Since the public presentation of the book We Are All Biafrans and the intervention of a former vice president
of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, who chaired the event and delivered a speech titled
“Restructuring for
Nigeria’s national unity” – a speech I recommend to everyone interested in the unity and
survival of Nigeria – the issue of restructuring Nigeria and negotiating its
unity has once again taken the centre stage of national discourse.
No less a person than President Muhammadu Buhari has had to weigh in
on the debate. During his Eid el-Fitr message to Nigerians on Wednesday, July
6, 2016, he was reported to have said: “I assure them (in
reference to the Niger Delta ‘militants’) that when we were very junior
officers, we were told by our leaders, by the Head of State, Gen. Gowon, that
to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done…we never thought of oil. What
we were after is one Nigeria. Please, pass the message to the militants that
one Nigeria is not negotiable. And I pray they better accept it. The
constitution is very clear…I assure them there would be justice.”
Before President Buhari’s admonition, Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole
Soyinka, had noted during a parley with The
Punch on Tuesday, June 28, 2016: “I am on the side of those who say we must
do everything to avoid disintegration. That language I understand. I don’t
understand (ex-President Olusegun) Obasanjo’s language. I don’t understand (President
Muhammadu) Buhari’s language and all their predecessors, saying the sovereignty
of this nation is non-negotiable. It’s bloody well negotiable and we had better
negotiate it. We better negotiate it, not even at meetings, not at conferences,
but every day in our conduct towards one another.”
The opinions of these two prominent Nigerians reflect the two
divergent opinions on the issue of restructuring Nigeria or negotiating her
unity. I had planned this article – that was before President Buhari’s remarks –
as a cautionary note to the Left, progressives and genuine patriots in Nigeria.
I believe they are the only ones predisposed and sincerely open to solving the
current crisis. Regrettably, this is one issue that has divided the Left,
progressives and patriots in Nigeria.
This division has defined the kind of
response – ranging from obfuscation and doublespeak to outright denial and
combativeness – that has made it impossible to have a coherent national
narrative and action plan. Since those who ought to speak out and act have
maintained criminal silence and indifference, they have yielded the space to
conservative analysts of every hue, hypocrites, blackmailers, anarchists, and
fifth columnists.
So what are the issues in contention? There seems to be a general
agreement, even among those who brought us to this near-tragic end, that
Nigeria is not working for Nigerians. However, and this is where the divergence
of opinions sets in, Nigeria is not
working not because it is not workable, but because it has been rigged to fail.
Take the issue of the civil war (1967-70) which President Buhari alluded to.
That war was fought in part because of natural resources (oil specifically).
That was the driving force of the so-called federal offensive and to some
extent it also defined the geo-politics of what would become the secessionist
Republic of Biafra. After 30 months of fighting and millions of lives lost,
there was a “negotiated” settlement. A truce was declared with the catchphrase
“No victor; No vanquished.”
Unfortunately,
46 years after the end of that internecine war, low-intensity conflicts by
state and non-state actors are raging across the country, from Boko Haram in
the North-east, Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) and Arewa
People’s Congress (APC) in the North-west, the
Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and other groups in the South-east, the
Niger Delta Avengers and Bakassi Strike Force (BSF)
in the South-south to the Oodua
Peoples Congress (OPC) in the South-west and potential
avengers in the North-central. What this tells us is that that war didn’t
really end and hasn’t ended. What then do we do to fix Nigeria? The simple
answer would be to return to the negotiation table.
To be clear, Nigeria has always been negotiated. The problem has been
that the “victors” or those who control power at each round of negotiation have
unilaterally defined the structure and politics of the country going forward. Again,
I return to the issue of oil. Before independence in 1960, this was the “sharing” formula for crude
oil revenues: Oil producing states
(region) retained 67.4% of revenues,
the federal
government got 20%, non-oil states (regions) got 12.6%.
After the civil war in 1970, the regime of Gen Yakubu Gowon through Decree No.
