THE BATTLE FOR NIGERIA

In this report, MOSES ALAO takes a look at the recent position of the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) on the heightened calls for the restructuring of the country and the implementation of the 2014 National Conference report, concluding that a fresh chapter might have been opened in the Northern versus Southern Nigeria face-off.

NORTHERN Elders’ Forum has followed national issues very closely, particularly in the past few months when our democracy, political unity and national security have come under serious scrutiny. As is the tradition of the Forum, we have restrained from idle and unproductive engagements which only divert attention and dissipate energy of leadership at all levels, and create tensions where none are necessary…

“The Forum has noted a renewed interest in the clamour for political restructuring of the nation, and sentiments which tend to create tensions around our coexistence as a nation that is diverse and united. For the record, the Forum wishes to state that the North welcomes honest and sincere discussions on all aspects of our existence, and remains available to engage any group to discuss and advance the nature of our union. We will resist the attempts to create the false impression that the North is hostile to enquiries into the basics of the nation’s structures and operations. We will also join other Nigerians in resisting any attempt to seek sectional and parochial goals outside the constitution and the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” these were the words of the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF), in a communiqué signed by its deputy leader, Paul Unongo, Air Vice Marshal Mouktar Mohammed (retd) and Prof. Ango Abdullahi, at the end of its meeting in Kano.

Clear and undisguised, the NEF’s statement, which is the latest in the series of the body’s anti-National Conference stance, has, however, begun to elicit different responses across the country, with the perennial North versus South political face-off threatening to resurface as the forces for and against the implementation of the 2014 National Conference begin to coalesce.

The NEF’s statement, which appeared to be a direct response to the recent convergence of participants in the Confab to demand for the implementation of the report, has raised several key issues such as that of age-long distrust among the regions and the way out of the conundrum for a country where key actors hold one another in perpetual suspicion.

The 2014 National Conference, which was convened by the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan, with a mandate to discuss matters that will help in strengthening the unity of the country, had 492 delegates drawn from all the geopolitical zones, states, civil society organisations, and many spheres of the Nigerian society and had ended on a high note. Several far-reaching resolutions, which participants believed would address the challenges facing the nation, were reached at the Confab.

While political analysts have argued that the National Conference should have served as the platform to give Nigeria a genuinely people’s constitution, arguing that the 1999 Constitution and especially its preamble that: “We the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria having firmly and solemnly resolved, to live in unity and harmony as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under God, dedicated to the promotion of inter-African solidarity, world peace, international co-operation and understanding; and to provide for a Constitution for the purpose of promoting the good government and welfare of all persons in our country, on the principles of freedom, equality and justice, and for the purpose of consolidating the unity of our people; do hereby make, enact and give to ourselves the following Constitution,” was an aberration and that the constitution currently in operation did not reflect the popular wish of the people, the general belief among the participants of the Confab was that its recommendations would, among others, address the perennial issues of disunity, distrust, ethnic intolerance, misgiving and imbalance in the country’s federal system.

At the conclusion of the Confab, it came up with several key recommendations touching on fiscal federalism, including revenue sharing formula and resource control, devolution of powers, with several of such recommendations requiring the review of the 1999 constitution to come into effect. With these resolutions requiring the implementations of the Federal Government or any other implementing agencies before they could be enacted, however, the agitators for the National Conference, who are mostly of Southern extraction, had begun to fear that the disposition of the North to the convocation of a Confab and the open rejection of same by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2014 might lead to the jettisoning of the many recommendations, which are believed to be apt enough to solve several social, political and economic problems confronting the country.

For instance, on the issue of resource control, the Confab “recognised the need to review the percentage of revenue allocation to States producing oil (and other resources). Conference noted that assigning percentages for the increase in derivation principle require some technical details and considerations and therefore recommends that government should set up a Technical Committee to determine the appropriate percentage on the issue and advise government accordingly,” while it also supported the setting up of a Special Intervention Fund for areas affected by internal conflict and insurgency, among others.

Highlighting some of the challenges to the country’s unity, the Confab maintained that “building a critical mass of nationalistic fervour around the ‘Nigerian Project’ is one important challenge to Nigeria’s national cohesion. This essentially requires the creative development and communication of positive affirmative narratives in support of our national unity and development irrespective of our socio-cultural diversity,” a position that could be said to be in line with the mandate for setting up the Confab.

While the Confab’s resolution on devolution of powers and true federalism are meant to address the structural imbalance in the country’s federal system, which political analysts have noted concentrated too many powers in the centre, the calls for the restructuring of the country have coincided with the advocacy for the implementation of the 2014 Confab.

The pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Professor Emeka Anyaoku, among others, have been at the forefront of the calls for the restructuring of the country in recent times. Ohanaeze’s president-general, Chief John Nwodo, recently maintained that the restructuring of the country was even more important than the agitation for Igbo Presidency, noting that “what Nigerians are asking for is restructuring of the country to be a true federation. It cannot continue to be a federation in name, the political lexicography for federation is an independent federal unit.

“The moment you have independent federal units, being state or regions and they have control over the resources they produce, they will contribute on agreed proportion to the Federation. The question of who is president and where he comes from will die down. It is going to be a matter of who is competent.”

“MASSOB and IPOB organisations, no matter how divided they appear in public, are basically motivated by the same sense of outrage and bitterness. Our young men and women can no longer tolerate a second class status in their own country,” Nwodo said.

Similarly, the Afenifere, through its Secretary-General, Chief Sehinde Arogbofa, had also reiterated the body’s age-long support for the restructuring of Nigeria recently when he stated that: “Papa Obafemi Awolowo said that we have to restructure the country but as we are now, we don’t have a true federalism to favour any geographical region. In a true federal structure, every component that makes up the federation would be allowed to exist at its own pace, which is not what is happening now. We have always preached what would make every component to be free, proud, develop and be ready to innovate.”

But with the recent position of the Northern elders that some sections of the country were, indeed, “seeking parochial goals” by calling for restructuring and fiscal federalism, among others, the question political analysts have begun to ask is whether such position was not a “call-to-arms against the recommendations of the Confab and those seeking their implementation,” noting that NEF’s position would raise doubts and further misgivings among the various sections in the country and also open a new vista in the North vs South face-off.

Though the Northern elders have never for once been a supporter of the Confab, as previous positions of the body dating back to the convocation of the Confab in 2014, were against the idea of a National Conference, the description of those calling for the implementation as seeking sectional goals calls to question the genuine intentions of pro anti-restructuring elements and the general interest of Nigeria, a country in search of nationhood after 56w years of existence.

With the latest stance of the NEF that it would welcome “honest and sincere discussions on all aspects of our existence, and remains available to engage any group to discuss and advance the nature of our union” but would “resist the attempts to create the false impression that the North is hostile to enquiries into the basics of the nation’s structures and operations and also join other Nigerians in resisting any attempt to seek sectional and parochial goals outside the constitution and the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the questions political watchers have begun to ask are whether NEF’s position represents the view of the entire North, whether the region will, indeed, work against restructuring, whether any meaningful discussion to advance the nature of the country’s union could be carried out without setting the current constitution, which NEF has sworn to guard, aside and finally, when the NEF thinks it should engage in a honest and sincere discussions with other sections on all aspects of the Nigerian nation’s existence.

For several decades, advocates of restructuring and, indeed, those calling for the convocation of a National Conference, have hinged their calls on the need to renegotiate Nigeria and engender peace among its teeming ethnic groups, thereby ending years of ethnic animosity and needless face-offs, which have, at times, threatened the oneness of the country. While their voices have become louder in recent times, following the refusal of the Buhari government to implement the recommendations of the Confab report, they could not be said to have been seeking sectional and parochial interests outside the constitution, as the vanguard of those calling for restructuring and implementation of the report is now, like never before, peopled by Nigerians from across all the geopolitical zones. And as agreed by many political watchers and constitutional experts, the 1999 constitution, as amended, like most constitutions, is not a perfect document and could do with a massive amendment that will make it truly pro-people, a development that led to many Nigerians commending the resolutions of the Confab, which recommended the review of the constitution in many areas, bringing to mind the time-tested view of the sage, Chief Awolowo on the country’s constitutions and how they have become inept in addressing the challenges facing the country. Awolowo had, in his book, “Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution,” noted that “political scientists and analysts have reached two firm conclusions: namely, that a unitary constitution will not work in circumstances which warrant a federal constitution; and conversely, that a federal constitution will fail where the circumstances only favour a unitary constitution. Suitability is, therefore, of the essence of a constitution. This is so for all countries of the world. It is so for Nigeria where the search for a suitable constitution has gone on for than 20 years, and still goes on today with renewed vigour and reanimated fervor. We predict that the search will go on after this generation of Nigerians has passed away, unless we are realistic and objective enough to give ourselves now a constitution, which is suited to the circumstances of our country and which will, therefore, endure.”

However, with the NEF’s determination not to entertain goals outside the laws and constitution of Nigeria and the President Muhammadu Buhari’s reluctance to implement the recommendations of the Confab, the pertinent questions have been when the national question, which has begged for answers for decades, would be finally answered and the logjam in the country’s federal system resolved to the benefit of Nigerians and when the country will have a people’s constitution that will back all its aspirations for development and a truly federal system of government.