Why Nigeria should return to regional government

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), is incurably defective, deficient and grossly flawed in its promotion of federalism. It is obvious that regional government held sway in Nigeria from its pre-independence period, and further from 1960 – 1966, when the regional arrangement of the Nigeria political structure was altered by military coup de’tat, no part of the country has had it so good ever again.

This is because the Presidential system, which we adopted since 1966 has been a whole lot of a dismal failure, having consistently and progressively failed to deliver the dividends of democracy to Nigerians, its obvious failure to implement budgets, fight corruption, self-seeking dismal economic policies and intractable security challenges and sectional approach to issues of state. Among some of the notable defective, deficient and or flawed provisions are:
Autonomy of the three tiers of government and over centralisation of power in the President and the National Assembly. This translates to limited autonomy and decision making capacity for the constituent parts of the country like States and Local Governments.

The provision on immunity for elected officers of government without borders, which is the precursor to impunity, a culture of endemic corruption through which some gain unimpeded access to the nation’s treasury, which they constantly and continually loot, bad governance, agent of torture and terrorism and abuse of office, and other such crimes committed while in office, but for which they cannot and have never been prosecuted, and also the basis for the creation of strong personalities and weak institutions to make our elected leaders have a smooth sail.

Resource control and the jaundiced principle of derivation: Section 44 (3) of the 1999 Constitution took away from the state where the natural resources like petroleum deposits are the operational rule that obtained when groundnut, rubber and palm oil and cocoa were the mainstay of the Nigerian economy, denying them the right to control their resources and pay stipulated taxes to the Federal Government as it obtains in countries of the world.

This make States to be treated like slaves, as they go cap in hand to the Federal Government for money to run the affairs of their states. The 13 per cent derivation is a gross violation of the rights of the people of the oil rich Niger Delta region, and also an exclusion of some states like Niger and others who are hydro electricity generated states where also excluded from 13 per cent derivation, an aberration which ought to be corrected.

Discrimination: Sections 42 (1) of the 1999 Constitution promotes discrimination between Moslems, Christians, tribes and cultural affiliations. Propping up Nigeria’s secular nature is discriminatory and engenders religious conflict and tensions.

Judicial independence: The Constitution did not make provision for the independence of the judiciary. Such independence ought to have taken care of financial autonomy, independent means of appointments, promotions, discipline and assurances that no punishment shall follow their decisions no matter what.

Outdated provisions: There are some provisions on the 1999 Constitution, being an annexure to a military decree, that are not relevant to modern issues because they fail to address contemporary issues of state and governance. Some of these are the number of states created, the representation, etc. Others are the provisions on the fundamental rights of the citizens, wherein it excludes certain rights that are globally recognised as rights of the citizens. The other area is that of non-inclusion of referendum on the process of amendment of the provision of the Constitution. That the 1999 Constitution was enacted in 1999 shows that it would not take into account such current issues like climate change, cybersecurity, digital technology and the Artificial Intelligence revolution.

Inadequate representation: The Constitution did not promote equal and effective representation by gender, culture and ethnic diversity. This has led to feelings of marginalisation and neglect by a cross section of the country. In the creation of constituencies, states and local governments, care was not taken to include all ethnic tribes and nationalities, which implies that some ethnic peoples and tribes are shut out from the government at the National, state and local government.

Excessive powers vested in the President. The Nigerian President is one of the most powerful elected personages on planet earth by virtue of the enormous powers vested on him by the Constitution. This ought not to be so and is the bane of Nigeria’s political and economic woes.

Conflict with customary and Islamic law was not dealt with by the 1999 Constitution.
Remnants of military dictatorships in the 1999 Constitution such as its failure to outlaw and sanction military coup de’tats.

Rigidity of the Constitution. The provision of a two-thirds majority of the two houses of the National Assembly and the States Houses of Assembly for an amendment to become valid makes it a very rigid document, the process to amend it is very difficult as it is difficult to get that requirement to push an amendment through.

