That Bait on Restructuring from Prof. Atahiru Jega -By Saliu Momodu

Sometime at about the middle of this year 2020, the distinguished and level-headed Prof Atahiru Jega made a widely circulated presentation on the question of restructuring the Nigeria Federation. Without needless references to the meat of his suggestions, let me quickly posit that though compelling, his was another cosmetic intellectual sophistry on the way to go for Nigeria and her many peoples.

In his scholarly submissions, there are two areas however where the Professor managed to shy away from what may have seemed to him as both discomforting and disconcerting to damble into. These have to do with the issues of FEDERATING UNITS and LEADERSHIP.

As he rightly said, every federation may actually be unique by itself and I want to believe that Nigeria seems more unique than others.

The technicalities and scholarship that Prof is here demonstrating on restructuring and on our federal arrangement- important as they are, are still secondary to what constitutes the major problems of Nigeria.

Do we need restructuring to get our refineries to work?

Do we need restructuring to kick “Boko Haram” insurgents out of our country?

Do we need restructuring to check the wantom blood-letting by marauding bandit terrorists suspected to be herdsmen (foreign or domestic)?

Do we need restructuring to get an EFCC to clear it’s desk and sanitize government business and her MDAs?

We can now see clearly that both the restructuring and secession clamours are simply sentimental, and they are an emotional protest over failures that rest almost completely on the failures of leadership rather than on an imperfect constitution or the flawed configuration of a federation.

Were a mere 20% of our once buoyant bread and butter textile factories to be revived in this country, far less number of people will be available in the streets and online to re-echo the restructuring lullaby, much less those to call for secession. Do we need to redraw our constitution to achieve that little in so long a time?

Aren’t we trying to resolve a leadership debacle by an inexpedient and wishful tinkering with the constitution and the federation.

Lest I be read wrongly, I surely do not deny that ours is a defective constitution. It therefore needs some fixing I agree. But the solution we seek as a nation does not reside in some frantic (hard) sanitization of our constitution, and by extension the federation. If at all there is anything urgent, I would rather we hurriedly revisit our electoral laws so we stop recycling dead logs and rustics for the noble and exulted positions of Presidents and Governors. That to me is a more germane and pragmatic path to tow.

But as we have it, restructuring seems to be raising more dust by the day- a product from a mindset as wishful and simplistic as those of the secessionists.

The distinguished Professor will agree that nations that have succeeded, including those that have left us behind never did so on account of a perfect or less defective federal or constitutional paperwork than ours. It took, and still requires compassionate, sincere, visionary and competent leadership that operates within the ambient of the law to achieve such soaring feat.

Why can’t a Buhari or a Jonathan be that kind of a leader?

What constitutional amendment did Nigeria concoct to enable the indefatigable Prof Dora Nkem Akunyili of blessed memory to shoot NAFDAC into stellar horizon? And if we may ask, what constitutional re-amendments have once again driven that very same institution of government into bashful frigidity as is now the case?

Having said all this, I must add that if abd when we inadvertently find ourselves on that road of hard, rather than a soft restructuring which ought to come about via an incremental, progressive and benign process, let Jega and those that may share his ideas correct that notion about federating units: it is ethnic nationalities, and not states that constitute the federating units in this geo-political arrangement called Nigeria.

For all the advocates of restructuring and secession, Prof’s  prescription may be soothing albeit for a short while only after which we may return again to this same sentimental and emotional, yet debilitating protest against an undesirable Nigeria- a protest against it’s perennial bad leadership in actual and concrete reality.

But I’m aware, just like the rest of Nigerians are, that “restructuring” is now a new veritable political bait that guarantees high return on investment otherwise where is the report from the 2014 National Conference. So let the people be on the watch lest someone be taken in.

Saliu Momodu
Saliu Momodu is the Producer and Host of the Scholastic-Ng Podcast and can be reached via saliumomoh123@gmail.com