Restructuring: Has the North spoken?

On Monday, August 14, 2017, the highly respected Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, broke his dignified silence on the calls for restructuring, which has elicited diverse views from other stakeholders in the country, writes KUNLE ODEREMI.

NIGERIANS still hold some traditional institutions in a very high esteem, especially traditional rulers, who are regarded as the custodians of the customs and tradition of the people. But beyond the prism of tradition and customs, many of the traditional rulers have over time combined the role with spiritual and political powers. That is why Obas are still regarded highly among the Yoruba. In the same way, the position of the Emir of Kano, Sultan of Sokoto and others are believed to attract awesome powers and influence in the Northern part of the country,  just as the Obi of Onitsha, or the Oba of Benin, are considered as both spiritual and political leaders.

Last Monday, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar broke his silence on the raging debate on the demand for restructuring of the country. He chose a major event, the Niger State Investment Submit in Minna that attracted almost all the major powerbrokers in the country, to bare his mind on the raging national discourse. In attendance which also attracted economic experts, industrialists and manufacturers as well as some state governors from different parts of the country, were former leaders as Olusegun Obasanjo, Abdulsalami Abubakar. His stance is that rather than restructuring, he said Nigerians should concentrate their energy on the devolution of the economy. He said the nation was blessed with human and mineral resources needed to achieve greatness, and suggested that the Shiroro Dam in Niger, Goronyo Dam in Sokoto and others across the country should be used to start all-year farming, as according to him, proper utilisation of the nation’s dams will enable farmers to produce food crops for both local consumption and export. His words: “Rather than the clamour for the restructuring of the country, the Federal Government should be called upon to release dams across the country to state governments for massive participation of Nigerians in all-year farming seasons. We have the ability and technical knowledge to feed the continent with what we can produce, with the required political commitment, through the provision of modern farming implements for our teeming farmers.”

His position on restructuring is coming at a time major power blocs and players have either openly drummed up support or expressed opposition to the clamour for restructuring or set up ad hoc committee to prepare a position paper on the demand that has polarized the hitherto monolithic North, as the elite of the Middle Belt have coalesced to join the demand for restructuring. Whereas Southern leaders recently expressed their readiness to negotiate with their Northern counterparts on the issue, the latter had so far not responded to the offer. A top leader in the Southern Assembly Forum told Sunday Tribune that leaders of the pan-northern body, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) said they were still studying the proposal.

Within the political circles, many believe the view expressed by the Sokoto monarch is the stance of the main political establishment in the North on restructuring, as some claimed his utterance would have been the product of extensive consultations embarked upon by the political elite in the North lately with the Sultan as the arrowhead. There are those who also say his proclamation could mean a signal to those saddled with protecting the interest of the North, especially in the corridors of power on the thinking and direction of the North over the call for devolution of power and ongoing constitutional amendments. Somehow, some recent events coupled with the antecedents of the Northern establishment amply support some of these hypotheses.

In the month of July, this year, traditional rulers and leaders of thought from the 19 states in the North had met in Kaduna, the political headquarters of the region, to address the state of the nation. It was attended by leading traditional rulers, including the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad AbubakarIII; Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Umar Ibn Garbai El-Kanemi; Emir of Gwandu, Maj.Gen Muhammad Iliyasu Bashir; Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II; Emir of Bauchi, Rilwanu Suleiman Adamu; Emir of Katsina, Dr. Abdulmumini Usman, Emir of Zazzau, Etsu-Nupe, Dr. Yahaya Abubakar, the Top Tiv, Professor James Ayatse, among others. The event was organised by northern governors, and the opening speech of the governor of Borno State in his capacity as the chairman of the forum, was instructive. He underlined the overall aim of the two day summit: to articulate the position of the region on calls for restructuring. Though they touched on other critical national issues bothering on insecurity, activities of herdsmen and farmers across the country, menace of hate speeches, matters on restructuring and need for the North to speak with one voice predominated. Thus, the chairman of the Northern States Governors Forum and Governor of Borno State, Ibrahim Shettima, said any restructuring should be done within acceptable criteria and must be fair to all component parts of the country. He said: “It is also my expectation that at the end of this meeting and, God willing, tomorrow’s (today) meeting of the governors, the forum and our esteemed royal fathers will adopt a consensus position on restructuring of the country that will be reflective of the general overall interest of the people of Northern Nigeria and which will attract popular acceptance. It is of vital importance to arrive at such consensus position because it is crucial to dispel the erroneous impression created and disseminated by certain interests in this country that the North is opposed to restructuring.”

Before now, a number of eminent persons and groups from the North had voiced their opposition to restructuring, with a second Republic presidential adviser, Mallam Tanko Yakassai saying those propagating the idea an ulterior motive. Also, a former Minister of Education, Professor Ango Abdullahi and Dr Muhammed Junaid launched tirades against the protagonists. And in one his latest remarks, the new leader of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Sir Paul Unongo frowned on the clamour and accused the promoters of being intimidated by the size of the North.

