A major trouble with Nigeria’s Federalism by Ikeazor Akaraiwe, SAN

Nigeria’s Federalism is majorly in trouble because the States are too small and have become the personal fiefdoms of significant persons. I will explain. These persons have an attitude of entitlement to the resources of the State, such that for a Governor to know peace, he has to distribute State resources to these significant persons. There is no accountability. Indeed, the masses of the people are too impoverished and generally insufficiently educated to challenge these excesses, especially when these ‘rent collectors’ spread some of the largesse across their fawning adulators. Besides, for the most part, the people are culturally socialised to sycophantic adulation of leaders. If the governor does not readily distribute State resources to ‘the owners of the State’, he will be badly troubled throughout his regime with plots, plans, and ploys to undermine him, sponsored bad press, and sundry acts of sabotage, to say the very least.

1. To have 38 Civil Services including that of the Federal Government, and Commissioners, Special Assistants and Advisers and Rent Collectors replicated across 38 Federating Units, whereas the 1st Republic had 5 Federating Units including the centre, with better governance delivered, is self-explanatory of the conundrum Nigeria has boxed itself into.
2. But of course, some State governors are the chief landlords and ‘rent collectors’ of their States. They are beholden to no one but to their whims and caprices. The State is both their deep pocket and in their pockets. To use that quaint Nigerianism, in short, they have ‘pocketed’ the State. And the cycle continues. When one Governor leaves, succeeded almost inevitably by his proxy, the proxy either throws off his yoke from his shoulders, becomes his own man, another strong man, submitting to his favorite rent collectors for his safety; Or continues as a lackey to the ‘rent collectors’ who put him there in the first place. We have however seen a few, all-too-few, Chief Executives who were beholden to no one but the masses of their people.
3. What shall Nigeria then do? 36 States, a Federal Capital Territory, and 774 local governments were created by military adventurers masquerading as messiahs. Many centres of power, and ‘rent collectors,’ have thus emerged.
4. Shut down these centres of power by merging the States. The good additional reason being that the current States are not economically viable, and can not generate their own resources. Indeed, they were not created with viability in mind but as political gifts on the basis of agitation and sometimes, friendship and marriage.
5. Merging the Federating Units will tend to disrupt the trend of ‘Rent Collecting’ as different groups of ‘Rent Collectors’ in the previous Federating Units emerge and compete among themselves for access to State power and resources. There is, of course, always a possibility that the enlarged group of ‘Rent Collectors’ will unite and bring rent collecting pressure upon the newly merged Federating Units.  This is extremely unlikely however because the ‘rent collecting greed patterns in Nigeria and tribal or statist geopolitical tendencies have largely ossified over time, the last States created having been created over 25 years ago.
6. Thus, merging some of the Federating Units will create mutually opposing Rent Collectors from the previous Federating Units, with the effect that an inbuilt house divided against itself becomes the norm. Division among an extremely rapacious and insensitive elite as is Nigeria’s lot will be a win-win for the nation, and certainly for any governor with a mind to work. This lack of unity among the rapacious Nigerian rent collecting class to be fostered by the merger of Federating units will hopefully bring great developmental benefit to the people.
7. Finally, the kind of deliberate house divided itself I have in mind brings to mind the principle of Separation of Powers in the United States of America where the three arms of government are seemingly at war against one another. Many people do not realise that the constant bickering between the United States Legislature and Executive arms was deliberately structured by the Founding Fathers to prevent a return to the situation when the British Monarch who ruled America in colonial times was too powerful and uncontrollable. So, the Americans did not want an all-powerful sovereign. But this is a discussion for another day.
8. Similarly and idiosyncratically for Nigeria, restructuring and merging states will create in each Federating Unit a deliberate house divided against itself such that the traditional rulers and power elite who own the current states will have to share ownership with others. This house divided against itself syndrome ought to weaken the grip of the Rent Collectors and work out for the overall good of the people.
9. The new Federating Units should be merged on the basis of economic viability. So, two or three may come together, while currently viable ones may stand alone or merge with non-economically viable Federating Units. I have about 12 Federating Units in mind as both pragmatic and apposite, as opposed to the current 37.

Ikeazor ‘Kizor’ Akaraiwe, SAN, Convener, Federalists for Good Governance [FFGG] and Moderator, Rule of Law-Nigeria [RoL]