President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, DIAL 811: A DEFT OR DAFT Call?
Come to think of it, is devolution a deft or
daft call? Now that Nigeria’s chronic ill-health and resultant frail state is
on the brink, who do we call for help? In some climes, 911 is that emergency
telephone number structured as a responsive center for critical moments and
needs. In the United States and the North American continent, the 911 code is
as old and famous as Nigeria’s present and sluggish governance framework. It’s
a global consensus that the 911 dial has been and still is a life-saver for
hundreds of millions of Northern Americans requiring urgent medical and
security aid. Nigeria’s outstanding seniors on the democratic turf are also in
the know of her current malicious governance structure, cruelly powered by a
military hegemony dating back to the year 1999 and mischievously and
erroneously referred to as the people’s constitution.
Therefore, it’s a national consensus that our
current governance configuration authorized by ‘their’ 1999 Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) is invariably a life-rustler for two
hundred and six million Nigerians in areas of unity, security and development.
It has overwhelmingly clogged national progress by obstructing universal
participation in the pragmatic agenda of building this country. The 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) consistently
advances a dysfunctional structure of governance with disastrous results in the
triad areas of unity, security and development. The obvious is that one
humongous executive power-wielding Presidential office at the expense of
several other toothless sub-national executive positions can no longer produce
the urgent and effective security across Nigeria’s land mass of 923,768 km2.
The dire call to secure the interior and fringes of this nation cannot be a
routine one to be merely placed from the number one seat in Abuja to the
offices of National security Chiefs also within Abuja with expectations of
miraculous workings through military kinetics. The multifarious determinants of
national peace, which is not just the absence of war, are socioeconomic
variables whose control towers ought to be largely vested in the Sub-national
Governments that lay close to where the estimated 87 million poor Nigerians
live. The inability to satisfy the rightful needs of these numbers is perhaps
the greatest fuel of the large-scale banditry, kidnapping and other forms of
insecurity that pervade this land.
Similar logical analysis exposes the gross
deficiency in meeting the gigantic developmental lacuna in this country. It is
true that the likes of the Federal Ministry of Transport, then under the
command & control of Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, commendably stimulated initiatives
that ‘tried’ to bridge the transportation gap in Nigeria by revitalizing the trans-geopolitical
zones’ railway system. However, this doesn’t mean that such Federal approach
can be applied to all development sectors within Nigeria. One Federal
Government, working through her numerous agents, cannot produce the desired
developmental results for 206 million Nigerians. How do I know this?
Mathematics and Logic! The mathematical sense in my argument is that 811 is
greater than 1, while the logical flow resonates with the primary definition of
the economic phrase – division of labour. That’s all!
If over 3 million estimated residents of Ekiti
State want water, shouldn’t they think of the closest LGA Chairmen’s offices
and not the very distant Federal Ministry of Water Resources? Should the number
of Nigerians living in Benue State, estimated to be above 5 million, want more
metric tons of fertilizers to complement their status as the food basket of the nation, a number of
Nigerians are of the view that the Benue State Ministry of Agriculture will be
in a better position to create and sustain a budget line, release funds,
administer, monitor & evaluate the process. For all it’s worth, Mr.
Babatunde Fashola SAN, Minister of Works & Housing, once reminded us that
most of the things we demand of the Federal Government are the
responsibilities of 36 State Governments, 1 Federal Capital Territory (FCT)
administration and 774 Local Government Area (LGA) Councils. The former Lagos
State Governor already alluded to the impossibility of his Ministry providing
affordable houses to 206 million Nigerians and the rationality behind the drive
to break the constitutional chokehold of the Federal Government on the other
members of the Federation under the current abysmal and unitary system of
Government.
Sadly, all efforts by National Governments at
leading the revival of the ailing Nigeria have been to clandestinely and
legally safeguard the military document of 1999, in order to perpetuate the
domineering Federal powers in a supposed Federal system. Like those of an
emperor, the Federal Government enjoys its continued subjugation of the
federating units. Instead of being innovative about lawful means of discarding
the provocative 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as
amended), Federal agents within the legislative arm of Government are
comfortable reiterating the deficiency of the legal document that forbids its
repeal. Not until recently, all Nigerians who have taken turns to occupy the
combined 469 seats in the bi-cameral National Assembly since 1999 were
conservative in patriotism. We have had to wait for Senator Ovie Omo-Agege in
year 2021 to ‘remind or reveal’ to Nigerians that the 1999 Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) must first be amended to include the
powers of the National Assembly to repeal same and that inventive
problem-solving approach requires a memorandum from the Nigerian public to the
Senate and House of Representatives. Till that is done, the repackaging series
conducted for the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as
amended) shall continue to maintain national mediocrity.
