Atiku Abubakar

You can, therefore, see that the fight in this country over “resource control”, while it may still have significance today, is really a fight that belongs to the past. Even a discovery of large quantities of oil and gas in the north today can only bring temporary relief but cannot reverse the fundamental shifts in the world’s energy trajectory. In any case how are we to improve this region and hold it (and the country) together in the time lag between such a discovery and actual production and revenue in-flow? I humbly submit that we need to move on, like the rest of the world.

I am not trying to be a messenger of doom but to alert us to the serious challenges ahead if we do not take immediate corrective actions both in our economics and our politics. For this region particularly the following measures will be helpful for our economic, social and political recovery and development. Interestingly they are also what Nigeria needs.

1. Devolution of more powers and responsibilities to the federating units with the accompanying resources currently expended on them by the federal government. And here I am not saying the units must be the existing states. We may have to revisit the issue of the current geo-political zones becoming federating units. This will also help put an end to the endless quest for the creation of more states, with little thought as to how those states will be financed. In any case, each federating unit can decide to have as many local authorities as it deems fit. Education, agriculture, healthcare, roads and bridges should be the responsibility of the federating units (zones or states) while the federal government sets standards and enforces them. Resources such as mining rent should belong to the federating units where they are derived from while the federal government retains the power of taxation over the corporations that are involved in their exploitation and of course the federal portion of personal income tax. Federating units should have the right to set the wages of their employees in line with their needs and ability to pay. As our history has shown, a strong centre does not translate to a strong and united country.

2. We should begin to think strategically about how to develop this region as a collective. At the minimum, states in each geo-political zone (with or without the zones as federating units) should begin to work together to share responsibilities such as infrastructure provisioning and the running of social services such as schools and hospitals. This will help save cost and help us integrate the zones and the region more socially and economically. There is no reason why some states cannot merge their universities, polytechnics or even hospitals and run them with one administrative unit.

3. The ACF and other socio-cultural organizations based in this region should broaden their scope to include research and advocacy to encourage the states in the north and/or in each geo-political zone to engage in meaningful collaboration in governance. And they should produce a research-based position on the restructuring of the federation, possibly along the lines of geopolitical zones as federating units, in order to assist political leaders and representatives of the region in understanding the issues involved and in their negotiations among themselves and with the rest of the country.

Those who argue that restructuring of the polity won’t be necessary once we diversify the economy are mistaken. As long as the federal government remains overly dominant relative to the federating states, it will continue to matter which section of the country ‘captures’ federal power with its attendant instability. And as long as the federal government keeps the bulk of oil revenues for itself, its desire and will to provide the leadership needed to diversify the economy will continue to be limited.

I suggest we resolve today to support calls for the restructuring of the Nigerian federation in order to strengthen its unity and stabilize its democracy. I believe that restructuring will eventually happen whether we like or support it or not. The question is whether it will happen around a conference table, in a direction influenced by us and whether we will be an equal partner in the process. Or will it happen in a more unpredictable arena and in a manner over which we have little influence? It should be at a table and we need to be at that table. A nation is an organism; it grows, it evolves, it changes, it adapts. And like other organisms if it does not adapt, it dies.

Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, national integration is achievable in Nigeria. But we must do the little things that will help in that regard. Apart from resolving issues around access to economic resources and power by the federating units, there are vital intangibles such as values, ideology, and a sense of investment in the nation that help in fostering a sense of national integration. It is one thing to say that Nigeria must remain a united nation. It is quite another thing to forge that sense of nationhood without which you can never have national integration. And to forge that nationhood requires, at the very least, three critical things:

1) a sense of something beneficial that the nation does for a people that they feel they cannot get elsewhere to the same vital degree.

2) people’s perception of fairness and equity in the way and manner they are treated

3) arising from these, a sense of pride in the nation and its leadership by most segments of the population. All three are linked to government performance, integrity of the leadership and honesty of purpose, all evident to the citizenry. From these, ideologies that project the nation as special can arise and help to cement the people’s commitment to it.

These, to me, are more effective than forcing or bribing people to stay together.

This is a gathering of major stakeholders in the Nigeria project and people here need to join that debate on restructuring. But let our positions be guided by reason, by facts, by history and by a deep reflection on what is in the best interest of our people, and the people of Nigeria, our country. Let our positions not be guided by a knee-jerk reaction that rejects every position on that matter except the one we have held for forty or more years.

And while we are at it, let us educate our young people. Let us make sure that every child born in this part of the country goes to and stays in school until the age of 18 by which time most would have completed secondary education. Let us also support those who want to proceed to tertiary education as well as technical and vocational training. Let us prepare our youth for the challenges ahead, so they can thrive in the world of rapid technological advances, a world that is unlikely to have a viable place for the uneducated. Let’s once and for all wipe out the false impression held by others that we deliberately keep our people illiterate and backward, especially because the elite among us ensure that our own children go to school.

Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, it is fitting that we are gathered here in memory of one of the illustrious sons of the North and Nigeria, the late General Hassan Usman Katsina, a man who played a critical role in our national affairs, including efforts to keep this country united. Once more that unity is under severe stress, and statesmen must rise up to the occasion and proffer solutions that are sustainable and can endure. We cannot tell a person who says he feels pain that he does not feel pain. Rather we find out what the person says is the nature of the pain and then try to find effective remedies. Interestingly we too feel pain and need urgent remedies.

I am grateful to the Organizing Committee for this conference for inviting me to deliver this paper. And I thank you all for your attention.

Paper presented by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar at the late General Usman Katsina Memorial Conference, at the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua Memorial Hall, Murtala Square, Kaduna.