New Telegraph

Southern Governors’ Forum: The imperative of structure and organisation (2)

We already identified the problem of Nigeria contrary to Achebean ‘leadership failure’ diagnosis to be the absence of structural checks and balances in the governance structure of Nigeria and its constitutional framework and political praxis. Nigeria, as deliberately designed by Britain is meant to be a feudal construct with an autocratic governance infrastructure that is easily controllable from an apex governance tower and answerable to one unquestionable autocrat. That was the patented design handed down by Britain to the world. Britain acknowledged in its imperial records that the system will be utterly unjust but may with time be subject to reforms.

Britain copied this autocratic system from the Sokoto Caliphate’s theocratic governance structure which it baptized as Indirect Rule and uniformly applied across Nigeria with equal results. During early colonial rule, Governor Hugh Clifford had reviewed his successor, Governor Lugard’s template and condemned it as an imposition of an “untrammelled autocracy without a counterpart anywhere else in British West Africa.”

Governor Clifford sought to change it but was reprimanded and ordered to sustain the system as it was Her Majesty’s adopted policy not to be lightly tampered with. Sir Clifford and all subsequent colonial governors of Nigeria submitted to this imperial order.

During decolonization process, Britain was confronted with the problem of structuring Nigeria in such a way as not to endanger the autocratic system put in place as it was not compatible with democratic and the federal principles it had grudgingly acquiesced to as advocated by Nnamdi Azikiwe in his ‘Political Blueprint of Nigeria’ and his party, NCNC’s 1947 Political Manifesto and Obafemi Awolowo’s ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’. Britain knowing the fundamental imperative of structure never allowed the Northern Region as constituted by Lugard to be tampered with as the Idah/Kabba Line was maintained as the boundary between South and North.

Every attempt made by southern minorities (Calabar, Ogoja and Rivers Provinces, C.O.R) and the Northern minorities of the Middlebelt states creation agitators to split the behemoths of the Eastern, Northern and Western regions were rebuffed and when it became so strident in 1957/58 Constitutional Conferences, Britain blackmailed Nigerian states agitators and the nationalists with the proposition that such measure would delay the granting of independence in 1960. The result was that the three regions were left intact into Independence. Meanwhile, the census infrastructure and political delineations had been settled in the 1950 Constitutional Conference in favour of the North that insisted on 50% representation at the House of Representatives and got it with the help of Britain and Nnamdi Azikiwe.

So, as it stands now, in terms of state structure, the North has the geographic unit intact and held rhythmically in place with the help of governmental machinery and socio-cultural infrastructure of the monolithic Sokoto Caliphate native authority system which had by virtue of Indirect Rule acculturalized non-Muslim areas with chiefdoms that mimicked the emirate system’s norms and praxis. Meanwhile, the Southern Protectorate and Lagos Colony having been bifurcated between 1935 and 1945 into Western and Eastern Regions which Britain deliberately sowed with seeds of mistrust and hatred, and having supervised this vile scheme from 1945, especially after the 1951 conduct of the elections into regions and the centre and had scattered the South firmly held the North intact.

By 1954 general elections, it was clear that Britain had achieved its object of maintaining the North as Nigeria’s Masterof- Joint-Deliberation and firmly rooted to dictate the destiny of Nigeria in post-Independence era to the glory of British imperial schemes.

After Independence, it was the desire of Balewa and his party, relying on this British scheme to have absolute political control over Nigeria by seizing Western Region through liquidating the Action Group and this plan plunged Nigeria into crisis between 1964 and 1966 and the germ of that political crisis is continuing till date.

The present crisis and the forebodings may render the 1964 – 1966 a child’s play. So, it is right that the Southern Governors get together, organise and provide a countervailing regional force to stem the tide of political instability which had been the critical causative factors that have bred the raging criminalities such as armed robbery, kidnapping, banditry, electoral frauds, insurgencies and secessionist movements between 1970 to date. Southern Nigeria does not have the structure and organisation which the North by virtue of British deliberate policy has had since 1900 to 1960 and which Northern political leaders have sustained since 1960 to date.

This structural glue inherent in the defunct Northern Region has acted as a unifying force and it seems natural to the member-states that despite the deep-seated differences, the area appear monolithic and cohesive. But that is mere façade as has been shown by the President Obasanjo’s presidency which exposed the underbelly but for his mistake in not creating a replacement by way of national structure that would have replaced that regional structure. If President Obasanjo had restructured Nigeria and groomed political leaders across the nation and imbued them with nationalistic feelings capable of overthrowing, with time the defunct regional, religious and tribal loyalties, the present political divisions would have been minimized, if not completely obliterated.

The Nigerian state has degenerated to an extent that dispassionate analysts adjudge it a failed or fast-failingstate and counselled radical measures to rescue it. Nigeria’s structural problem was created by past governors and it is also present governors’ duty to resolve these problems by adroit political measures.

Since it is a generational call-to-duty, Southern governors should uphold the ideals of their forum and endeavour to entrench the hitherto absent state structure and institutionalize it by establishing a permanent office in Lagos with liaison offices in member-states and this structure must be wellequipped and properly resourced. They should organise the forum by standing in solidarity with one another over problems common to them and the nation.

The forum has articulated a 10-point national agenda which they desired to be implemented. Some of the items in the agenda will be accomplished at the state level while others are constitutional questions to be properly articulated and presented to each state’s House of Assembly to be adopted by Motion and when the 17 Southern States have passed the measures they can then reach out to sympathetic states in other regions for concurrence.

Perchance, these measures may enjoy national appeal and subsequently they may be effortlessly passed at the National Assembly as amendment to the present constitution which is largely the source of Nigeria’s problems or for the creation of an entirely new constitution. Alternatively, the Southern Governors may initiate a National Conference and invite all Nigerian Stakeholders including the President, National Assembly Leaders, State Houses of Assembly leaders, party leaders and leaders of organised groups to participate.

The conclusions of the Conference may be collated as organic instrument and tabled at each State’s House of Assembly and if adopted by a majority of the members of the Southern Governors’ Forum becomes their standpoint in any future National Dialogue or conference that may be convoked for the remaking of Nigeria as may become in due course.

The experience of the United States in making the 1787 Constitution may be of interest to Southern Governors. The 1787 US Constitution was the result of a regional customs union conference convened by some states but became convoluted leading to a National Constituent Assembly that drafted the 1787 Constitution and passed it for ratification by the 13 states. Why should it be thought impossible for a similar process to happen in Nigeria? Any union presupposes an agreement and Nigerians have never agreed since January 15, 1966 to date. Any union without agreement is slavery and slavery in any form has been outlawed by international law.

Southern Governors’ date with history beckons and it only requires the sincerity, determination and solidarity of the governors to get this project into action for the remaking of a Nigeria founded on universal brotherhood and egalitarian society not ethnic or regional forums.

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