Arguments against restructuring
come mostly from the North –
Atiku
MARCH 6, 2017
By Omeiza
Ajayi ABUJA –
Former
vice president and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress
APC, Atiku Abubakar has restated his call for a restructuring of
the federation, saying states that are not financially viable
should be collapsed into those that are viable.
“There is
no doubt that many of our states are not viable, and were not
viable from the start, once you take away the federal
allocations from Abuja. We have to find creative ways to make
them viable in a changed federal system. Collaboration among
states in a region or zone will help.
We can
examine the possibility of using the existing geo-political
zones as federating units. We can also find other ways to
determine the viability of states, for example by introducing a
means test such that a state that is unable to generate a
certain percentage of its expenditures internally for a
specified period of time will be deemed unviable and collapsed
into another or a group of states. “We can constitute a body of
non-partisan experts to suggest other ideas. But in all, we must
devolve more powers and resources from the federal government
and deemphasize federal allocations as the source of sustenance
of states. We need to start producing again and collecting taxes
to run our governments in a more sustainable way with greater
transparency and accountability”, Abubakar submitted.
The
former vice president stated this on Monday at the annual Prof.
Ademola Popoola Public Lecture, at the Faculty of Law, Obafemi
Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Explaining his own concept of
restructuring, Abubakar said local government councils cannot be
seen as federating units. “The restructuring that I have been
calling for involves changes to the allocation of powers,
responsibilities and resources among the states or zones and
between them and the federal government. I do not see local
governments as federating units and, therefore, they should not
derive their powers from the constitution. Likewise ethnic
nationalities are not federating units and any attempt to
restructure the country along those lines will be unworkable.
Some of our roughly 300 ethnic nationalities are big enough to
constitute independent countries while some are too small to
even constitute local government areas”, he added. He said
though many of those against restructuring are his own kinsmen,
the major factors against the change are issues of dependency,
fear and mistrust. He said; “If we cut out all the sophistry,
posturing and pretensions, it is clear to me that the resistance
against restructuring is based on three interrelated factors,
namely dependency, fear and mistrust. Dependency of all segments
of the country on oil revenues, fear of loss of oil revenues by
non-oil producing states or regions and mistrust of the motives
of those angling for restructuring. This can be seen in the
regional patterns of the advocacy for and opposition to
restructuring.
The bulk
of the calls for restructuring comes from the south while the
bulk of the opposition to it comes from the north. This tells me
that it will be critical for all parties to put their cards on
the table, give one another the necessary reassurances and make
the necessary compromises in order to secure a restructuring
deal. Denials and insults by both sides are not a substitute for
these. “Although arguments against restructuring come mostly
from the North, there are, however, elements from the other
regions who are in government and who argue against
restructuring, claiming that it is only good leadership
(ostensibly theirs) that is needed to resolve our nation’s
challenges. Opponents also argue that restructuring is a ploy to
break up the country. They insist that national unity is
non-negotiable and claim that the matter has been resolved by
the civil war. How the current structure is the only guarantee
of unity is never really explained, neither is it demonstrated
that devolving more powers and resources to federating units
would lead to a breakup of the country. “Only our First Republic
Constitution came close to the US’s Constitution in terms of the
process of federal constitution-making and allocation of powers
between the federating units and the federal government.
Subsequent efforts have been ones where military leaders amended
the constitution through decrees, and, when our peoples’
representatives were involved, set the parameters and redlines
that could not be crossed by “we the people.” With eyes firmly
set on oil revenues rather than diverse economic activities, and
a mindset that saw any push for greater autonomy for regions as
a threat to national unity, the efforts resulted in excessive
centralization of power and concentration of economic resources
at the federal level.
For as
long as oil flowed and revenues remained high, few people seemed
to mind. Thus, our governments walked away from preceding
sources of government revenues. Rather than clamour for more
productivity and improvements in human resource development, we
clamoured for and got more states and local governments. “We
even had the awkward situation where the federal government
created local governments and continues to allocate resources
directly to them through so-called joint accounts with state
governments. The result has been that local governments have
ceased to be local, and they are also not national or effective.
Rather the state governments essentially confiscate the funds
and expend them as they wish. Thus the division of
responsibilities for local government administration has killed
the responsibilities. Put another way, the intrusion of the
federal government in local government administration has
virtually destroyed local administration”.