That’s why the call has been to kick start
Nigeria’s destiny-recovery process by jettisoning the 1999 military charter,
clad as a constitution, for a fresh & people-borne constitution, as
canvassed by illustrious legal luminaries in the ilk of Aare Afe Babalola, CON,
OFR, SAN, Chief Wole Olanipekun, OFR, SAN and Prof. Itse Sagay, SAN. In its
stead, the country has opted since 1999, for jamboree revisions that have
ignored sensitive, progressive, Federalism-promoting and important
conversations such as fiscal autonomy, resource control, Local Government
autonomy, unbundling of the asphyxiating exclusive & concurrent legislative
lists etc. in line with what I term ‘vertical restructuring’. The series of
amendment has also jettisoned the need to ‘horizontally’ restructure the three
arms of Government at each of the three levels of Government. The 9th
National Assembly recorded year 2021 as another window of amendment of the 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), rather than move
to help secure a new document.
Friends, what we’ve had within this federation
structure is a case of giving somebody a goat and still holding on tightly to
the rope around its neck. The call to constitutionally devolve powers from 1
Federal entity to 811 federating units comprising 36
States, 1 FCT, 774 LGAs is a deft move that would brazenly begin the
liberation journey of this country and her astronomically expanding population
of inhabitants since independence: 45 million in 1960, 71 million in 1979, 120
million in 1999 and 206 million in 2020. Federalism by a self-acclaimed Federal
Republic of Nigeria is an experiential governance structure that can gradually
and sustainably enhance her unity, security and development. To call for the
continued running of the current dysfunctional unitary system and its
disastrous results is wicked and daft. Devolution will create State &
Community Policing, minerals’ exploitation etc. Inclusive of the ability to
directly woo Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) to States and LGAs that are in
demand of such in their local areas, restructuring will place the powers to
determine the course of these investments in the hands of the federating units,
because they are the immediate hosts and beneficiaries. We are tired of the
Federal Government’s illogical and obstinate-minded resolve to continue to
over-indulge and override States and LGAs for reasons that include the baffling
desire of its multitudinous agents to be seeing to be doing something with its
stifling fangs that burrow deeply into our recurrent expenditure. Yet, the
comprehensive Steve Oronsaye’s Report that dispassionately recommended their
pruning several years ago is yet to be implemented.
Although the calls for regional administrative
structures and push for secessions are far from my restructuring propositions, my
book titled DIAL 81: DEFT OR DAFT? dispassionately examined these two critical
suggestions. Friends, DIAL 811 is a
bookish call to restructure or restart crucial parts of our national engine
with 37 President-like State Governors and 774 Governor-like LGA Chairmen.
Nigerians’ collective desire is that the occupiers of these 811 executive seats
have requisite capacities to live up to the power-lean titles such as Chief
Security Officers, development generals and resource managers, which they
currently bear. The paranoid, parasitic and pretentious ill-receivers
misinterpreting this noble, logical and overdue call should please take note.
“Arise, O Compatriots, Nigeria’s call obey”; Arise, O members of the
executive & legislative arm at the Federal level; Obey the deft calls for
restructuring, federalism or devolution of powers to 811 sub-national units and
disobey the daft calls for continuity of a unitary system of Government. Consequently,
I urge President Bola Tinubu, GCFR, and his team to critically and
dispassionately examine DIAL 811: DEFT OR
DAFT? - a book that strives to elucidate the Federalism model proposed by
genuinely concerned patriots and democrats and stimulate workable actions to
achieve this patriotic objective through restructuring, without jeopardizing
the unity of Nigeria.
Dr.
Adetolu Ademujimi, a Medical Doctor, Author, Reformer, Coach, Public Policy
expert and Social entrepreneur, culled and adapted this write-up from the introductory
page of his latest book title - “DIAL 811: DEFT OR DAFT?”, (Foreword by Chief
Wole Olanipekun, SAN, OFR, CFR and Official endorsement by the Governor of Ondo
State, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, CON. You can visit the website www.adetoluademujimi.com for more
details
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