ANAYO EZUGWU 
Prof Attahiru Jega is Co Chairman of the Committee on Implementation of the Livestock Reforms and a former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). In this interview, he speaks on the proposal for creating additional 31 states, constitution amendment and marginalisation of some regions in the country, ANAYO EZUGWU writes
How did you manage that calmness in 2015 during the collation and declaration of results for the presidential election?
When you have a job to do, you focus on the job, try to achieve results, and avoid distractions. The kind of work that people are expected to do in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), one needs to be focused and have a very thick skin to be able to deliver. So, I approached the issues with a clear focus on achieving results. At the time that issue arose, we had finished all the elections, all that remained was to announce the results. So, one has to ensure that nothing truncates the process.
The House of Representatives Committee on Constitution Review received requests for creation of 31 new states across Nigeria; what is your thought on the issue?
I have been engaged on the issue of constitutional reforms to address what we can call not only the imperfections of our federal system but to improve upon the structure and the operations of our federal system. While I will say that many things would require a constitutional review, to be honest, creation of states is not one of them.
We seem to already have too many states. If we continue in the direction of every request that comes, then you create a state, we are moving in the direction of what one would call the atomization of the Nigerian federation.
Somebody used to speak about certain parts of Nigeria as atomistic societies. An atomistic society means there are so many small, small groupings that do not work together and cannot ensure efficiency in the delivery of goods and services.
So, we have to be careful that we don’t keep splitting the component units of the Nigerian federation. Already, as has been mentioned, some of the states look like they are very unviable on their own, totally dependent on revenues from the centre. And the more you split them, the more viable they become from the revenue generation and therefore ability to address the needs and aspirations of the people. So, to my mind, what we need to address is the distribution of power and resources in the federal system.
What we need to do is to de-concentrate power and resources from the Federal Government, which now seems to control a lot, and allocate this to the state government. If you maintain the current number of states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and they get more responsibilities by looking at the federal legislative list and the exclusive list in particular, and you make more powers either concurrent or more powers just assigned to the states rather than the federal government, and then you distribute resources appropriately so that the states now get more resources.
We need to be careful about how politics is leading us in the direction of using identity as the primary issue of defining how governance operates instead of service
If you have good governance at the state level, then they can be made viable. Also, then it means that with good governance, they will also be able to generate more revenues to complement whatever they get from the centre.
To my mind, that’s what we need to improve our federal system, to improve governance, and to ensure that governance addresses the fundamental needs and aspirations of the people. But to continue to split Nigeria into smaller units, you increase the unviability of the states, and you continue to create challenges. Unfortunately, I’m sorry to say, and I’ve been saying this, our elite sometimes are so narrow-minded. They don’t seem to have an enlightening self-interest.
The elite will always, in a given context, those who think that they are excluded from the governance system in the state, will now want another state to be created from within, so that they can now become the leaders in quote or the governors in quote of that state.
And we can’t just be doing that, because doing that will mess up the federal system and will not bring the kind of solution that we require to improve our federal system and to ensure that governance is improved upon to address the needs and aspirations of our citizens.
Some schools of thought support the point you just made but some are saying that this will enhance governance and resource distribution, do you think so?
I don’t see how it can improve governance, frankly. I think the argument people can make is that, perhaps, it may bring the government nearer to the people. But if you bring government nearer to the people and you do not improve governance in terms of how it addresses their needs and aspirations, what have you achieved.
If you create states and the resources are not available for people or rather the governance structure is such that the resources, as little as they are, again you have not addressed the problem.
What people need is for their lives and aspirations should be improved. It can only be improved through good governance. And it is only good governance, regardless of the number of states, that can manage resources well, that can be creative to generate additional resources, and then be able to use them efficiently and effectively to meet people’s needs and aspirations. But splitting the states, to be honest, to my mind will not solve the problem.
As we have seen from the history of Nigeria, the more states you create, the more you get demands for the creation of states. And that’s what led me to say that we have to be careful about the atomization of our structures in this country. It will not address our problems. What complicates our problem in Nigeria is identity politics. Identity politics also undermines citizenship and citizenship rights, and that is why, for example, we have the challenge of citizenship versus indigeneship.
So, these are the things to address, and they should be addressed within the constitutional framework. If we continue with identity politics, and we continue to have the narrow minded elite continue to control the governance process, then we are unlikely to make the kind of process we require, no matter how we split the states. We will create more problems in that kind of situation.
The cry has always been that certain parts of the nation are marginalised. What would you then be telling those people who feel marginalised?
As I mentioned earlier on, if you de-concentrate power from the federal to the states, of course, you have to accompany that with more resources going to the states. And then people ensure that they have people in control of, I mean, politicians that occupy the governance processes as governors, as legislators, and so on. Under that kind of situation, there will be the ability to use the resources efficiently to address the needs of the people within the context of a state such that nobody will feel marginalised.
The whole talk about marginalisation is because resources are concentrated at the centre, and then the little that comes to the state, because of bad governance, it also does not permeate all sectors of the state in terms of providing schools, addressing health facilities, and other issues. Again, because of that, there is identity politics. The guys who are manning the top position are the ones who are taking resources and marginalising all of us.
So, we have to address issues rationally and appropriately and also learn from global best practices. No country in the world, I can say this and stand to be contradicted, has created a multiplicity of states in a series of manners like Nigeria has done. We started with a federation of three regions, then another region was created, we now had four regions, and then the military came, and then the military continued splitting states, 12 states, 19 states, 21 states, and so on, until now we have 36 states and the federal capital.
