Respective governors of the 17 states of Southern Nigeria rose from a historic meeting in Lagos, on Monday, October 23, 2017 with a communique that might have ruffled feathers at the federal level of government. But it did not.
After a three-hour long deliberation on issues of utmost importance to the southern part of Nigeria, the governors issued a communique through their host, Governor Akinwumi Ambode of Lagos, who is now the chairman of the Forum.
While the governors predictably reiterated their commitment to a united and indivisible Nigeria, and pledged to work together for the development of the states in the southern part of the country, they, however, struck a sensitive chord by asking for “true federalism and devolution of powers to the states.”
Coming at a time when agitation for the restructuring of the Nigerian state is resonant, it is not clear if the governors will be willing to empanel a special body, charged with the task of providing detail of the anticipated “true federalism” and “devolution of
powers.”
Otherwise, the communique listing these two eyebrow demands would simply amount to the proverbial sounds and fury, signifying nothing. Assuredly, the governors’ demands are not new in that, in its augural meeting of 2002 and the second meeting of 2005, the Forum had thrown up the same demand, embedded in devolution of some powers to the constituent states.
While we commend the candour of the governors in raising their voices to demand true federalism and devolution of powers, it is still confounding how they wish to gain requisite attention if the detail of their request remains sketchy and confined to the realm of mere conjectures
The governors, at their meeting, might simply have provided what amounted to a talk shop since no clear explanation was given on the concessions that should be given to the states, through a review of the Nigerian Constitution.
While those who have been demanding for restructuring are apparently disunited in their clamour, with no agreed fulcrum upon which to lay their agitation, the governors, in giving vent to this populist idea, should have highlighted what they wanted under a truly federal structure.
Though individual governors had, at various times, made demands that could be classified as calling for devolution of powers, never had the leaders at the state level come together in unison, to agree on a common platform. For instance, Ambode, just like his successors, Babatunde Fashola and Bola Tinubu, respectively, has been strident in his call for a state police and the control of inland waterways to the exclusion of the Federal
Government.
While the Federal Government, produced by the same All Progressives Congress that also owns the Ambode administration, looked the other way all the while, the state got a breather through an Appeal Court verdict, granting it unfettered control over the inland waterways.
In calling for true federalism, the governors apparently had the United States of America in mind, from where Nigeria copied the prevailing federal system of government.
The governors’ contention, though timidly expressed, still is about the dominance of virtually all federal organs over the states. But along the line too, the states have overtly proclaimed superiority over the local governments.
While the Federal Government sits on national revenue and budgets for the states, the latter, at their level, control the destiny of local government administrations in their respective domains.
It has thus been widely expressed that financial dominance of the centre over the federating units has invariably made the states to lose their financial independence. Often times, there have been complaints of inequitable distribution of wealth, in which states that generate near-zero revenue get chummy allocations, thereby encouraging indolence and parasite mentality in some constituent parts of the
federation.
Kenneth Wheare, the late Oxford-trained Australian academic, in his definition of federalism, said, “It is the method of dividing powers so that general and regional governments are each, within a sphere, co-ordinate and independent of one another.” This simply means that the federal, state and local tiers of government would be independent of each other, with their spheres of control fully stated in the constitution, based on natural
justice.
While we commend the candour of the governors in raising their voices to demand true federalism and devolution of powers, it is still confounding how they wish to gain requisite attention if the detail of their request remains sketchy and confined to the realm of mere conjectures.
The governors should, in that wise, present a position paper to the National Assembly, detailing areas of perceived injustice, inequity and oppression within this federal structure, and then point out sections of the Constitution that should be amended, to accommodate their demands.
This way, their request on the Nigerian nation would make some impact, rather than the mere political exteriorisation of playing to the gallery at the Governors’ Forum, only to gather in future to issue yet, another communique that succeeds in saying ‘nothing’.