Electoral challenges: the Constitution failed to give precise statement about our electoral process. Cases of electoral malpractices, fraud, vote buying, voter intimidation, non-partisanship and impartiality of the electoral umpire and punishment of election offenders were not addressed by the Constitution

From some of the above stated defects, it is no surprise that Federalism failed in Nigeria. The cry of domination, marginalisation, representation, resource control and such others have continued to surface and resurface to show the people’s disenchantment with federalism. This informs our proposal for a return to regional government, in a much advanced state than what obtained in the post independent Nigeria, 1960 – 1966.

The following reasons account for my proposing regional government over and above Federalism:
Decentralisation and Self determination: This seeks to decentralise power from the centre to the Regions, States and Local Governments so that they would be able to exercise powers over a sizeable items in our constitution, including resource control, mining, electricity generation, and management of their cultural and security issues which has eluded this country for decades. This will invariably put considerable autonomy and decision making capacity at the disposal of the constituent parts of the country like States and Local Governments.

It will ensure that the constituent parts, regions, states, provinces, local government and districts enjoy unconditional right to self-determination. Financial autonomy: This will reverse the trend in which States and Local Governments become mere appendages to the Federal Government, always going cap in hands to the federal Government for funds for all it intends to do. This will boost internally generated revenue drive for each regional government. The grant of financial autonomy to Regional governments will lift the burden of funding all the tiers of government off the federal Government and will address resource control with the repeal of Section 44 (3) of the 1999 Constitution. In addition, the regions will be enarmoured to raise tax heads, source and manage their taxes.

Language and culture: There will be a fast and well-coordinated promotion, protection and development of the traditional lifestyle, culture and language of the people as most if not all who will fall into and within one region, people with similar language, history, cultural affinity, etc., which will be exploited and developed by the various regions, to halt the gradual extinction of our local languages and culture. 

Regional governments: These regional governments will be the six geopolitical zones which would be tagged, the South-South region, the South-East region, the South-West region, the North-West region, the North-East region, and the North-Central region. 

The six regions arrangement would be better response to agitations for creation of more states than having to contend with the tough task of having to amend the constitution to make room for more states. These six geo-political zone, which shall either be provinces or regions and their attendant ethnic nationalities and peoples shall enjoy self-government, with right to establish the requisite institutions of government in their areas, and would be entitled to equitable representation at the local, regional and central government.

The introduction of regional government will help in the dispersal and limitation of power, protecting individual citizens and entities from an overly powerful government; easy to run lawful checks and balances on other arms of government (through an integral plan of checks and balance of all tiers by each tier and that the government is nearer to the people), and allow each government to run at its own pace.

It will also increase the scrutiny of government action and reduce incidences of corruption; provide for greater representation of citizens and more opportunities for citizenship involvement in the democratic processes as voters, electoral candidates, campaigners or activists and allow for the customisation and differentiation in government policies and laws to meet local needs and preferences. 

It will also bring about a resurgence in healthy cooperation, competition and innovation among the regional governments, potentially leading to better designed policies and more economically efficient governments, as governments would be forced to learn from each other’s policy successes, failures and models. This includes damage control from a policy or government failure. 

It will also enhance both liberal and democratic elements of a political system and bring about democratic participation, representation and processes, based on potentially people oriented policy thrust. 

Regional Parliaments: There shall be introduced regional parliaments which shall be a unicameral legislature. The representation shall be based on the divergent cultural affinity, and not just based on population, shall be elected by the people in an election conducted by its electoral body. 

Cooperation and Coordination: I propose a strong sense of cooperation and coordination between the centre and the regions, and the regions and the localities which comprise the regions. This shall be in the area of areas of cooperation, for example in road construction and crime fighting, while coordination, in such areas like disease prevention and control, education, foreign policy, defence and security.

Political autonomy: This will address and redistribute and reassign most of the items under the exclusive Legislative List under the 1999 Constitution, with emphasis on agriculture, education, health care, tourism, transportation – roads and river, electricity, and environmental protection.

Security: Regionalism will allow the regions to tackle security challenges as they deem fir and based on local conditions, without awaiting for the Federal Government to come and help them.

Produce a new constitution for Nigeria: The regional government will allow or make room for the enactment and introduction of a people-oriented constitution, which evolves and issues from the deliberations and consensus of the people to replace the 1999 Constitution, which was merely an annexure to a military decree.
Mohammed, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria wrote from Abuja.