However, all these views seem to ignore the issues a majority of those leaders had raised about the predicament of the North under the present federal arrangement. The emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has been leading the campaign for a form of restructuring that could give priority to the welfare and well-being of the ordinary citizens as opposed to the few elite, who have been living fat on the resources of the country.  At a forum attended by himself and the  Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar III, the latter was quoted to have called on political leaders to focus on programmes that would better the lives of ordinary Nigerians and not just programmes that benefit the elite, while  Sanusi, who is a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said cultural and religious dogmas that are not in tune with the realities in  the rest of the Muslim world have contributed to the backwardness of the North. The sultan had on the occasion noted, “I have always talked about programmes that will touch the lives of the common man in the villages, on the streets pushing trucks, carrying water to sell to survive. We want programmes that will touch the lives of these people, not programmes that will touch lives of the elites alone. There are governors building airports worth billions of naira while our roads are a death trap. Governors who building airports when we don’t have functional clinics. Governors are building airports just for their private jets. I want to assure our political leaders that when we advised them, we do so with the fear of Almighty Allah, because if we don’t advise them, we will account for our own actions. So let’s put the building of airports and other white elephant projects aside and face issues that will bring water, food, good health, peace, security and make people go about freely without molestation. Therefore, let’s do politics of development, because I know very soon, we would be in 2019,” the sultan said, threatening that “We will use our votes to vote out those governors who refused to work for us. If you think 2019 is far, it is not far, it is very much around the corner. Therefore, my fellow citizens of the world, for those governors are work for us, we will vote them back, for those that have not work for us, we will tell them to go back home and learn how to govern us better and try their luck next time.”

For the Emir of Kano, Sanusi, noted the huge deficit of the North in the area of education and advocated more investments in education and healthcare. According to him, “We are in denial, the North-West and North-East demographically constitute the bulk of Nigeria’s population. But look at the human development indices, look at the number of children out of school, look at adult literacy, look at maternal mobility, look at infant mobility, look at per capita income, the North-east and the North-west of Nigeria are among the poorest parts of the world, not just Nigeria.” He added: “As far back as 2000, I looked at the UNDP figures on human development indices, Borno and Yobe states, if they were a country on their own, they would have been poorer than Cameroon, Niger and Chad. Nobody saw this because we see Nigeria as a country that leverages on oil rich Niger Delta, the industrial and commercial reach Lagos, the commercially vibrant Southeast and you have an average.”

Sanusi believed there has been to be a paradigm shit in policy, attitude and actions for the North to find its rhythm. “There has been a complete failure of social policies in northern Nigeria. For us to address social issues, we have to look at what our religion says as opposed to what culture says. We have to have the courage to go throw the path that all societies go through by standing up and challenge intellectually, world views…What is our attitude towards educating our girls? What is our attitude to child spacing, so that we can financially maintain and educate and bring up children? What is the purpose of a large population that is not educated, that is jobless that is unemployed?”

Tanko Yakassai is angry with those issuing subtle threats and ultimatum on the calls for restructuring even before anyone contemplates the conduct of the 2019 general election in the country. He said the protagonists of restructuring needed to be open about their true agenda, because “At this age, you don’t negotiate with ultimatum; you can’t give an issue an ultimatum. I’m not opposed to restructuring, and I have never heard that the North was opposed to restructuring. However, my quarrel with those clamouring for restructuring is that they are yet to bring out the blueprint for it. What are the blueprints; why are those proponents of restructuring afraid of unfolding their agenda? They have a hidden agenda.”  He expatiated: “This is a matter that affects the lives of all Nigerians. They should put it in black and white and what it should look like. Going back to regions, personally, I have no problem with that, because they started complaining that the North was so big and bigger than the two regions in the South put together. This is the creation of God. When the British came and conquered Nigeria, they didn’t know which side was South and which was North, they just started conquering one after the other. After conquering the South, they moved to the North.

There is no issue, if you want us to go back to the three regions, so be it, but put it in black and white and let it be documented that this is what restructuring would look like. I know what they have and I know why they are hiding it, but I want them to come out with their own plans of how Nigeria would look like in their own conception and then we come out with our own position. We are not one person, we are people, and we can’t react in the same way, but each individual will then evaluate the situation.”

The stance of Yakassai is not different from that of Unongo, who asserted that the North could not be cowed by any section of the country which had become envious of the size of the North. ‘If they start talking about restructuring, the first thing that is disturbing them is the size of the North. I always ask, ‘what are you talking about if you talk about restructuring?’ That’s why I don’t comment on restructuring until there is an acceptable definition of it,” he stressed.

However, the leader of the pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, cautioned against misconstruing the intention of those clamouring for restructuring because of the structural defects in the existing political system. He dismissed insinuations that the seamless ethnic agitations in the country could fizzle out without restructuring. ”We must restructure the country in a way that everybody is satisfied. What they are now doing is patching of the constitution of the military, which favours a section of the country. Any other thing apart from a restructuring of the country is begging the issue. With the present arrangement, we can’t have peace. If there is no peace, how can we make progress? There can be no political stability without restructure. You leave the real issue; you are dealing with the symptoms. Anything sort of restructuring the country is begging the issue. If the Federal Government is sincere that is what they should do….The Federal Government, dominated by the Northerners, wants the military constitution to continue. It will not work. They are only looking for chaos by insisting on imposing it on the country. If they don’t restructure the country now, they must be prepared for the consequence of dissolution.