13 “negotiated” a new formula: Oil producing states retained 45% of revenues,
the federal government got 55% while non-oil states got 0%. In 1975, the
regime of Gen Murtala Muhammed in another round of negotiation through Decree
6, came up with this formula: Oil producing states would retain 20% of revenues,
the federal government got 80% and non-oil states got
0%. In 1976, Gen Obasanjo, then military dictator, in his omniscience, gave oil
producing states 0% of revenues while the federal government got 100% and the
non-oil states got 0%.
President
Shehu Shagari who came to power in 1979 brought a bizarre twist to the
“sharing” formula. He retained the Obasanjo formula of 0% allocation to oil
producing states and 100% to the federal government to be shared in this order:
50% shared equally among states, 40% shared based on population and 10% based
on land mass. By 2000, during the reincarnation of Gen. Obasanjo as civilian
president, a new revenue sharing formula was negotiated which gave oil
producing states 13%.
As Prof. Yakubu Aboki Ochefu notes in the introduction to the
book Nigeria is Negotiable, “Beginning
from the Berlin West Africa Conference of 1884-85, the ‘negotiated’ existence
of what eventually became Nigeria in 1914 (unfortunately, negotiated without
the input of those who would eventually become Nigerians) has always been a
part of its historical experience. Under British colonial rule, the economic
and administrative structures of the country were continuously rejigged until
independence in 1960.
“Between the official
versions of the decolonisation history that gives a prominent role to our
nationalist heroes for winning independence from the British, to others who
believe in the ‘conspiracy theory’ of decolonisation, the process of how the
region with the least democratic credentials ended up as the driver of a new
democratic enterprise epitomizes aspects of the negotiated experience. As a
country on its ‘third missionary’ journey to a truly democratic nation, the fundamental
questions of nation building that began over 100 years ago have not been fully
and or properly answered. We
must collectively negotiate to ensure that we retain the map (of Nigeria) but
change the way we exist under that map.”
On April 22, 1990, a group of young Nigerian army officers – mainly
from a section of the country (the same army President Buhari told us last week
fought to keep Nigeria one) – attempted to overthrow the military regime of Gen
Ibrahim Babangida. While that abortive coup lasted, the rebellious soldiers
excised five states of the federation – Sokoto, Borno, Katsina,
Kano and Bauchi. That coup
and the excision order were popular and well-received in many parts of the
country. Clearly, if that coup had succeeded, the aftermath would have been
another civil war. Gen. Babangida responded to that mutiny by dividing Nigeria
into 30 states from 21 (just as Yakubu Gowon divided Nigeria into 12 states
from four regions in 1967 to weaken the Biafra secession).
Having told ourselves a few historical home truths, let us quickly avail
ourselves of one more opportunity to reclaim Nigeria. When people call for
restructuring Nigeria, they make the call for a reason. And it should not be
dismissed peremptorily. The rulers of the country use every opportunity to
speak about the unity of Nigeria and hardly do anything to build or enhance
that unity.
I don’t think the issue really is about the unity of Nigeria. Undoubtedly,
many Nigerians want to live in a united Nigeria. It is important, therefore,
that we do not conflate the issues. The call for restructuring Nigeria has
nothing to do with the “dissolution” of Nigeria. You can believe that “Nigeria
is non-negotiable” and still support the call for restructuring the country. That
call is basically about building an inclusive and equitable nation; one in
which your worth and position are determined not by where you come from or your
religion; a nation founded on a popular constitution validated by “we the
people”.
On a final note, let me emphasize that restructuring Nigeria has become
a “categorical imperative” for the country. It is either we restructure or
perish! Restructuring Nigeria is not an elitist concept (even
if it is sometimes used by sections of the ruling elite to negotiate power) neither
is it about splitting Nigeria. We can restructure (or negotiate) Nigeria
without changing the internal map of the country; it is more about resource
control rather than resource allocation; more about devolution of power and,
therefore, responsibilities. It is about enhancing citizenship rights and the
existential confidence in the country.
Of course,
restructuring Nigeria is not a silver bullet or cure-all for our problems. But
we can’t take on our problems as a nation without a generally acceptable and
workable structure. In a sentence, we MUST “re-federalize”.
Chido Onumah’s latest
book is We Are All Biafrans. He can be reached through conumah@hotmail.com; Follow
him on Twitter: @conumah
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