By Bolanle Bolawole
Last week, we asked the rhetorical question of “Who needs the local governments?” They are those opposed to the country’s restructuring; strengthening the local governments is a dummy they sell ostensibly in the name of protecting the councils from over-bearing governors and under the guise of taking government nearer to the people. It is a ruse since the concept of local governments is in itself antithetical to the principle of federalism, where there is a Centre and federating units. Each federating unit is supposed to be empowered to determine the local government structure of its volition. Setting up a third tier of government that is independent of the States or federating units is a further weakening and short-changing of federalism properly so-called. What the Senate has done with its plot to make local governments independent, even subversive, of States is to further make Unitarism iron-cast and erode the little semblance of federalism that decades of military rule and their civilian accomplices have bequeathed to this country – starting with the unfortunate Decree 1 of 1966 of the ill-fated Gen. JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi military junta.
In that it was the Ironsi military regime that abrogated the 1963 Republican Constitution, which was federal in nature, substituting it with a unitary system of government, which has been a cog in the wheel of our development, the military, without doubt, set the tone for this country’s malady of errors. At Independence, this country had three regions – Northern Region, Western Region, and Eastern Region. To weaken the Western Region, against which there were plots and assaults, the Midwest Region, made up today of Edo and Delta states, was excised out of the West by the “Federal might” of the Northern Region and Eastern Region collaborating and conspiring to undermine the Western Region, dissect, and gobble it up. Whereas there were far more potent agitations for the carving up of regions out of the Northern Region, such as Joseph Tarka’s agitation for the Middle Belt Region, and also in the Eastern Region, such as Adaka Boro’s armed struggle for the Niger Delta Region, only the Western Region was balkanised for selfish political considerations.
Subsequent military regimes drove the sword further still into the heart of the nation’s federalism. The Yakubu Gowon military regime pieces Nigeria into 12 States; six each in the North and South. That was the end of a semblance of fair play as subsequent state creations created the superiority of the North over the South; and of the two hitherto regions of the North and East over the West, such that, today, the North has 19 states while the South has 17. In like fashion, the then Eastern Region now has nine states while the West has only six. Even if you add the two states of the then Mid-west (Edo and Delta) to the West, it adds up to only eight states. It is, therefore, laughable when the East or Igbo demand a sixth state to so-called equal up to the Yoruba or the West as if the South-South or Niger Delta states of Rivers, Cross Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Bayelsa were not part of the then Eastern Region. Listen to Nnamdi Kanu and the Biafra irredentists: When it suits the Igbo, they shout marginalisation from the rooftop and demand a non-existent “parity” with the Yoruba/West. When it suits them otherwise, they insist the Niger Delta is part and parcel of Biafra! Such doublespeak rankles. Speaking from both sides of the mouth is certainly not the hallmark of integrity and credibility.
Taking the argument forward, there are more local governments in the North than in the South. Of the 774 local governments, 417 (53.870%) are in the North while 357 (46.124%) are in the South. Since the North was a region at Independence and at the coming of a Republic; it now has a preponderance of advantage over the other regions: Western Region (including Lagos), 137 (17.7%); Eastern Region (including the Niger Delta), 176 (22.739%); Mid-west Region, 44 (5.7684%). Western Region plus the Midwest region (which was one before anti-Yoruba sentiments moved the conservative North and a hurting and jealous East to put them asunder), add up to 181 local governments or 23.385%. It is therefore ridiculous when the Eastern Region or Igbo make the West’s six states their reference point when demanding an additional state to the five that the East Central State has. But calculating on the basis of the former Eastern Region, they have nine states to the Western Region’s six. Add the two Mid-west states of Edo and Delta to the West and the total is eight, one less that the East’s. The disparity that exists is suffered by the West and not the East as the vociferous Easterners would have us believe.
