Reconstructing and Nigeria’s future
Building a great nation can be difficult, but it is also achievable. First, all stakeholders must be aligned to the goal of building a united and strong nation. This means that effective systems and structures must be put in place to eliminate challenges like corruption and tribalism that often bring down nations that look promising.
For a country to really move forward and pride herself over with viable and working institutional structures and systems, societal diseases and anti-progress elements such as corruption, tribalism, nepotism, favouritism must give way for ‘real patriotism, creativity, diligence and reward for excellence.
The variables to achieve greatness by a nation includes an all-inclusive economy and education policies, a disciplined and independent judiciary, as well as a free and fair political system.
The truth of the matter is that ever since the 1966 coup and civil war, the country has never been the same. Ever since the Biafra war and till date, the country has been beleaguered with resentment over marginalization, not only by the minority tribal groups; also, the major ethnic groups are equally raging over alleged rejection.
In addition to this, is religion bigotry dispute; In one hand, the constitution describes Nigeria as a “multi-religious nation”. On the other hand, the country is described as a “secular” state. These conflicting definitions have not helped our course as a developing country, which aspires to reach greater heights. Using religion as a tool to promote political sentiments; achieve personal sinister goals; exploit and bamboozle others; create division and incite the public against the powers that be is common in our society. Regrettably, religious emotion has been used to wreak much havoc on many families and communities!
Far from it, the development will never come with these abysmal and callous approaches to life. For us as a nation to forge ahead, every stakeholder, especially, our leaders must be more focused, disciplined and advanced to accomplish the political will which will propel making the right decisions that would help in building a united and strong nation.
Next to the above critical factors is structural revival and transformation. To start with, Nigeria’s constitution requires a thorough review. One of the defects in the present constitution is the concentration of authority at the central level. The present arrangement has short-changed and reduced the state authorities to always be at the mercy of the central power! Since some of the States generate paltry and miserable Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), they (States) always rely on the center’s allocations to execute capital projects, as well as recurrent expenses. This system has been adjudged to be retrogressive.
The alternative to the present political system is a devolution of power. With this, the components are made to be stronger than the central — as against the present Federalism. It is worrisome that many States’ Governments in the last five years have been surviving on central’s bailout — for payment of outstanding workers’ salaries.
Still talking about restructuring, this is important because there is a mismatch between our constitution and the current system of government. It is disconcerting that the constitution in use was made by the military in 1999. There is no way such a law can adequately answer all our democratic questions. I, therefore, hypothesize that constitution review is a must for us. Happily, the country has in the past recorded many constitution amendment exercises, among which was the Justice (retd.) Idris Kutigi-led constitution amendment panel. Better still, we can adopt or revisit any of the previous exercises.
Another possible political restructuring is confederacy. This is a regional authority. As at today, the country is divided into six geo-political zones. The regional system can reduce over-dependence on oil as the main source of national income. Confederacy, as it was previously practised in the First Republic assisted a lot in developing the potentials of each region. The country stands to reap similar benefits provided power is devolved from the centre and concentrated on the regions. The centre should be made ceremonial with concurrent legislative power — alongside the regions.
Also, the regional system will flicker the economies of scale — as the various regions would have more resources to spur development, attract foreign investments, generate revenue, for instance, through taxes, reduce the cost of governance, as state Governors and States House of Assemblies would be reduced to regional ones.
The Confederacy system is presently practised in China, hence, the Asian nation’s enormous political and economic might in the world today.
Finally, Nigeria has paid enough lip service to restructure. It appears our successive political Leaders lack temerity, or political will to do the needful. And this accounts for the worsening security challenge; economic woe; poorly — funded educational system; lack of social justice; unemployment and underemployment; frustration which leads to many misconducts and various social vices. Apart from the social and mental re-engineering, Nigeria must be comprehensively and politically restructured via the instrument of the constitution, for it to be ranked closely and compete effectively on all fronts, with other developed and prosperous nations.
It should be noted that this article is for general information only. If you have any question about this article, please contact the author on Habeeb.olusanya@leonine.com.ng
