Sultan: A nation and the fear for the future

INDICES that Nigeria is undergoing a trying moment are many. The preponderance of opinions by concerned elder statesmen attest to the current predicament of the most populous black nation. Even President Muhammadu Buhari and other top government officials have lamented the challenges facing the federation.

Precisely, on April 12, 2019, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, threw a challenge to all stakeholders in the Nigerian federation. He was apprehensive about the future of the country because of what the revered traditional ruler perceived as the incalculable damage politics and religion had inflicted on the unity of the country. He was concerned that Nigerians, especially during the buildup to the recent general election in the country brazenly mixed politics and religious to further create crevices on the body politics of the country.  While not sparing any section of the society for the attendant frightening situation, the Sultan lampooned Muslim and Christian clerics of turning worship centres real political platforms to preach divisive sermons set the various nationalities apart.  “We have much more challenges now that we cannot in any way deny it. You have heard and seen that the challenges are real. You can see the insecurity in the North West,” he asserted. Accordingly, he warned, “If Nigeria has these troubles in 2019, then, I have my fears over 2023. The signs are already on ground. So let’s begin to plan on how to ensure peace and peaceful coexistence before, during and after the general election. Let’s work towards peace and having a society where everybody is free to coexist in peace. Let start working on our challenges from now by trying to collectively decide to do what is right.”

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Undoubtedly, peace is a sine quo non for stability. However, in the opinion of many other stakeholders in the Nigerian project, the precursor to peace comprises justice, equity and fairness. Their position is that an unjust remains the main source of friction and conflict, which have almost suffocated the Nigerian federation. The recipe for peace, according to a great number of Nigerians, especially in the advocacy for restructuring, is for the country’s leadership to facilitate the process of addressing the defects in the existing federal structure. While some leaders claim the unjust system predated Nigeria’s attainment of independence from Britain in 1960, others believe the quasi-unitary system was as result of egoistic leadership that fancied and nurtured self-adulation.

 

Contending issues 

A major contending issue in the country’s federalism is on revenue generation and allocation. The centre sits over the resources of the country with the states, where the resources are deposited and harnessed as mere appendages and beggars. States are treated as inferior partners rather than equal partners in what should be a federal arrangement. This unholy relationship has constituted a major bone of contention and potent weapon for frightening discontent and upheavals.

Disequilibrium in the number of local government structure across the country is another outstanding issue. Though the centre and states should be the statutory federating units, the existence of local government areas as the third strand in the Nigerian federal structure is seen as an aberration by advocates of federalism. Local councils, which ought to owe their existence as administrative centres on the state, get monthly allocation from the Federation Account. Many legal authorities, especially on constitutional matters said the recognition of local government as the third tier is not ideal and that it was wrong that local governments were given powers and functions directly in the 1999 Constitution, unlike in the advanced federations like the US where local governments were only mentioned in State Constitutions. According to experts, local governments in a federation are creations of the State and therefore ought not to enjoy powers in the same measures that the constitution grants to the federating units. The distribution of revenue is based on the number of local government areas per state, with most of the existing 774 local council skewed in favour of the Northern axis of the country.

The unjust system that has consistently imperiled the peace of the country is gross abuse of some constitutional mechanism like the federal character principle, which are meant to promote a sense of belonging and integration. But, what was designed as a catalyst for a healthy completion and equal opportunity has been turned into a tool to marginalize and institutionalise mediocrity. For example, the application of the principle had consistently been in the breach in federal appointments, school enrolment in federal schools and postings in federal agencies and parastatals, with the frequent attendant acrimonies and bitterness from stakeholders believed to have been short-circuited. Federal character principle is designed to allay the fears of domination and marginalisation of some ethnic groups in Nigeria. But the principle “has been used to achieve unintended purposes of ethnic-cleansing sort-of.” Instead of promoting “fair and effective representation of the various components of the federation in the country’s position of power, status and influence” it engenders instability and national disintegration. Experts opined that appointments into key offices are not evenly distributed, as these are often dictated by the whims and caprices of the political elite.  The overcentralisation of powers at the central has led to serious dysfunctional effects on the quest to establish as sense of belonging among the ethnic nationalities. So, the agitation to promote and protect the autonomy of the rights of the minorities has created flashpoints of threats to the attainment of national peace and national integration. The endemic crisis in the Niger Delta and parts of the North-Central lends credence to such threat to peace, as the people from those areas are insistent on resource control as part of the sustained clamour for devolution for powers from the centre to states in tandem with the principle of federalism.

It is apparent that the sectional domination of powers at the various levels of authorities ensures that certain ethnic nationalities maintain a fistic hold on critical federal ministries, departments and agencies, including the security apparatus. Therefore, other ethnic nationalities are like second class citizens in the federation. The influence of cabals guarantees the perpetuity of particular hegemony that peace remains elusive.

