Nigeria’s Federalism Inversion: The 3,000-word Ramblings of a Layman -By Yemi Adekunle

Yemi Adekunle

“That is why it is called the FEDERAL Republic of Nigeria…”

I was listening with rapt attention as Mr M taught on federalism. My notes were frantic as I reassured myself that this was the best teacher in the world and there was nothing better than learning about government. Then I heard what sounded like a mistake as Mr M gave examples of countries practising the system. I could not reconcile one of the fundamental features of federalism, which he called ‘the decentralisation of powers between the central and state authorities’, with the situation in Nigeria, a country he had just mentioned. He waffled and waffled, and then obviously realising what was going on, he yelled at me.

To borrow the words of a former federal lawmaker, Mr M suggested that the fact that Nigeria is a federal state is ‘visible to the blind and audible to the deaf’. Over a decade and Wikipedia later, one is still confused.

This is not an academic essay. Nigeria’s inversion of the federalism calculus has led not just to distrust among states and ethnic groups, but to several civil unrests and loss of lives; as such, this piece is borne out of the shocking – maybe reductive – realisation that the solution to many of the country’s problems is inherent in it being a federal republic.

**

I always ask people about Dr F. Shaw, a father of three sons. Peter, the oldest, is unemployed but leads a profligate lifestyle, drinking profusely and spending hours at brothels. Mark is illiterate and works as a cleaner in a school where he makes $10 per month. John, the youngest, is a banker who earns $90 per month. At the end of the month, Dr Shaw orders the sons to pay him all their earnings and he divides the total ($100) in the ratio 35:25:20:20 among himself, Peter, Mark and John respectively. Things may go on well for a while, but is there a slight chance that John will one day claim that he is being unfairly treated? Will he then consider Peter as a good-for-nothing lout? Who knows, he might even lose respect for his father and disassociate himself from the family.

I admit that Nigeria’s story is in no way as unbelievable as the Shaws’. The federal government currently takes only 53% from the federation account and leaves the remaining 47% for 36 states and 774 local governments to share. Not bad.

Now let’s be serious for a moment: the resource control and revenue allocation matrices in Nigeria need to become more decentralised. States must have more influence on the natural resources located within their territory. The federal government – through its agencies and partner International Oil Companies – runs the petroleum industry which accounts for the largest chunk of funds in the federation account. The states’ share is divided using parameters such as population density, land mass, terrain, etc. As a result, after having access to a first line 13% derivation charge, the few oil producing states still feel cheated. A radical Niger-Delta militant once suggested that just as one tribe sold yam in its markets, his Ijaw brethren should also be allowed to hawk crude oil. Some have even blamed the whole Niger-Delta militancy crisis on this ‘injustice’, claiming that, unlike Boko Haram, the Niger-Delta militants had reasonable grounds for their agitation. It so happens that when the right thing is not done, we find ourselves justifying kidnappings and murder; a government finds itself giving amnesty to – depending on who you talk to – terrorists.

Someone might ask: if you want states to control their resources and finances this way, what do you want those states which have nothing to do? Then I would ask: why are those states states in the first place? This is akin to how many talk about Boko Haram today and empathise (fairly so) with the government on how complicated and difficult it is to defeat (in italics, not technically) the terrorist group. After all, according to the Global Terrorism Index 2015, Boko Haram has overtaken ISIS as the deadliest terrorist group in the world, having killed 6,644 people in 2014. But we must not forget that this was not always the case. Before our very own eyes, a group of ragtag (it’s important to keep using this word, no matter how overused) fundamentalist thugs metamorphosed into an international ISIS-affiliated (perhaps, ISIS-apologetic is a better word) sect. We even gave them a name!

Speaking of rags – and before I am reminded that ‘terrorism is a global phenomenon’ – the same report reveals that Nigeria is also home to the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world: Fulani militants (their surname back home is herdsmen), responsible for another 1,229 deaths in 2014. God forbid that one day, this group will swear allegiance to the Sinaloa drug cartel (seeing that their terror is business-related) and start calling for the unconditional release of El-Chapo. This last point brings a Yoruba adage to mind: bad news is often laughable.

