LAST WEEK on this page, we were partly concerned with the statement of Chief Bisi Akande in his nerve-racking autobiography My Participations to the effect that the All Progressives Congress, APC, in its manifesto leading to the 2015 general elections, never promised to restructure Nigeria and indeed surreptitiously feigned ignorance on the meaning of the concept.
Of course, we are not about reviewing the controversial book, which copies we are yet to get anyway.
We equally concede to the former governor of Osun State his right of expression and the reactions thereto which expectedly have been coming in torrential doses.
From so much of the excerpts from the book by the press, we are only puzzled by some portions of it that dealt with the restructuring of the Nigerian State which challenged our understanding of the concept we hold dearly as largely proffering solutions to the myriads of problems plaguing the country. Truth be told, in spite of the disagreement among the Yoruba leaders of thought, into which we feel not called upon to dabble, Chief Akande is among those at whose feet younger generations should learn on matters and philosophy of the Awolowo School of Politics.
Not unexpectedly, the pioneer Chairman of the APC derided the 2014 Jonathan National Conference but admitted that he was part of the decision that the APC controlled states send their due delegates who participated fully in the deliberations and resolutions of the Conference which mantra was undisguisedly restructuring. Yet in respect of the manifesto of his party which was released the same year with “Change” as its irresistible slogan, Chief Akande, as one of the veritable midwives of the party, would now want Nigerians to believe him that restructuring was not promised them by his party.
“APC did not have ‘Restructuring’ in its manifesto for the 2015 elections but promised to support the devolution of power from the centre to the states. While the President (whether Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan or Buhari) has the whole of Nigeria as his constituency, members of the National Assembly that have the powers to amend the Constitution imposed on Nigeria by the military represent constituencies individually from different ethnic nationalities. It is, therefore, mischievous to place the responsibility for effecting ‘Restructuring’ on the APC or its Presidency and not to appreciate that it would require deft negotiations among such members from different ethnic nationalities and constituencies or zonal and religious background before any political party or any ethnic nationality could successfully issue any fiat on the National Assembly to make laws on power devolution or on ‘Restructuring’, whatever it might connote,” he said.
As said here last week, the first item on the APC Manifesto is to: “Initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit.”
Without much ado, restructuring the Nigerian state is simply a call to the powers that be to reinvent and improve on the principles of federalism as the foundational covenant of the Nigerian state. This was the agitation that birthed the Jonathan Conference which drew equal participation of eminent Nigerians across the six geopolitical zones.
I was a delegate from the South West region. We agree with Chief Akande that: “Since it was not a Sovereign National Conference, it was sensible to know that whatever the resolutions of the conference, it would still have to be placed before the National Assembly for possible enactment into laws”.
For the records, the Conference was inaugurated on March 17, 2014, and its reports were submitted on August 21, 2014, to the President in the heat of electioneering activities for the next presidential term. While presenting the reports to the Senate on May 27, 2015, only days to his exit, the President said the Federal Executive Council on March 18, 2015, considered and approved the reports of the conference.
Apart from submitting to the legislature, Jonathan gave the report to his successor which he described as the most important component of his handing over documents to President Buhari.
However, President Buhari only used the occasion of his first-year press briefing to confirm that he was persuaded on the report by his predecessor, but, using the Vanguard of June 4, 2016 as a guide, said: “I advised against the issue of National Conference. You would recall that ASUU was on strike then for almost nine months. The teachers in the tertiary institutions were on strike for more than a year, yet that government had about N9 billion to organise that meeting (National Conference), and some (members) were complaining that they hadn’t even been paid.
“I never liked the priority of that government on that particular issue, because it meant that what the National Assembly could have handled was handed to the Conference, while the more important job of keeping our children in schools was abandoned. That is why I haven’t even bothered to read it or ask for a briefing on it, and I want it to go into the so-called archives.” The honest truth which Baba Akande and most of the APC leaders from the South West will not admit is that the APC is a contraption of strange bedfellows. While true federalism and restructuring (same meaning) are readily marketable in the South West as electoral promise, it is not so in Buhari’s home region. As written by Chief Akande: “It was apparent from the start that Buhari would be our choice for President. That was one of the bases for the merger”.
It was clear that Buhari and his CPC had no programmes or philosophical thoughts donated to the alliance that gave birth to the APC. The only contribution was the much coveted 12 million votes that Buhari was said to have consistently garnered in his three previous futile shots at the presidency in those elections of manual voting in which more votes were cast in the presidential election where the home boy candidate had no rival before the people. The reverse was usually the case in the gubernatorial election a week later with by far fewer votes when both candidates are home guys and equally matched.
So, we agree with Chief Akande that his party candidate did not promise to restructure. In fact, he promised nothing. The shout of “change” at campaign rallies was a ruse to deceive the people only on the perceived invincibility of Buhari to deal with insecurity which was then only a child’s play compared with the situation now under him. The APC candidate hid under his feigned taciturnity to say nothing at rallies throughout the campaigns.
No wonder that on the assumption of office, President Buhari, and many who thought his election was their personal and regional benefits, began to question the definition of restructuring. It was so ridiculous that even some of our colleagues as delegates to the 2014 National Conference, particularly from the President’s region, suddenly remembered that the composition of the Conference was against Nigeria’s demographic realities. To them, delegates should have been selected on the basis of the local governments which were “dashed them” by the military rather than the more realistic geopolitical zones.
According to President Buhari, when addressing one of the several support groups for his second term, the 1999 Constitution could not be fairer than “Bayelsa, a small state with only eight local governments having three senators just as Kano with 44″.
But Nigerians have not deceived that attainment of True Federalism through restructuring was the major reason they voted for the lacklustre APC administration. Since the government is a continuum, they demanded that the reports of the 2014 National Conference be implemented.
Under the pressure of the people, the National Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun on August 9, 2017, inaugurated a 23-man Committee on True Federalism with Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State as Chairman, Rauf Aregbesola as Secretary and other bigwigs of the party. The Report of the Committee which was submitted on January 25, 2018, after town hall meetings in two centres across the geopolitical zones, were a reproduction of the Jonathan 2014 Conference and has likewise been consigned to the archives by the party and Mr. President who was in his several medical vacations abroad when it was inaugurated.
Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu of Ondo State is one naughty governor within the APC fold. No matter your disposition to him and his politics, you are sure of his position on national issues. He has acquitted himself creditably in providing progressive leadership among his colleagues across party lines in Southern Nigeria on issues of federalism that he must either be a thorn in the flesh or embarrassment to his recluse party. The South West Governors head-on introduction and implementation of the Amotekun as regional police is salutary as it is undeniably working in Ondo, Oyo and Osun.
When the fight over Value Added Tax, VAT, was launched by the Lion of the Niger Delta in Port Harcourt, Governor Nyesom Wike, and in spite of the obvious negative effects on the revenue of the state, Aketi, as we call him in the Sunshine State, stood by Wike in defence of True Federalism. His recent lecture at the 45th Convocation Lecture of our alma mater, Obafemi Awolowo University, is recommended for the other APC leaders who are still in research of the meaning and tenets of restructuring.
In addition, let them look for the lecture of Professor Mimiko, my brother and Ife alumni, co-delegate at the 2014 National Conference, Emeritus Vice-Chancellor of the Adekunle Ajasin University. His lecture on “Tottering on the Brink of Collapse: Is Restructuring the Way Out of Nigeria’s Extant Crises?” is not unexpectedly, the meat of the concept. Many Nigerians even now believe restructuring is belated. Nigeria, we hail thee.
Sola Ebiseni, Afenifere, writes from Lagos