• Tinubu gets bill proposing return to regional govt today
• CIEN: Time to restructure Nigeria has come
• Clark writes Tinubu, demands implementation of 2014 Confab report
• Operators of the laws, not the system, bane of Nigeria’s development, says Sanusi 

Days after celebrating Nigeria’s 25 years of unbroken democracy in the current Fourth Republic, President Bola Tinubu will today receive a draft bill seeking a return to a regional system of government for Nigeria. Also on the president’s table is a letter by elder statesman, Edwin Clark, to Tinubu demanding the implementation of the 2014 national conference report.

The proposed legislation authored by a chieftain of the Yoruba socio-cultural association, Afenifere, Akin Fapohunda, and titled, “A Bill for an Act to substitute the annexure to Decree 24 of 1999 with New Governance Model for the Federal Republic of Nigeria’, seeks among others, new extant laws to be cited as “The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria New Governance Model for Nigeria Act 2024.”

Recall that the bill was last week disowned by the House of Representatives, whose spokesman, Akin Rotimi, said had not been listed for deliberation in the ongoing moves to review the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

However, Fapohunda told newsmen yesterday that the bill would be transmitted to the President today (Friday). “I’m submitting my letter (draft bill) today but I will wait for seven days before releasing it to the public,” he said.

Giving a sneak preview of his proposal to the president, Fapohunda, who also represents the Coalition of Indigenous Ethnic Nationalities (CIEN), said the organisation is proposing the division of the country into eight geo-political regions with approximate interim boundaries.

The proposed regions include the southern region to be made up of Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, and Cross Rivers States and “optional inclusions of the Annang, Effik, Ekoi, Ibibio, Oro Ohaji/Egbema in Southern Imo, the Adonia, Efemia, Ijaw, Ogoni, Bini, Ishan, Isoko, Urhobo and the Ijaw-speaking people in Northern Ondo State with land contiguity.

“The South Eastern region consists of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States. The Western region comprises Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, and Ekiti States, incorporating the Yoruba-speaking people in Kogi and the Igbomina people in Kwara State. Additional options would be the Itsekiri people of Delta State and Akoko-Edo people of Edo State to make their respective choices.”

Others include the Mid-Western Region “made up of Edo and Delta States, possibly incorporating the Anioma people and the Eastern Middle Belt Region comprising Northern Cross River, Southern Kaduna, Southern Borno, Adamawa, Benue, Kogi, Plateau, Nasarawa and Taraba States.”

The Western Middle Belt Region comprises Southern Kebbi, parts of Kwara and Niger States while the North Eastern Region will be made up of parts of Borno, Gombe, Bauchi, Jigawa, and Yobe States.

The North Western Region, according to the Afenifere chieftain, comprises Kaduna, parts of Kebbi, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara States.

Fapohunda said the coalition envisaged a two-tier government, federal and regions, adding that the latter would be at liberty to manage her affairs, “including the creation of sub-entities, based on the stipulations that are agreed upon and embedded in their respective constitutions.

“We seek to introduce a new regional government framework with executive and legislative functions and bodies with the headship title of Premier. In the new dispensation, the present states (for example the six in the Western region) would be converted to provinces. Governance at this level shall be by Provincial Councils that integrate executive and legislative functions, with Chairman and Support Specialist Administrative Officers. The regions shall be at liberty to create provinces, subject to viability and self-sustainability.

“The present Local Government Areas are to be transformed into divisions, with divisional managers and specialist administrative officers; to operate as socio-economic development institutions. The new provinces shall also be at liberty to create divisions, subject to viability and self-sustainability.

“Regions and sub-regional entities are to be reconfigured such as would reduce the cost of public and civil service administration to less than 20 to 30 per cent of generated revenue.”

CIEN has explained that it has taken cognisance of the fact that the nation’s faulty socio-political and socio-economic structures were traceable to the 1999 Constitution and believed that the call for the restructuring of the Nigerian Federation is germane and an idea whose time has come.

This was contained in a statement signed by Prof. Benjamin Okaba, Chairman, CIEN; Timothy Gandu, Co-Chairman, CIEN; and Nubari Saatah, Secretary, CIEN issued to journalists in Kaduna on Thursday.

The coalition while congratulating Nigerians and the state on Democracy Day, said the hope rekindled and inspired in Nigerians on May 29, 1999, has slowly but steadily degenerated into palpable despair as a result of Nigeria’s visible socioeconomic and sociopolitical decay.

The Coalition explained further that “this slow degeneration of the Nigerian Federation is manifested in more ways than one, but encapsulated in the following: the budding secessionist movements that have sprung up in different sections of the country over the years and now threaten its unity; the rise in religious and ethnic intolerance; insurgency and terrorism which have ravaged and continue to ravage different parts of the country; a gradual socioeconomic decline with a ripple effect of impoverishing a larger percentage of the Nigerian population, with a grossly skewed graph of the distribution of the commonwealth; and last but not the least, a decline in Nigeria’s sociopolitical status within the comity of nations on the African continent and the wider international stage. These and many more have brought us to a head as a people.

“We, therefore, believe that the call for the restructuring of the Nigerian Federation is germane and an idea whose time has come. Mindful of the above, CIEN, in living up to its founding mandate of uniting Nigeria’s indigenous ethnic nationalities, would like to inform the public and its political leadership, that after due deliberations and consultation on the restructuring of the Nigerian Federation, we have put together recommendations and templates which we strongly believe if and when implemented, will serve to steer Nigeria away from a more tumultuous immediate future, and towards a more prosperous future where the hopes and aspirations of the indigenous ethnic nationalities will be actualised.”

In his letter to the president dated June 13, Clark also urged the President to carry out an immediate restructuring of Nigeria if the nation must remain one.

“Now that the elections are over, we must face the restructuring of this country,” the Southern and Middle-Belt Leaders Forum leader said.
“I repeat, the immediate restructuring of Nigeria must be carried out if this country is to remain one, and I appeal to Mr President to take immediate action to implement the historic 2014 National Conference Report which submitted 600 recommendations to the Presidency on how to restructure Nigeria in every aspect of our lives.”

The elder statesman also weighed in on the travails of the embattled leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, who has been in custody since 2021.

He wants the President to apply political solution to Kanu the way the Federal Government withdrew the three-count terrorism charge it entered against the detained President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Bello Bodejo.

In his letter, the leader of the Ijaw nation accused former President Muhammadu Buhari of doing everything to subjugate Igbos from the South-Eastern part of Nigeria for reasons best known to him.

Weighing in on the desirability of a return to regional government, the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, noted that though the nation’s democracy is flawed, there’s no perfect system anywhere in the world.

“You can see even the U.S. democracy with all the issues that they have with Donald Trump and all that. There’s no perfect system, but we can at least be honest with ourselves and respect what we have agreed on as a Constitution and work on it.

“If you talk about the parliamentary system as an option, we had it the First Republic, what happened? You know, at the end of the day, it is the human beings that operate the system.

“Also talking about regionalism, initially, the regions we had in this country were North, East and West. Then came North, East, Midwest and West. You now have this creation called six geopolitical zones. Where did they come from historically? We can keep dividing and subdividing this country and thinking of ourselves as belonging to regions. But are we really being honest? Are these regions homogeneous?

“To me, this is not a solution. Into how many parts are you going to slice this country to get homogenous nations? How? With all the intermarriages and all. I’m not sure that is a solution. We can’t shift responsibility away from the human beings, from the people who are responsible for operating the system.”