By Lillian okenwa
“Another solution to Nigeria is fiscal federalism. Till today, I have not been explained to or known, why oil in my Local Government in Ughelli South of Delta State is being carted away to Abuja or shared among the Nigerian States.” – Othniel A. Ikpibako, Esq.
[The] unity of Nigeria has a price tag. It is not something imposed from the top through executive fiat. You cannot be saying that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable while at the same time putting obstacles to that unity…” said Sonnie Ekwowusi, lawyer and public affairs analyst in his article Rotational Presidency and Nigeria’s Survival.On and on, the debate goes about the future of Nigeria— secession, rotational presidency, and true federalism. Nigerian Law School Lecturer, Sylvester Udemezue believes “the various peoples of Nigeria have gone too far together, to be in a hurry to consider outright dismemberment of the country.” He however adds: “Those who are saying referendum or dismemberment is illegal are grossly economical with the truth, and saying so to nourish egoistic considerations and parochial interests falling outside truth, law, and reality. I do not support dismemberment. But my reason for not supporting dismemberment is because credible, workable alternatives exist to resolve the major challenges threatening the nation and to put the nation on the path of sanity, peace, unity, and progress, all of which are at present complete absent because we, as Shakespeare’s like Macbeth after he murdered sleep, are as if tied to a stake, and thus stagnant, unable to move forward.
“Nigeria’s major problems are easily solvable without any need for the dismemberment of the polity. So, why not explore other options, instead of dismemberment. The reason we are still grappling with them is because most of us are too clannish myopic, parochial, and jingoistic to see beyond our nose. Only pragmatic, sagacious, altruistic leaders, thinkers, and citizens can help take us out of the doldrums.”
A Lagos lawyer Othniel A. Ikpibako, Esq., suggests: “One of the options that can help Nigeria is rotational president between North and South of a single term of 5 years,” suggests “We should not forget we are not one people but over 250 different ethnic groups. Hence, one group or region ruling continuously for more than 5 years is capable of creating discontent and chaos. Boko Haram was formed, amongst others when a Christian, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was a president. Boko Haram turned terrorists because a Southerner, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan won in 2011 (I will not forget so soon how National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, members were massacred in the North on the eve of that victory).
“Killer herdsmen and bandits were deliberately created, in case Goodluck Ebele Jonathan won a second term. IPOB arose because of the 95:5 policy against the South. Odua People’s Republic agitations arose because of the same 95:5 policy. Hence, the immediate solution, since our election is not issue-based, but based on ethnicity and religion, is to rotate the office of the president between the North and South, for a single term of 5 years. The two-term in the constitution should be amended to a single term of 5 years and make the same provision further unamendable.
“Another solution to Nigeria is fiscal federalism. Till today, I have not been explained to or known, why oil in my Local Government in Ughelli South of Delta State is being carted away to Abuja or shared among the Nigerian States. I had predicted in my LL.M. Thesis (Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources: A Case for Oil Bearing Communities of Nigeria) that if the injustice of oppressively wresting away oil of the oil-bearing communities is not addressed, groups more determined than all the militant groups in the Niger Delta would arise and would be unstoppable. Because I have not seen injustice last forever; it can only tarry awhile. One Nigeria is great, built and based on justice!”
But Sonnie Ekwowusi, insists that in the interest of the nation, “the Presidency should be zoned to the Southeast.”
“As the delegates of the different political parties, especially the two dominant political parties, the APC and PDP, jostle to elect their respective Presidential candidates for the 2023 Presidential election, the delegates should understand that the principle of Zoning and rotational Presidency between the North and the South have not only become sacrosanct but are indeed the fulcrums upon which the Federal Republic of Nigeria has been revolving since her independence in 1960.”
“Therefore any conspiratorial plot to derogate from this time-honored principle of Rotation of Presidency between the North and South is a big threat to the existence and survival of Nigeria. In other words, Nigeria as a corporate entity stands on rotational Presidency between the North and the South and falls without it.”
Until these suggestions are explored, nobody can tell whether the solution to Nigeria’s multifarious problems lies therein. As former First Vice President of the Nigerian Bar Association, (NBA) Ikeazor Akaraiwe, SAN suggested in his article, A major trouble with Nigeria’s Federalism, the people benefitting from Nigeria’s pains might not be in a hurry to ease the pains.
“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 the 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.
“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.”