I’m sure this must have been said in history, but I find that whenever I say it in relation to Nigerian politics, I sound like a philosopher: things do not just happen in life.

It is clear to any discerning observer that when proposals are put forward regarding revenue allocation or state and local government autonomy, the real agenda is about how to have a share of the national cake. Only a small number of existing states raise more revenues internally than what they receive from the national pool; many depend totally on the monthly allocations to meet their budgeted expenditure. Indeed, one of the first major interventions of the Buhari-led federal government was to approve a bailout package of over N600 billion for 27 states which had been unable to pay staff salaries for several months.

I recall how the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives kept receiving delegations in 2010. He would fool this Proposed-state Forum that they were qualified to have a state of their own, and assure that Proposed-state Movement of the House’s prompt consideration. While his promises have thus far turned out empty, the demands for the creation of new states have not disappeared.

The day Nigerian states stop receiving handouts from Abuja, we may find that some will lobby the Senate President to be ‘acquired’ by another. On that day, a state with a poverty rate of over 80% will consider renting a small bungalow as its government secretariat. And maybe we will finally have Superman politicians like Cory Booker as governors, since they will probably live in common neighbourhoods like everyone else – not in mansions which cannot be maintained by internally generated revenues – and certainly not move around with cavalcades of cars numbering more than the pages of Joseph Stiglitz’s CV.

**

At the turn of the new millennium, violence upon violence broke out in several parts of the country. The social makeup of a state like Plateau was drastically changed. Mom kept talking about ‘your mommy in Jos’, her sister-in-law, and worrying if she was okay. I have a faint recollection of Mommy Jos. I must have been eight when I last saw her. She looked different from all of us. She had a glowing – almost alien – light pigmentation. In fact, mom once teased that my sister was as fair as Mommy Jos, adding in obvious exaggeration, that she was so spruce from the womb that there was no need to clean her up at birth. Neighbours lent some credence to the story whenever they berated mom for changing her complexion by applying local moju powder to cure her rashes. My sister is now as light-skinned as a Yoruba girl should be. The crisis in Jos has had the moju effect on Plateau state and many of its residents: it is currently on the list of the top 10 poorest states in Nigeria.

But during this crisis, as with several others in the not-so-distant past, I kept asking myself: where are the police? We could take the high-level route once again, and talk about poor funding and lack of equipment. I have seen memes on social media associating instances of bad policing with either the protruded bellies of some police officers or the penchant of others for napping on duty. All of these are real issues, no doubt, but they border on interior decor. A police infrastructure in which officers take orders from the Inspector-General in Abuja is not worthy of a federal state. State governors must feel insulted when they are referred to as Chief Security Officers of their states. It is impossible to forget that in July 2003, Nigeria’s current Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, was kidnapped while serving as governor of Anambra state. The state police commissioner and his officers dropped the ball. In the last couple of years, Borno state governor, Kashim Shettima, kept lamenting to the media, calling for FG security reinforcements. He once announced with forlornness that terrorists were in control of about 20 of the 27 local governments in his state. He could not do anything – not even if he wanted.

I wish to recount the story of a career police officer in my head, Deacon Sam, from the southern part of Nigeria. He has just been transferred to the highly volatile northern state of Yobe as police commissioner. Every night, his wife, Deaconess Bibi, calls him on the phone, enjoining him to be careful. She is somewhat relieved when he dubiously assures her that he is taking things easy. “I cannot come and kill myself so far away from home”, he whispers. But as a diligent officer, he makes some serious efforts. He reaches out to traditional rulers, dusts his language pamphlets, and begins to make some progress in the area. Just as this is going on, HQ, for some reason, transfers him to Kogi state in the North-Central. The cycle reprises and people continue to die.

When community policing is touted as a solution to insecurity, its proponents usually talk about building valuable relationships between the police and the community. I submit that the police should be the community. Imagine a Yobe Police Force (YPF), made up of Yobe residents, many of whom were born and bred in the state – true natives of the soil. This kind of force will surely stand a better chance of containing fellows of the baser sort who attempt to disrupt the well-being of the state. The fact that it is directly under the control of the governor will also guarantee that priorities are right and leadership is not lacking.

