The South-South, the main producers of crude oil that had suffered environmental devastation, sought to keep a 100 per cent of revenue from mineral resources from its area on the planks of the policy of derivation. It offered to pay tax to the federal government as had been the case before the military effectively turned Nigeria into a command political hierarchy.

Former vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, acting the liberal from the North-East, dispelled the prevailing notion that anyone calling for the restructuring of our federation is designing the breakup of the country. He highlighted the fallacy that the extant over-centralisation and an excessively powerful centre is equivalent to national unity.

He called for a renegotiated union, noting that greater autonomy, power and resources for states and local authorities will unleash our people’s creative energies and spur more development. It will help with improving security. The changes should strengthen the union. But his pleas fell on deaf ears.

Meanwhile, the conference took off against a backdrop of pervasive suspicions about the real intentions of the President and serious doubts about the capacity, implying personal strength of character and political clout of the President, to deliver the radical restructuring that was necessary to resolve the fundamental problem of the legitimacy of the Nigeria project. This bleak assessment was proven right as the main decisions of the conference were to create eighteen more states in the federation.

In effect, Nigeria would have a stronger centre as 18 more states in addition to the current 36 would reduce them to no more than glorified local governments at the mercy of the central government. This is a complete rejection of the argument to consolidate structurally to strengthen the federation. Even the squabble over insecurity boiled down to how the North was going to collect more revenue from the fortified federal government on account of the insurgency in the northern states.

The northern delegates went their different ways as the three north–eastern states most impacted by the Boko Haram insurgency sought to claim those funds for their exclusive use. Southern delegates were clear that a proposed 5 per cent claimed by the North was earmarked for all the states and not exclusively for the North. If it did not have its way, the North threatened to deny the oil producing states any increase of revenue through the review of the percentage attributed to derivation.

The 54 states, glorified local governments, now have a local police. In effect, the tiers of government in Nigeria have become two: the central government and the local governments that have been rechristened as states. Local government as previously known would not exist, even if their practical demise is unconstitutional. Effectively, Nigeria had been formally turned into a unitary administration, dominated by a federal government. One newspaper sarcastically called for a state for every family in Nigeria.

Against this background, when the plenary session of the National Conference ended on Thursday, 17 July, it was without a final decision on critical issues of revenue sharing formula from the Federation Account and derivation principle. The conferees were not left out in the scramble for naira. During the Ramadan, for the delegates fasting, it was agreed to monetise their lunch; an additional boost to the monthly allowance of N12 million – a whopping U$72,000 a month.

Reactions to the emerging outcomes of the conference have been swift. Prominent leaders of the South-South reflecting the mood in the South, have called on delegates from the region at the national conference to walk out on the next sitting if the confab was not ready to adapt to true federalism by allowing the regions to control their resources. They insisted that the North could not continue to dictate to the rest of the country and rejected the 18 per cent derivation proposed for mineral producing areas. They also ruled out the suggestion of 5 per cent derivation for the reconstruction of states in the northern region, in mainly north-eastern states, ravaged by insurgency and internal conflicts. The northern concern they stressed was a non-issue.

It was important to get Nigeria away from the logic of the entrenched struggle of all its constituents to appropriate the available resources for partisan exploitation, instead of the constituent regions generating resources to advance their legitimate goals with the federal government left to manage clearly specified matters of common interest. At the end, the Conference has further consolidated the logic of operations that has brought Nigeria to its knees.

As it is, the main achievement of the Conference has been to raise to unprecedented levels renewed questioning of the legitimacy of the Nigeria project as the fundamental deficit of the Nigeria experimentation. Meanwhile, strong indications are emerging that northern delegates are moving to kill the yet-to-be adopted final report of the Conference. In the final analysis, the pervasive culture of greed driving the political process beclouded any serious attempt to face heads on the problems of Nigeria. The Conference was thus unable to go beyond considerations over sharing of the federal cake.

More ominously, as the Conference squabbled over money sharing, the unabated challenge to the integrity of the Nigeria project reared its head. Reports in the same week highlighted that the Arewa (Northern) Youth Development Foundation had charged all governors in the region to compel southerners residing in the North to register and to immediately be issued settlers permit.

The request was contained in a petition presented to the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, following a rally to protest alleged intimidation and harassment of northerners living in the South. They also challenged their governors to take practical steps to ensure the immediate release of northerners currently detained in the South while asking the Federal Government to bring an end to the killings and destruction in the region.

Completely detached from contemporary realities of Nigeria, the Justice Idris Kutigi-led Conference went off on a different tangent from the compelling and excruciating burdens of the Nigeria project. It was indeed a forlorn conference that only opened up old wounds. Those whose prognosis includes heightened agitations for a restructured Nigeria cannot be said to be completely unrealistic. The alternative to a radical structural realignment of Nigeria may be more devastating. By then, those napping in the transit lounge would have gone their eternal ways.