Professor Akinyemi Onigbinde delivering his speech

However, and because of the way our country is structured, politically, as enshrined in the 1999 fraudulent constitution that ascribes the authorship of Nigerian military imposed document to “…we the people…,” Osun State, for example, can do very little in accessing the mineral resources underneath its soil, as only the Federal Government can accord explorers/miners that the government of Osun State may have encouraged to come for business the requisite license to proceed to Ijesaland, where the gold deposit is much.

And, given the atavistic nature of our retail politics, hinged, essentially on zero-sum, winner-takes-all political equation, such requested mandate on economic activity in Osun State may get ‘missing’ in the labyrinth of Abuja’s destructive bureaucracy, especially if the government in Osun State is under the administration of a political party, different from the one in the nation’s capital. It once happened to an idea of electricity power generation, as conceived by the government of Lagos State in 1999, when the PDP-run Federal administration, at daggers-drawn encounter with AD-administered Lagos State, ensured that the project was non-profitable for the foreign investors, with which Lagos State government was in business under some public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement. Yet, today, the same Lagos State government is reported to have approached, literally on its bended knees, to seek the permission of Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to enable it retain for the use of people in Lagos State, the 3,000MW it wishes to generate, through the activities of some private investors. Perhaps, the Leviathan in Abuja will oblige, afterall, Lagos State, this time around, waves the same broom with the party that controls the levers of power in Abuja. Yet, the minister in charge of power once ran the shop in Alausa, Ikeja. But this is also assuming that the ‘gang fight’ political sensibility currently running within the ruling party in Lagos State is not brought to bear on this ‘begging’ mission of the incumbent in Alausa.

But it is this ‘begging’ culture, a presumed ‘privilege’ to be accorded a unit in a supposed federal arrangement that we must constantly interrogate, if really we are interested in building an economy to be nurtured for ‘sustaining growth.’ And, on this simple, yet herculean task, the over 50 membership of Guild of Editors Corporate Online Publishers has its job already cut out, provided it hopes to be in business through patronage of advertisers. Afterall, only a vibrant economy, within a free political environment, where rights are claimed and citizens welfare, through the provision of requisite infrastructure, is not subjected to sets of privileges to be ‘dashed’ out albeit it, conditionally to people’s representatives by a coordinate power at the centre.

THE IMPERATIVEVE OF RESTRUCTURING

I reckon it is time to bring this short address to a close, but it is also important to remind ourselves of where we were before the locusts arrived in 1966, donning military fatigue and studded boots to eat off the very foundation of our nation’s economic growth. Again, we should remind ourselves of why we are being asked to ‘diversify’. This call, when it came, was meant to veer us from the ‘feeding bottle’ federalism, of each and all – from all corners of Nigeria, including my local government of Ifo, in Ogun State – to proceed to the centre of power, every month end, to receive from the ‘lord of the manor’, its benevolence.

Let us not forget, for a moment, that what we are being ‘dashed’ by the putative benefactor are proceeds from the beneficiaries, constitutionally warehoused to Abuja, for where, for example, the Lagos, Bayelsa, Ogun, River states, receive a token of their contributions – less than what was ‘seized’ from them. Let us, again, not forget that, presently, not all are ‘equal’ contributors to this national coffer. Indeed, some do not bring any edible to the village eating mat, even when we all know that no member of our large family is a destitute, poor enough as not being in a position to feed itself, and still have enough bean cake to bring to our village square for culinary satisfaction of all at our seasonal ‘egungun’ festival .But this is only feasible if and when we resolve to arrange the terms and conditions of our relationship, to co-exist under equity and justice.

At this stage, perhaps for the necessary illumination on why we must commence an urgent dialogue with Nigeria’s future ask the question: why have successive leaders of Nigeria acquired the dubious post-regime tag of ‘corrupt’, ‘tyrant’ ‘clueless’ and indeed, ‘incompetent’. Yet, we may ask, why have our immediate post-independence leaders, adjudged as relatively successful, at least in terms of democracy and governance deliverables. For example, years, long after Chief Obafemi Awolowo left office as Premier of the Western Region, which comprised what now constitutes Ondo, Oyo, Ogun, Ekiti, Osun, Lagos, Edo, Delta, states, he remains a reference point in good governance and competent leadership. For instance, and this was in spite of Awolowo’s public disagreement with Odumegwu-Ojukwu over the latter’s misrepresentation of what transpired over the Biafra course, the Biafran leader, at Awolowo’s funeral, saw in him, ‘the best president Nigeria never had’. And, also, in a goodwill message, made public, on the occasion of Obafemi Awolowo’s last earthly celebrated birthday, the then military president, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, described Chief Obafemi Awolowo as the ‘main issue in Nigerian politics’

Let us get it right, lest we run into the ‘Bermuda triangle’ of historiography: the enduring crisis of legitimacy between individual role in history and the counter claim of de-legitimising the individual in the dynamics of historical reconstruction. To be clear, I am a firm subscriber to the doctrine of the individual pivotal role in the eternal movements of history, through its many modes and trajectories. But this is in so far as we do not lose the fact that, the ‘super hero’ of history is a ‘mere’ product of the environment, a variable among other contending, cooperating and conflicting forces that shape a declared end of historical activity, in which the individual is involved as co-participant. And those contending and cooperating variables include the way the operating theatre, where the drama of history is played out, is structured to enable the various actors act their allotted parts in the various scenes. We should also not ignore the roles of the ‘prompters’, the ‘costumiers’, the make-up artistes. And indeed, the lightening of the stage. Or, can we really speak of good and functioning building without due cognizance paid to the mounded bricks and the way the pieces are arranged, the roofing construction to ensure that those who will reside and seek comfort in the ‘beautiful edifice’ sleep without fear of the destructive power of the elements?

My social sensibility and political relationship make me a subscriber to the Awolowo political philosophy, but I shall not be found amongst those who will submerge Awolowo’s operating environment under his richly deserved greatness, as an achiever of many firsts. Indeed, to do this is to do a great historic disservice to a man’s ‘political manifesto’ of a life-long struggle to achieve a country properly structured along a federalist agenda, befitting a nation made up of multi-ethnic nationalities and multi-religious persuasion.

Obafemi Awolowo in the West, and his fellow premiers in the North, East and later mid-West, were in healthy competition to out-perform one another, simply because the ‘First Principle’ of Nigeria being, as enumerated under Lyttleton constitution of 1954,as adopted (with some minor amendments) for the 1960 independence constitution, and later upgraded to the Republican constitution of 1963, gave them sufficient elbow room to operate as imperative of needs, based on what their respective incomes dictate. The Western region, for example, had its Marketing board from where it was able to lend money to the federal government of Nigeria when the latter needed a bailout fund to offset a budgetary deficit. It is on record that civil servants of the Western Region received more monthly salaries and emoluments than their counterparts at the federal level, then based in Lagos.

Thus, my friends and colleague in the media, your task is to assist in the struggle for the re-making of Nigeria, so that we can have an economy to grow and sustain.

Regrettably, the option before us, even if we choose to live a lie, is between restructuring of the warped and indolent pseudo-federal arrangement and secession — the option being offered us by the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) and other ethnic-nationality groups that have, since joined the Nnamdi Kanu bus, set on a secessionist bumpy ride to Somalia.

I thank you all.

* Akinyemi Onigbinde, a Philosophy teacher and the Convener of the New Independence Group (NIG),a Nigeria-based socioeconomic Think Tank, delivered to this address at the First Annual Conference of the Guild of Editors of Corporate Online Publishers(GOCOP) on Thursday, August 10, 2017 at the Renaissance Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos