It is not the structure of Nigeria that is responsible for the misery in the land. Rather it is the form of government we adopted and the puerile knowledge of our leadership about the process of economic development. The makers of our constitution are mentally and intellectually lazy to research and know the type and form government that is suitable for the historical empirical terrain of Nigeria. As many as you have European and Asian countries, the forms of government they adopted were invented to conform with their respective culture, political terrain and their social and economic circumstances, hence the forms of government vary from one country to the other without being a carbon copy of each other or one another. Instead of engaging in hard deep research, our constitution makers jumped from carbon copy of 100% British Parliamentary to 100% American Presidential System. Since both are incongruent with our culture, historical evolution and political terrain, our country ran into intractable social, political and economic problems in which we find ourselves today.
The more appropriate constitution we should invent to solve Nigerian problems is executive presidency-cum-prime ministership. The executive president will stand election on nonpartisan self recognizance independent platform. Under the presidency will be all military and civil forces such as the military, police, and the whole of ministry of interior which houses the prisons, also customs, CBN, Attorney General and Solicitor General, EFCC, SSS, Auditor General and all other nonpartisan regulatory departments and commissions will be in the presidency. Also, the vice-president must be President of the Senate. On the other hand, all spending ministries will be under the prime minister who must be a member of the Parliament. Under this form of government power is not absolute and in-built check system is built round all the spending ministries because the presidency and parliament can call them to account for their deeds. The premier under whose authority the budget of the nation is housed is accountable to the parliament at all times and can be prosecuted and or sacked by the presidency. The question of either the North or South being alienated from power is solved in a simultaneous equation of the North either taking the presidency or the prime minister while the South takes either; no one takes both concurrently. The age-long quarrel of alienation from power is permanently resolved and so another reason for fear and distrust in the present structure of Nigeria is permanently resolved because neither the North nor the South will be able to dominate each other since the President and the Prime Minister will be rotated between the North and the South. The Executive President under this invention has no absolute power neither does the Prime Minister have absolute power.
I recommend for Nigeria this my invented form of government which is a product of intellectual research and global empiricism about world forms of governments. Corruption is the lubrication of the current presidential system we are operating and so the menace of ridiculous and fantastic corruption will live with us as long as we continue to operate this presidential system.
In other to fast-track the development of the nation, President Muhammadu Buhari must adopt systemic economic development models. The fire brigade approach or the long abandoned neo-classical ultra-capitalism models are not suitable for Nigeria, otherwise the path of this nation towards economic revolution will become painfully protracted. A lot of work has been done to invent systemic economic models which can propel Nigeria towards irreversible economic development take-off. President Buhari cannot govern Nigeria in a visionless socioeconomic vacuum. All the president and his handlers should do is to access the models to handle agricultural diversification and small scale industrialisation which are the foremost keys to the future prosperity of the nation.
Once President Buhari can launch Nigeria into positive economic revolution, nobody will be talking of restructuring of Nigeria, more so if the present corrupt presidential system is abolished and replaced with the modified presidential-cum-parliamentary invented system of government enunciated in this paper. The wellbeing of a person is the bedrock of his/her psyche and vision. Once Nigerians are living comfortably within acceptable fair form of government, only mad people will be talking of restructuring or secessions or confederacy. Nobody will even listen to such mad people. Our president must act now, weapons cannot quell restiveness arising from pains, hunger and agonies of poverty; only good living can quell it. This is the task that President Buhari must address now. Therefore the adoption of economic vision and systemic matrix economic models are inevitable for President Buhari to launch Nigeria on the path of sustainable irreversible positive economic revolution.
Senator Olowoporoku, former commissioner in old Ondo State, also a former minister, sent this piece from Lagos.