because as far as I can remember, I
started thinking seriously—and then debating and writing—about restructuring
from 1986 as a member of the Political Bureau. Today, 32 years later, I am
still thinking and writing on the subject. The present piece is implicitly a
draft memo on this important political subject to the Nigerian Left. And, for
the avoidance of doubt, the category “Nigerian Left” means the aggregate of
socialism and popular democracy in Nigeria today.
What
I consider my current aggregate position on restructuring of Nigeria is
constituted by several propositions articulated and refined over a fairly long
period of time. For the purpose of this piece the propositions can be grouped
under the following five broad headings: The impossibility of purely ethnic
separation; Redeployment and redistribution of national resources; Levels of
exercise of power and responsibility; Principles of triple balancing; and Popular-
democratic restructuring at a glance. The propositions are not of the same
status. Some of them are issues which the Nigerian Left should struggle to have
inserted in the Constitution of Nigeria and others are those that the Left
should insert in its programmes, manifestoes and occasional platforms. I shall
now take the groups of propositions one after the other.
A
little over 20 years ago, on December 3, 1997, when General Sani Abacha was
still in power, I attended and contributed to a seminar organized in Calabar by
the Cross River State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ). The seminar
was one of NUJ’s contributions to Abacha’s transition programme after the
collapse of Babangida’s experiment. I was asked to speak on the theme “The
ethnicity syndrome: How it affects the development of Cross River State”. In
the preamble to my contribution I said: “If a 100kg bag of beans and a 100kg
bag of rice are mixed, it will be possible, with patience and perseverance, for
a school boy or school girl to separate the grains”. I then went on to say that
it would be easier for that unfortunate young person to perform the feat than
for any political authority or forces to separate Nigeria into pure ethnic
components!
Two
years later, on November 4, 1999, my piece, Impossibility of (pure) ethnic
separation appeared in my column in The Guardian. The article
was essentially a review of the late Chief Anthony Enahoro’s proposition on
restructuring the federation. But simultaneously the article appeared as a
re-statement of my December 3, 1997 proposition. I shall in future return to
Chief Enahoro and, in doing so, touch on the coincidence of my position and his
on some aspects of geopolitical restructuring. This coincidence led to a series
of private meetings between the late nationalist, democrat and federalist and
myself in Lagos and Benin between 1992 and 2002.
Mind
you, I am not saying that Nigeria cannot disintegrate. Of course, the country
can disintegrate if it pushes itself or is allowed to be pushed beyond certain
limits by those who have the means and the power. Nigeria can disintegrate in a
manner worse than that of the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, the
former Czechoslovakia, the Greater Ethiopia (before Eritrea broke off), the
Greater Somalia (before the current catastrophe), and Yemen, a bleeding country
which has seen separation and unification several times. All I am saying is
that if Nigeria disintegrates—as it can disintegrate if the Nigerian Left does
not step in—it will not be along ethnic lines.
If
Nigeria disintegrates the more powerful war juntas will simply carve up the
country—with each component reproducing Nigeria, that is, recreating majorities
and minorities, the dominating and the dominated. Please, set up a large map of
Nigeria on the wall. First, demarcate and indicate the present 36 states and
the Federal Capital Territory; then, in a different colour, demarcate and
indicate the present six geopolitical zones; finally, in another colour,
demarcate and indicate Nigeria’s ethnic groups.
The only requirement I seek
from you is elementary knowledge of your own country’s history and politics
plus intellectual honesty—including the honesty to seek honest assistance
wherever you are stuck or confused. Compatriots, what do you have before you?
The
second cluster of propositions relates to class-to-class redeployment and
redistribution of national resources or, simply, the restructuring of class
appropriations. By this I mean the massive movement of resources from the
ruling classes and blocs to the popular masses through people-oriented radical
reforms in employment, education, health, housing, transportation, taxation and
levies, etc.
Class appropriations, by the way, include not only the monies,
properties and businesses recovered from “looters” but also proceeds of state
and class robberies which may have been covered by obnoxious legalities. The
class-to-class redeployment is the sociological and logical complement of
horizontal, state-to-state distribution which—as it is now—is essentially a
distribution within the ruling classes and blocs and their various segments.
The
third cluster is the principle of triple balancing in Nigeria’s geopolitical
restructuring. The picture is like this: split each of the South-south and
North-central geopolitical zones into two. This raises the number of
geopolitical zones from six to eight. Now, go to Nigeria’s pre-independence
geopolitical structure: the three regions—West (plus Lagos), East and North—where
the first two regions (plus Lagos) were also regarded as the South.
With the
new eight-zone structure, the former North and the former South will have four
zones each; the former East and former West (plus Lagos) will have two zones
each; the South-south and North-central will, together, have four zones while
the “big” groups—the Southwest, the Southeast, the Northeast and the Northwest—will
together have four zones. So, the North balances the South; the East balances
the West; and the historical “Minorities” balances the historical “Majorities”.
The
fourth cluster of propositions relates to the levels of responsibility and exercise
of power or, in more familiar language, tiers of government. Here we move from
the current three tiers to five tiers of government as follows: federal, zonal (between federal and state), state, local government
and community (below the local
government).
Each zone will be constituted by a number of states while a local
government ward will be constituted into one or more communities. At the federal
level, the president will be replaced by a presidential council of 8 equal
members—a member representing a zone—with rotational headship.
The zone may or
may not be a “government” as such, but minimally it will be a unit for some
strategic appointments and location of some strategic industries, state
institutions and infrastructures. The communities will be the domain of direct
mass involvement in development, social welfare and security.
So,
what will this type of restructuring—which we have called “popular-democratic
restructuring”—look like when it has been constructed and set in motion? This
question summons the fifth cluster of propositions. The answer here is that the
picture is fragmentary and tentative. Only discussions can refine it.
But the
clear features include: Nigeria will remain a federal republic; the current
principles of citizenship, fundamental human rights and principles of state
policy will be enhanced; the federal government will give up a substantial
fraction of its current appropriation to the states and local governments.
The
states, in turn, will finance the zones and the local governments will finance
the communities. Finally,—and this is the “magic” of popular democracy—the
“cost of governance”, both in relative and absolute terms, will be much less
than what it is at present.
*Edwin Madunagu,
mathematician and journalist, writes from Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria.
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