As interesting as that sounds, majority within the political elite in Nigeria believe that state policing is not worth the trouble. Their argument: Nigeria is not yet ripe for that kind of system. I hate this argument for I cannot counter it. I cannot counter it for it is not an argument. I can compare it to when some say we should not have a two-party system despite the fact that all the 109 senators in the 8th National Assembly are from two political parties. This kind of reasoning is also why I have avoided discussing the federalist policies of countries like the United States of America in this essay. I have not talked about how driver’s licenses are issued by individual states; how admission to the bar in one state does not automatically allow you to practise law in another; or how the death penalty is a legal sentence in Mississippi but it does not exist in Michigan. I have not done so for two other reasons. I trust that Nigerian policy makers are aware of these things, so discussing them will not be a revelation neither will not doing so create a dearth in the national planning reservoir. More importantly, I have not invoked Uncle Sam because I intend to spare myself the heartache I feel when some Nigerians tell me that countries like the US are not our ‘mates’; and as if to assure me that they mean it literally, they add that Nigeria is just 55.

With over 170 million people (and a UN study already projecting that the figure will surpass that of the US before 2050), we should compare our federalism framework with that of the US. One can say – and ‘not in a braggadocious way’ – that Nigeria is a big country; a great country! (Digression: this is why I believe that saying you want to make America great again is inappropriate. Meh, what do I know?)

If we want to wait till Nigeria becomes two hundred years old before we start practising true federalism, the humans among us will not see the Nigeria of our dreams. Therefore, we need to stop talking about not being ripe for the right thing, and start finding creative ways to adapt it to our infantile condition.

**

One can write several other stories to portray the undue influence of the federal government in what should be strictly state-related affairs. One can then go a step further and claim that not only will greater decentralisation ensure rapid development from the grassroots to the national level; it will also enable the federal government to focus on essential matters worthy of its attention. Take foreign policy, for example. Nigeria is everywhere as far as international relations are concerned: we are a US ally; we buy arms from Russia; we have trade partnerships with Iran; China helps us with some construction; Israel assists us in defence, we continue to call for the recognition of an independent State of Palestine as well as the emancipation of the Sahrawi people. This 1960-styled non-alignment foreign policy is not worthy of a giant. A giant must stand for something.

I must acknowledge, though, that there are legal hurdles to cross. The fact that the laws of the land forbid some of these federalist ideas – and enshrine some extreme ones in the name of federalism – poses a real problem. When the constitution mandates the president to name a minister from each state of the federation, for example, we have a Federal Executive Council that sometimes looks like a parliament. We have new ministries being formed for people and not the other way around. We have one person overseeing Power, Works and Housing, whereas one is in charge of Communication, and another runs Information. In the meantime, we kid ourselves about reducing the cost of governance, while some groups keep pushing for the creation of new states. Little wonder Mr M continued his outburst by saying:

“…these things are just the way they are. Leave them like that!”

I won’t belabour this point as Nigeria’s current vice president is a distinguished law professor. I defer to Cambridge-trained lawyer and ex-Goodluck Jonathan campaign spokesman, Femi Fani-Kayode, who in one of his delusional articles before the 2015 general elections, conceded that the then opposition vice presidential candidate was a ‘senior member of the Nigerian bar who is the leading authority on the law of evidence’. I am hopeful that the VP will initiate the necessary legal debates with the legislature.

Now to those who will be disappointed by this essay; who may say it’s yet another long piece about problems without ‘clear-cut’ solutions; who may even employ that tautological term coined by the presidential spokesman to describe the opposition: Why do we keep doing this? Why do we minor on the major and major on the minor? Why do you think Carl Ally considered a consultant as one who borrows your watch and tells you what time it is? What to do isn’t the problem; it’s doing it, dammit!

But since it’s almost impossible for an essay of this type to close without ‘recommendations’, I have one for Nigerian politicians: please wear Nike boots.

**

Yemi Adekunle is an accountant based in Abuja, Nigeria. Engage him on Twitter @y_adekunle