The whole South is marginalised by the North. Side-stepping regions and analyzing what is now generally referred to as the six geo-political zones, the three geo-political zones of the North still retain their advantage over the three geo-political zones of the South. The North-west is the most favoured with seven states and 186 local governments (24.031%), almost double that of Ndigbo (South-east geo-political zone), five states and 95 local governments (12.273%). South-west has six states and 137 local governments (17.700%). The South-south (a combination of the Niger Delta states plus the old Mid-west) has six states and 125 local governments (16.149%). The North-east was rewarded, as it were, for its age-old alliance, loyalty, and unquestioning submission to the core North with six states and 113 local governments (14.599%). The North-central, Man Friday and fall guy of the core North, also has six states and 112 local governments (14.470%). The number of local governments is important because that is one of the criteria used in Federal Allocations; the more local governments, the more largesse from the Federation Account. As someone aptly described it, the more local governments, the more begging bowls you take to Abuja to scoop the federal largesse.
Not only that, these days, those with the largest number of local governments have learned to press home their advantage in making sure that appointments are made on the equality of local governments. So, they get more of their people, qualified or not, into federal positions. They dominate all the sectors and in decision-making, ensure that their geo-political zones and people get more than their fair share of the nation’s resources. The 2017 budget, for instance, voted far more resources for the North-west and North-east than the entire South put together. The injustice in the system becomes horrendous when it is noted that the resources of the country come largely from three sources, all of them located in the South – crude oil and gas, VAT and Customs/Ports. What operates in Nigeria is best described as internal colonialism of the worst order.
Lest we forget, the military is the first of this country’s malady of errors. They killed our fiscal federalism and imposed a unitary system of government. It is ironic that the man who handed over the reins of power to the military, the then acting Senate President Orizu Nwafor, was Igbo. The military man who took over the mantle and decreed federalism out of existence was Aguiyi-Ironsi, another Igbo. This ascendancy thrilled the Igbo, albeit it proved short-lived and was ultimately catastrophic. The second tripod of Nigeria’s malady of errors consists of the beneficiaries of federal might and the skewed “federal” system of government. The National Assembly is part of the “federal might”; the more powers at the Centre, the more “oversight” largesse for federal legislators. Devolution of power is akin to their committing class suicide. Those favoured by the lop-sided local governments will also never support restructuring or devolution of power. The present unjust system suits them fine and they will do anything to preserve and entrench it. The more the unjust system runs, the more they dig in and carry-forward their advantages.
Persuading them to let go of their advantages is a tall order. Restructuring will not be yielded on a platter; like Fela crooned, whoever wants restructuring will have to fight for it. If you vote a million times on restructuring, the North will always carry the day because they have positioned themselves, over time, to have the upper hand – scammed population figures, which help them corner more seats in the Legislature; land mass, even if arid and destructive as Sambisa, have been manipulated by the North to give them a vice-like grip on the polity. I doubt if they will let go easily. It is not true that “strategic miscalculation” caused the defeat of devolution in the Senate. The North killed it – helped by pliant and fawning Southerners lacking in principles and bereft of ideas. I discovered a truth sometime ago: No matter how ‘progressive’ a Northerner is and no matter how detribalized, he parts ways with you when what they consider as the core interests of the North are up for discussion.
The third malady consists of Southern leaders. Usually, they are recruited and or compromised by the North. They are timid, selfish, and lily-livered. They live for their stomach and their stomach alone. To give a semblance of federal character, they are spruced up to behave as important stakeholders but in actual fact they are mere pawns in the political chess board of the North. On four occasions, we have had such “leaders” as Head of State. They changed or change nothing. No fundamental restructuring. No redress of the imbalance in Census figures; none in the number of local governments or States; and none in the ownership of oil blocs. They were and are too frightened to add something to their people. The North knows how to distract and discomfiture them. They are fragmented and contented with the crumbs that come their way.
Contented to be Lord of the Manor in their little corners, they cannot see the larger picture of the synergy required to act like the biblical Moses and deliver their long-suffering people from Egypt. A return to true federalism of 1963 necessitates the abolition of the beggar-States that cannot pay salaries and pensioners or grow enough food to feed its people – but can we trust the political class in the South to rise to the occasion and make the much-needed sacrifice?
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