Yes, a few states would, as of present, look unviable, but if you give them more power and more resources, they can become viable, and if the electoral process and the selection process in political parties bring good people to occupy positions as governors, as legislators, in the context of the state, of course even in the context of the national level, then the resources available would be utilized efficiently and effectively to address the needs and aspirations of the people.
That’s the way to address the challenges of our federation, and then with constitutional review, we address the issue of, for example, citizenship. In all countries in the world, a citizen is a person who has rights and obligations, and also who has fundamental rights protected by law and by the constitution, wherever he or she lives in the country. In the Nigerian context, unfortunately for us, the framers of the constitution introduced the concept of indigeneship, and in practice, the issue of indigeneship now seems to override the rights of a citizen.
So, somebody whose parents have come and settled in a state and that person is born in that state, is still considered an alien, or a foreigner, or non-indigene, and therefore does not enjoy the rights and privileges that being a citizen gives to him. For me, that is a major issue that needs to be addressed and the only way to address it, to my mind, is to impose constitutional penalties for any governor that gives indigeneship primacy over the constitutional rights and obligations of a citizen.
What you said about managing resources well makes sense but some would tell you that the way Nigeria is now, is so lopsided in terms of some parts of the country that have more states that even when you want to share the resources, those parts will still get more resources than the other parts…
To be honest, this issue of marginalisation and we don’t have resources, others have more resources than us, has to do with this issue of identity politics. It led us to the creation of what we now call geopolitical zones.
There is no country in the world where you have this notion of a geopolitical zone as a political structure in a federal context but I understand that in trying to reach some accommodation, that’s how we agreed to that. And then, without any rational basis, states are grouped, which was how many states could constitute North-West for example, North-East or South-East and so on.
That politics of division was the one that had created this challenge of some regions having more states than other regions that have fewer states. But what is the real issue? The real issue to me is to have resources for each state and the appropriate power for each state to be able to address the needs and aspirations of the people in each state.
It is not about how many states you have; it’s about how the needs and aspirations of people in the states are addressed by governors with the resources that come to the units
So, it is not about how many states you have, it’s about how the needs and aspirations of people in the states are addressed by governors with the resources that come to the units. So, I think we need to be careful about how politics is leading us in the direction of using identity as the primary issue of defining how governance operates instead of service.
If you think scientifically; of what use are the resources that come that are stolen by people who are in a position to use them to address the needs and aspirations of people, but who are just stealing it and taking it out of the country.
So, for me, that is a starting point. I can bet that if you do that, you won’t have any challenges about what resources and creation of states. If you do that and then for any reason you still have that challenge, that’s when you begin to ask what then would you do.
But right now, the problem is a lot of power and resources are concentrated at the centre and whoever got elected to be president to preside over the federal government, is there to address the needs of his people. Defined as ethnic groups or religious, even religious groups, because now they conflate the issue. And it’s not just ethnicity, they now talk about ethno-religious groups. So, to me, that is a major challenge. But reduce the power at the centre, and it’s very easy to do that. You have the Exclusive List which is controlled by the Federal Government.
Why are we not doing it?
First of all, it is a military legacy. And once the military started it, they took more and more powers and concentrated at the federal level. And of course, at the state level, under military rule are junior officers, who were appointed by the commander-in-chief.
So, if the Federal Government takes more power, the junior officers running the states cannot complain, because they have to obey, as they say in the military, obey before complaining. That’s how we got there. So, a lot of power and resources are now concentrated by decree signed by the commander-in-chief and the general who is presiding over the states.
And now you find that things that in any federal system that the federal government is not supposed to do, they are all doing it in Nigeria. They are into primary education; they are into secondary education and they are into agricultural and rural development. And that has its consequences, which we are witnessing all over the nation.
I think the only plausible explanation one would give is that those who get into power are reluctant to be the ones to drive this change of taking power away from them and we have to overcome that. And the best way to overcome that is to get the legislature to do what is expected of it, which is the constitution.
There are complaints about the way the constitution is framed which makes it almost practically impossible to create states. What is your thought?
Obviously, to amend the constitution, first of all, you have to take the amendments to each of the states’ legislatures in the current structure. That is all the 36 state legislatures. It has to pass in the legislatures, come back to the National Assembly and a pass by two-thirds majority. Under the present system and the overwhelming power and political control that governors exercise, almost invariably, it is what the governors want that would get through the state legislatures.
And then, when it comes to the federal level, also to a large extent, it depends on how the governors will influence their representatives in the National Assembly. So, whatever amendment you propose under the present system, it depends on whether the citizens can mount pressures at the state level, pressure that will coincide either with the interests of the state governors for reforms or pressure that counteract whatever the interest of a governor.
Right now, the use of resources, corruption in particular and how governors manage the state assemblies make it invariably easy for the governors to get whatever they want. So, really it’s a Herculean challenge even for good recommendations for constitutional reviews that go through the constitutional amendment process. Unless we are lucky enough to have governors that buy into these good constitutional amendment recommendations, it’s very difficult to pass.
But by the way, I must say that invariably in most federal systems that I know of, they also have strict ways of amending the constitution because you can’t allow the constitution to be amended frivolously. Every day, somebody wants a constitution to be amended, and they amend it. So that’s why all federal systems I know of have very strict mechanisms of amending their constitutions.
Nigeria’s constitution is not an aberration and the process of amending the constitution is not an aberration. What is an aberration is a governance process where you have somebody in a state who is the alpha and the omega, who does everything he likes and gets away with it. So, we have to improve our politics to such a level that we can address that challenge. That is the clearest way towards improving our democracy, improving our governance, and getting the benefits of democracy to the people who require them.