There is the need to allow the states to unleash their huge potentialities to engender healthy rivalry in terms of development and economic growth. But in his own diagnosis of the malaise of the country, a former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode noted that the crisis is ingrained in the master-servant relationship created by the amalgamation of the Southern and the Northern Protectorates of Nigeria in 1914. “In 1914 Lord Frederick Lugard, the British Governor-General of Nigeria, described northern Nigeria as the “poor husband” and southern Nigeria as the “rich wife”. He went further by boldly proclaiming the marriage of the two regions by British fiat and declared, without consultation with either of the two “spouses”, that this was a marriage that had “no prospects of divorce” and that “would last forever.” Ever since then and for the better part of the last 104 years the “rich southern wife” has been enslaved, raped, sodomised, insulted, humiliated, devalued, demystified, rubbished, bound in chains, cheated and treated with the utmost contempt and disdain by a rapacious and insatiable “poor northern husband” who has no sense of restraint, decency, fairness and or compassion. The South, plagued with a notoriously timid, weak, pitiful, ignorant, confused, shortsighted, cowardly and irredeemably pliant set of leaders, have proved, over the last 58 years, to be wholly incapable of engendering any form of unity or collective purpose and of standing up to northern arrogance, bondage and captivity. They have all failed woefully and their inexplicably docile, indolent and stoic disposition remains the greatest obstacle to southern emancipation till today. As a matter of fact the leadership of the North continuously thanks God for their lack of understanding, weakness, cowardice and divided ranks. You do not have to behave like the pliant and subservient rich wife simply because a cruel, misguided and self-serving British mercenary and colonial officer described you as one 104 years ago. If the north had been the rich partner and had been blessed with oil and the south were its burden, its leaders would have had the courage to break out of forced marriage take their zone out of Nigeria long ago. Sadly southern leaders have always lacked the vision, courage and ability to make such a move. Instead all they do is silently whine and grumble behind closed doors about northern domination. I make bold to say that one of the greatest disservices to southern Nigeria and indeed the black man in the history of the world was the amalgamation of the southern and northern protectorates of Nigeria by the British in 1914.  This was a forced marriage of ethnic, religious and cultural incompatibles and there has been little peace between the two ever since. From day one it was a mistake and a failure and it remains a mistake and a failure till today. Lord Lugard and his wife Flora Shaw, who gave Nigeria its name, must both be laughing in their graves. There you have it. I have spoken the minds of millions even though few are prepared to say it publicly.”

But a legal practitioner and immediate past Commissioner for Environment and Solid Mineral in Nasarawa State, Gabriel Akaka, disagreed with the Sultan on his remarks concerning the perceived uncomplimentary role of religious leaders during the buildup to the election. He said: “I have not seen that influence on the nation in terms of the way some of the clerics made certain comments during the election. They made their comments based on national issues and they were  general comments made across board (both Muslims and Christian), particularly on the issue of security. Both Buhari and Atiku are Muslims, but there were Christians and Muslims who supported them across board. I don’t see anything wrong on that. The clerics made those comments because the system was not working; you talk about killings and armed robbery on a daily basis; people no longer feel safe.” Akaka added that what Federal Government needed to do now was to strengthen institutions by making them more effective; it should address the issues of insecurity, corruption, among others.

Labour Party senatorial candidate in the 2019 general election in the state, Innocent Lagi, however, backed the Sultan on his view on the state of the nation. The one-time Attorney-General of the state said the traditional ruler only acted in sync with the reality across the country, especially the rising threats to national security and unity among the ethnic nationalities making up the federation.  “Why would anybody not admit the reality which the Sultan said? We were heading toward the wrong direction? “When we killed the leader of Boko Haram, shouldn’t we know that we acted arbitrary and see what we caused? When we shot the Shite people and locked up their leader, shouldn’t we know that the kind of protest we got in Abuja? So, when somebody tells Nigerian the truth, they think he has done something wrong. I think, the Sultan was courageous to say the truth. He is sending a warning that every Nigerian should began have a re-think. People work towards peace and you don’t just sit down and asked or pray for it to happen, people work for prosperity not by sitting down and praying to God alone for it to happen.

“Basically, that is what the Sultan is talking about; the country is more divided; there is general insecurity; there is much corruption. In fact, nothing seems to be working. Nobody, particularly clergymen appear to be helping the situation. We don’t expect politicians to say the truth, but we expect the clerics to be truthful. Do you expect the clergymen to tell you that there are warning signs for this country in 2023? So, the only way out is when the people begin to pay attention to themselves more than they do to their political leaders. We should try to unite the country. We shouldn’t follow Buhari or Atiku, or even follow APC or PDP. We should follow the road to progress, unity and prosperity for this country, it does not matter what political party that carry the day;, it shouldn’t matter which ethnic group carries the day at the poll.