To avoid what he referred to as a looming “violent disintegration, ”a Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law and Governance, Edoba Bright Omoregie (SAN), is calling for a speedy modification to the irregularities in Nigeria’s practice of federalism.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria cautioned that continued resistance to adopting federalism in the real sense instead of embarking on reforms may lead to further disintegration as is currently being witnessed in the country.
Prof. Omoregie, in the Inaugural lecture, delivered at the University of Benin (UNIBEN) titled: Nigeria’s Federal System in a Quandary: The Whys and How to Fix It, identified the principle of power-sharing; incoherent system of federal solidarity and non-obligation to provide a minimum standard of living for citizens, etc, as the major challenge of Nigeria’s federal system.
According to the learned professor, “Adoption in the quest for federalism reforms in Nigeria would be realised if the current imbalance in the distribution powers is reversed. We must do everything possible to avoid the looming violent disintegration because we are heading towards that direction. The sign of possible disintegration is glaring. This is happening in Ethiopia and other countries. So, we need to fix our faulty federal system to avoid violent disintegration.
“The 1999 Constitution institutes a federal system which denies the states their autonomy relative to the Federal Government… It is manifest in fiscal allocation and inter-government revenue relationship by which the states are denied direct and autonomous access to significant tax revenue sources…
“State governments have also been denied autonomy in the horizontal organisation and management of their internal administration. The first point where this is manifest is the enacting of a single national constitution and the implied prohibition of sub-national constitutions. This is in contrast to the country’s pre-1966 federal system when the regions had their own regional constitutions in addition to the national constitution.”
The senior Advocate then urged that a “high premium should be placed on federalism expertise to promote the imperative of federalisation and reform contested aspects of Nigeria’s federal system while forestalling unprincipled constitution alteration of the system.”
He further added that “a well-resourced expert-driven reform and constitution alteration of unsatisfactory aspects of Nigeria’s federal system, should be put in place.
“The deployment of policy federalism to address gaps in the dysfunctional aspects of Nigeria’s federal system pending constitutional alteration should be encouraged.”
He further advocated the establishment of institutions wherein true federalism would be taught.
In a goodwill message, a former Minority Whip of the House of Representatives, Dr. Samson Osagie, said the guest lecturer placed the topic “within the context of the complicated federal structure Nigeria pretends to be operating at the moment.”
According to Osagie, “Indeed in the midst of the confusion created by the constitution which vests all powers on the Federal Government, (as items in both the Exclusive and Concurrent lists are items on which the Federal Government has powers to legislate) Nigeria in actual practice is actually a Unitary State with abundant and unworkable principles of Federalism.”
