PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari’s address to his countrymen last Monday after his 103 day medical sojourn in the United Kingdom has thrown up key issues. Rather than settling a number of issues that had erupted in his absence, the president’s speech ignited fresh fires.
In what looked like a direct throwback to the days of the military, the president declared that he would not allow some “irresponsible elements” start trouble and declared that “Nigeria’s unity is settled.”
The president must have been taken aback by the reactions that immediately trailed his declarations. He had given a speech laced with stern words and direct orders, but his countrymen wasted no time in rejecting the command as they insisted that the nation’s unity is negotiable.
In the days of the jackboot, such commentaries could earn the proponents some invitations for “chats” but thanks to the free speech reign of democracy, the commentators have had a free rein to challenge the Abuja declaration. In those days, Nigerians saw the damaging effects of Decree 2 and 4 and the likes and heard, “no alternative to SAP.” You also saw attempts to hold conferences to fertilise ideas by scholars stopped. Today is a different ball game and true to the key offerings of democracy, ideas must cross fertilise.
President Buhari had submitted in his broadcast on Monday: “Nigeria’s unity is settled and not negotiable. We shall not allow irresponsible elements to start trouble and when things get bad they run away and saddle others with the responsibility of bringing back order, if necessary with their blood.
“Every Nigerian has the right to live and pursue his business anywhere in Nigeria without let or hindrance. I believe the very vast majority of Nigerians share this view.
“This is not to deny that there are legitimate concerns. Every group has a grievance. But the beauty and attraction of a federation is that it allows different groups to air their grievances and work out a mode of co-existence.
“The National Assembly and the National Council of State are the legitimate and appropriate bodies for national discourse. The national consensus is that, it is better to live together than to live apart.”
It is easy to understand the president’s drive in that speech. He was for one Nigeria in unmistakable terms. He believes that we are better together as a united country. Many Nigerians share his views. They also believe that while the unity is desirable, without debating issues, you cannot strengthen the argument. Nigerians, the leaders and the led, must work at the desired unity. I believe that is the argument of the proponents of the restructuring agenda. There appears some consensus that the current system is not delivering the goods. Those who talked about Nigeria as an emerging nation in the 1960s saw a country with great potentials, with a teeming population of human capital. Today, the population is becoming a liability and even the God-given potentials are drying off. The country has continued to crawl even as it grows towards 60 years of existence. Can we continually operate a country with potentials, which refused to be translated into realities? That is the question from advocates of restructuring and devolution of powers.
Those who criticise Buhari’s submissions on non-negotiable unity and his decision to pass the buck on restructuring don’t wish disintegration for Nigeria; they want a functional republic, which can guarantee development for today and the future. A blanket affirmation of unity immediately blows off in the face of today’s realities and without working at it, you risk a flat system, maybe in the future.
Granted that Nigerians want a united indivisible country, the questions we need to ask include are the leaders, through conduct, speech and actions promoting the ingredients of unity? Does the kitchen cabinet of the President itself promote the needed unity in a multi-cultural environment, one which he fought for during the civil war? Do the governors in the states exhibit signals that guarantee freedom and a united country to non- indigenes? Has the National Youth Service Corps been allowed to promote the core values that necessitated its creation?
Whereas Nigerians want to live in a big country, whereas the ethnic nationalities have become so intertwined to the extent that a clear separation is becoming impossible, the frustrations of underdevelopment, joblessness and collapsing economy will continue to promote extreme declarations such as the quit notice to the Igbos by Arewa Youths and the booming campaign for the realisation of Biafra by youths of the South East.
If we are to give vent to Buhari’s indivisibility proclamation, the president himself must lead the way in deliberately promoting plurality of views and accommodation at every level
. He must become the father of the nation, whose words are geared towards the preservation of our tomorrow and not just today. He must ensure the governors in the states encourage bottom up growth, accommodation, free speech. He must mandate them to free the local governments and allow true leadership recruitment from that level. He has to mandate political leaders to ensure religious freedom and harmony.
But to guarantee Nigeria’s unity is more than rhetoric. Some of the practical steps are embedded in the restructuring debate. I have heard some commentators beg the question by simply declaring that restructuring means different things to different sections of the country. So? A sincere leadership will sit back to dissect the agenda and distill what is good for all. Nothing should stop the leaders from arriving at a national consensus on key aspects of restructuring. By doing that, they would help the actualisation of Bugari’s non-negotiable unity proclamation.