AS Nigeria moves closer towards state failure, the agitation for restructuring it to fit its natural default mode of true federalism is attracting both genuine and dubious converts. Lately, the Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, joined the train, arguing rightly that Nigeria “must embrace restructuring to survive,” retooling its polity, economy, security and “ways of doing things.” Like other Northern politicians lately, a former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Attahiru Jega, also urged the executive and legislative arms of government to opt for “short-term restructuring” ahead of the 2023 general election. In the light of current realities, stakeholders must rise above politics and begin the process to save the union.

Unlike the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and other elite still living in denial, the message must sink in to all stakeholders: Nigeria faces an existential threat. Centrifugal forces, long suppressed, are tearing it apart. Mutual trust among the component nationalities has broken down and the unitary administrative and political format imposed on a natural federation has failed beyond repair. The economy is unproductive while insecurity has reached unprecedented level. Unless the country is restructured into a proper federation, collapse is inevitable. Sadly, it may not be peaceful. Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate, was right when he said recently: “We are in a mess. This country is in a mess. It is disintegrating before our very eyes.”

The inevitable dissolution has been creeping for a long time. The tighter the Federal Government grasps state power, the more the country slips through its fingers. Foreign Policy, an online magazine, argues that states do not fail overnight. The seeds of their destruction are sown deep within their political institutions. “They fail not in an explosion of war and violence but by being utterly unable to take advantage of their society’s huge potential for growth, condemning their citizens to a lifetime of poverty,” it says. Saving the country is beyond politics and it is beyond regional, sectional, ethnic and personal interest. The present arrangement via the 1999 Constitution is patently and disastrously dysfunctional. Its inherent contradictions have delivered poverty, economic ruin, and insecurity, pushing the country towards absolute state failure.

Since the outset of the Fourth Republic in 1999, instead of progress as witnessed during the First and Second Republics, infrastructure has collapsed, the country has become the world’s poverty capital, unemployment is 33.3 per cent and human development indices have plummeted. It is ranked the 12th most fragile country globally.

Unprecedented insecurity and separatist movements have taken firm roots. Conflict resolution mechanisms have failed. The entire North is under siege from Islamist terrorists in the North-East, bandits/terrorists in the North-West, and Fulani herdsmen/militants in the North-Central. The South is not safe either, assailed by the herders/kidnappers, and by home-grown armed robbers, kidnappers, ritual murderers, criminal gangs, vandals, and ethnic militants. Dealing with the rampant insecurity is impossible as the basic law insanely vests policing and security exclusively in the Federal Government. States are powerless to secure their territories, yet made to fund the inept central police.

Those arrogantly dismissing restructuring and making peaceful change impossible are the real enemies of Nigeria. Federalism is simply a two-tiered governance structure of a central government and its constituent units-regional, provincial, or state governments. The sub-national governments are, in theory and practice, autonomous units with the power to govern their territories. Countries with diverse ethnic, regional, or cultural characteristics are natural federations. There is no plausible argument against this. There are 25 such polities in the world today jointly accounting for 40 per cent of the global population. Major advantages, said the Brookings Institution, include regional self-rule, inclusion, and preservation of liberties. Its key pillars are fiscal federalism, resource control and autonomous policing. The absence of these has pauperised the 36 states and made them unsafe.

Federalism “reduces conflict between diverse communities, affords inter-jurisdictional competition that encourages innovations,” the report said. It conclusively states: “Sometimes nations face a stark choice: allow regions to federate and govern themselves or risk national dissolution.” This accurately describes Nigeria’s situation today.

The Buhari regime and other protagonists of the ‘Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable’ mantra delude themselves by failing to face the stark reality of history. Clamping down on separatist agitators will NOT preserve the union; it may only postpone the day of reckoning.

When a country faces an existential threat as Nigeria faces today, its leaders do two things. First, they face reality. Next, they rise above politics, partisanship, group, and parochial interests to save the union. Statesmanship, not primitive politicking, will save the day. In the United States, bipartisan statesmanship trumps the sharp diversities when external threats arise or critical economic issues such as the 9/11 attacks and the recent $1.8 trillion welfare plan approved by Congress. But here, leaders cannot surmount ethnicity, sectionalism, and religion. Most subordinate national interest to their ambition for wealth, power, and influence. Hypocrisy, opportunism, deceit, and crass politicking have delayed restructuring for too long. As Wole Olanipekun, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, recently noted, the American constitution “was not put in place by politicians but by statesmen” that put aside short-term gains to create an enduring democracy.

The PDP spent 16 years in power, produced three presidents and refused to restructure. The political conferences they initiated in 2005 and 2014 were primarily opportunistic political time-buying gimmicks.

The principle of self-determination is prominently embodied in Article I of the Charter of the United Nations and it is firmly established in international law. Globally, there are 100 groups in 29 countries, according to a report, that are seeking greater autonomy from the central government or self-determination from their motherland. CEPR, a research-based policy analyst, says throughout the course of history, there are few regions in the world whose map has changed as frequently and abruptly as that of Europe. Yet, amid blatant injustice, rulers and groups who hold all the key levers of state power in Nigeria have adamantly made peaceful dialogue impossible. Instead, all forms of self-determination agitations, including peaceful ones, are “demonised” and criminalised. Politicians in the APC that promised to restructure to unseat the PDP in 2015 are treacherously silent today, as they fine-tune ambitions for power. Olusegun Obasanjo, who, like his two immediate presidential successors, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, regarded calls for restructuring as treason, now stridently advocates true federalism.

Nigeria desperately desires statesmen and visionary leaders, not big men and rulers. Restructuring is beyond the PDP and APC, whose leaders switch from declaring a phantom “Nigeria’s unity” to be non-negotiable when in power only to become advocates when in opposition. The APC’s el-Rufai committee report on restructuring has been trashed. Unsurprisingly, PDP now trumpets restructuring at any given opportunity. Both political parties fiddle while Nigeria burns.

However, the advantages of federalism are replete in the country’s history. From the era of self-government in the 1950s under colonial rule to the first six years of independence, the pace of development achieved by the defunct autonomous regions has been unmatched since the incursion of the military in 1966 and the ensuing centralisation.

While no human arrangement is perfect, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance says that by dividing powers and responsibilities between a central and regional level, federalism fosters competition, guaranteeing local autonomy over regional economic development, infrastructure and public services, culture, and language. It also facilitates effective law enforcement with citizen police. Federal polities vest law enforcement primarily with the federating units; each chooses the one most suitable.

We must end this politics of muddling through. Nigeria’s patently dysfunctional system must give way to practical federalism, featuring state policing, fiscal federalism, and resource control. Genuine national leaders from all regions and sections should come together immediately and courageously, push for an immediate restructuring of the collapsing edifice, and save Nigeria.

Time to do so peacefully is running out. Enlightened self-interest dictates urgency and a rise above ethnicity and politics. Unless Nigeria restructures soon, violent implosion is inevitable and unstoppable.

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