Restructuring and the common good of Nigerians

That Nigeria was created as a mere geographical entity for no other reason than the socioeconomic and political interest of the Unite Kingdom in 1914, is a fact which only the most unintelligent person will fail to learn; or keep failing to appreciate. All “our heroes past” had at their various Godly moments said so, even in clearer terms than people like us now may be able to do. The fact that we had never freely chosen or agreed to sit down mutually, respectfully, charitably, responsibly, and even gladly/happily, to put all matters in this regard on the same table and freely address them for our utmost common good, is also a naked fact of history; the very reason for our lack of any meaningful or genuine nationhood in the country to date!

Lately, the fact that we can no longer continue to toy with this matter is getting clearer to everybody. The principal name by which this essential national duty has been called is re-structuring. Naturally, it has many other subsidiary and directly related subjects or aspects; but essentially, none of these can in any way be taken as outside of what re-structuring has to do – resource control, self-determination, true federalism, genuine democracy, universal Nigerian citizenship, unity in diversity, etc! Some level of such restructuring was insisted upon, even as a pre-requisite for independence by Sir Ahmadu Bello, between 1944 and 1952. That resulted in the creation of the regions, the stoppage of the unitary government and postage of all civil servants from Lagos all over the country, and the regional resource control, reasonable self-determination in the regions and a nearly perfect federating relationships of the regions beginning in 1952. The later creation of the Mid-Western Region out of the Western Region was a similar event on a smaller scale. But none of these was a result of a national, mutually respectful, open, charitable, win-win and the-common-good-of-all-Nigerians activity. Therefore, to most of the simple and relatively more honest people in this country, all those past attempts at re-structuring fall short of what we should do in these regards.

Now, as this current restructuring positive revolution is taking place in the country, there are repeated denials and undermining of the seriousness of the issues from many sections of the country;and especially from people who apparently have been the primary beneficiaries of the persistent abnormalities. On one of such episodes lately, the rather generally respected past leader who spoke on it was reported to have said that there are many of these demands now in the country, only some of which are genuine! However, according to this big fellow, the calls are coming at a time of economic recession, and so, it will not be possible to address them, as such!

The thoughts that flew through my simple mind as I read reports such as these are: 1. When these our Nigerian “leaders” make statements such as these, do they ever think of the intellectual caliber of people who may be listening to them or who will eventually read of these their sayings? 2. Do they believe that they are honest in saying such things? 3. Does the genuine love of every Nigerian, their true progress, individually and universally, as well as their common good, as ought, appear to these people as the most important reason behind what they are saying or should ever say in these regards?

Of course, the complete answer to statements like those, denying the need as well as the urgency for this restructuring, will include as follows: 1. Why do they keep trying to howsoever artificially split all the composite aspects of our needed re-structuring into innumerable independent parts, rather than seeing all of them as they are; simply parts and parcel of the same subject matter? 2. if genuine love of mankind, all nigerians equally, the common good, genuine democracy of win-win for everybody in the country, and the death of any actual or ever being claimed and then denied born-to-rule monstrous mentality, is behind our thoughts as we discuss these things, what will be the difficulty of taking all the issues and discussing them properly at once and completely? 3. If these be the case, would the economic recession precisely caused in part and being maintained by the same reasons that demand the restructuring not indeed be the very reason that we should do them now, right away, and conclusively?

I believe that the answers to all the three questions would be rather obvious to anybody who truly desires to do so properly. All those looking for or finding make-up reasons why we should not do this national duty of restructuring now, and to do so completely, should be persuaded that there is really no more time to be wasting doing those. Let the true love of God and man, all Nigerians, individually and equally, and the comon good, come and become their guiding principle. If this happens, then the few persisting resistances against this most essential national service will break down completely as ought; and then, we will be able to take off with the duty whose time has come!

Those who will have the privilege of going to be involved in these in-depth discussions will do well to let people from each part of this country see what openings these re-structuring will bring for them for the things that God most copiously has endowed every part of this country’s peoples with- education to those who have not or who structurally are denied it, free enterprise for all according to their unlimited capacities, universal love and brotherhood, etc. To keep suppressing these rich talents and national wealth for very petty and utterly very selfish,seemingly sectional but truly very individualistic reasons, that had been the case to date in this country, must be seen now in their full light as such disservice to the nation, even to their own ethnic peoples; whose time for complete death and the rising of the nation has come. The youths, who had been used for these selfish reasons of our notorious sectional leaders, should indeed be the ones who should rise now to rescue their country from the present miseries; of which they are at the forefront of their suffering – unemployment, hunger, mutual hatred, limitation of their God-given potentials in a most richly endowed country, etc.

May God Himself help all the genuine Nigerians to attain these enduring and rich goals with these current efforts on their part in this regard! Amen.

• Asuzu is Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Ibadan