THERE is both good and bad news about President Bola Tinubu’s promise to restructure Nigeria. In guarded remarks at Akure, Ondo State, on Wednesday, during his meeting with Afenifere leader, Reuben Fasoranti, the President said he would restructure the country after first carrying out successful economic and fiscal reforms. This is a calculated political gambit, strong enough to buy him time and give the protagonists and antagonists of restructuring something to chew.
On the positive side, Tinubu is the first sitting President to acknowledge that Nigeria is ripe for a constitutional overhaul. This is courageous. His predecessors disdained it while in office, though Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan have turned full circle out of office. In Muhammadu Buhari’s case, he rejected the recommendations of his party, the All Progressives Congress, on it.
It is comforting that Tinubu has broken his silence on this volatile topic, nine months after assuming office. The bad news is that the President wants to delay restructuring till he has fixed the economy and social justice, fearing that if there is no solid foundation for it, it will collapse. This is nebulous and his fears are unfounded.
Tinubu is putting the cart before the horse. Indeed, it is a mirage to think economic prosperity can occur in Nigeria without restructuring. In other words, restructuring is the condition precedent for a buoyant economy and socio-political justice.
In April 2023, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka argued that if Tinubu did not restructure Nigeria, “… even your economic policies will fail, your infrastructure and transformation will fail. We will just go back threading the same old spur.” These are prescient words.
At the meeting, Fasoranti captured the overarching need for restructuring: “We seek, therefore, a true Federal Republic that would reflect fiscal federalism. If the derivation principle is good for oil, why is it not good for Value Added Tax for example? For the people of the South-West, restructuring also has a more pressing meaning.”
How Nigerian governors under-develop Nigeria
Undoubtedly, for most parts of Nigeria, this is the auspicious time for true federalism as the current unitary system imposed on it by the military is divisive.
According to Wole Olanipekun (SAN), the 1999 Constitution is Nigeria’s main problem because “it is a fake document.” This is true. Its major provisions are anti-federalism and anti-progress. The centre is too powerful. For Nigeria to work, the constitution should empower the federating units in state policing, resource control and fiscal federalism, and control mainly international diplomacy, and the military.
Fortunately, the groundwork for true federalism has been laid, with some provisions built into the 2014 National Conference. Tinubu should review the recommendations of the APC committee led by former Kaduna Governor Nasir el-Rufai and adopt the salient points.
The President should not entertain any delay again. In the subsisting arrangement, the single federal police force of 371,000 is weak, shorthanded, and incapable of offering consequential response to Islamic terrorists, bandits, oil thieves and armed robbers who are about to send Nigeria into the abyss.
Rightly, Tinubu has opened the door for state police by setting up a committee with the state governors to achieve the mandate. Nigeria is the only one among the 25 federal entities in the world operating single police. In the United States, Australia, Germany and Sweden, state police is the practice. Wisely, even the United Kingdom, a unitary entity, is operating a devolved policing system.
To be fair to Obasanjo, his administration increased oil derivation to 13 per cent. Tinubu should follow this up by returning resource control to the First Republic formula in which the regions kept 50 per cent of their resources. Currently, the Federal Government keeps 52.68 per cent of all incomes in Nigeria. No matter how difficult, Tinubu should let it go.
