Unity And Integration Of Nigeria
By
Kyari Tijani
culled from GUARDIAN, March 6, 2005
Now that the National Political Reform Conference has convened, one would
wish to believe that the conferees are aware of the enormous burden of their
responsibility. Their responsibility is to reinvent and reconstruct Nigeria. In
other words to forge the unity and integration of Nigeria. Unity connotes a
social and political process. Integration is organic; anthromorphic. Notionally
at least, you have to morph the people together. Integration is deeper, and can
be the basis of unity. Nigeria needs both. But we should aim at full
integration. Unity will automatically follow.
All this is familiar enough, but it is the one thing that has eluded us all
of the 45 years of our Independence. It will elude us for the next 45 years, as
already the gear of this novel Conference on which much hope is placed is in a
confrontational mode. The confrontation will intensify, as the "jaw-jaw" keeps
on intensifying as the Conference progresses. It would not need a Professor of
Political Science to conjecture that the outcome of this process is
catastrophic, if it is allowed to continue.
And it will continue. There is no way of stopping it. One would hope for a
reprieve in the parallel Conferences being proposed. But the outcome of these
Conferences will be stillborn, just as the famous Bala Usman and Segun Osoba
Minority Report of the late 1970s had been stillborn, even as it was indeed part
of an officially sanctioned Conference proceedings. No single day passed we had
not yearned for unity and integration of our dear country Nigeria. We had not
attained it.
Not that we had not tried. But we had not succeeded. The unremitting effort,
curiously began with the breaking up of Nigeria into pieces to weather
domination. First, the three regions inherited from colonialism, the North, West
and East in which the North preponderantly dominated the two (later four) other
regions, was broken up into six, with another six in the south, making twelve in
1967; going to 19 in 1976, 21 in 1987, 30 in 1991 and 36 in 1996; plus the
Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, which brings to 37, the total number of
units enjoying same status in all respects, especially allocation of federal
resources.
We had inaugurated a National Youth Service Corps Scheme in which our youths
spend the first year of their life after graduating, giving free service in
state outside state of their birth. We have moved the Capital base of our
Federation from Lagos in the Southwest corner of the country to the centre of
the country, to Abuja, so that all Nigerians will be near enough to it, and will
have a sense of belonging. Free movement of people; freedom of self-expression
and freedom of possession is guaranteed to every Nigerian wherever he chooses to
stay. All the ingredients of unity and integration of our country are there on
the ground. But we failed to unite and integrate.
There is no better attestation to this fact than the convening of this
Conference, the National Political Reform Conference. Disunity and
disintegration, instead of unity and integration is the phobia on everybody's
mind. Therefore the problem of unity and integration of our country must now be
tackled forcefully, scientifically and permanently. I do not believe this
Conference is capable of, or prepared to do this. It is not because the
conferees lack the skill, the competence or the knowledge to do this. If
anything, by age and collective experience, one must grant them that. One's only
fear is that it is very difficult to undo what you have yourself done - just as
it is very difficult for most people to apologise! Most of the conferees belong
to the class who were running the country and they cannot absolve themselves now
that they had run the country aground.
But more seriously, my main fear is that the right perspectives and means are
not given to the conferees. If you say their responsibility is to reinvent and
reconstruct Nigeria, then it is obvious that you cannot use the same tools and
moulds which destroyed Nigeria, to reinvent and reconstruct Nigeria! For
instance, the road map given the conferees accepts Nigerian Federalism as
sacrosanct, irrevocable, irreducible. Given our history and circumstances today,
I will grant that. But we Nigerians must be patriotic and forward looking enough
to believe that a federation can morph into a unitary system if the right
orientation exists, right facilitations are provided, and the right framework is
established and supported.
The framework now provided the Conference is unequivocably federalist. The
geo-political framework offered are also the State and Local Government areas.
This may also had to be. But within these frameworks the elements that
constitute governance can either be dynamic or static. The geo-political
elements are obviously static not quite so the process of governance. A
combination of dynamic elements can be applied and manipulated to not only
produce a stable federation, but also create a possibility of transition to
unitarism. If you take the two yearned for objectives of the polity, unity and
integration, integration has more positive and dynamic capability. In social
situations both assume interactive activity. In the case of integration, a sort
of morphing in computer language, takes place, actually known as anthromorphing.
In anthropological language, integration suggests that various peoples of
Nigeria, in pursuing their daily lives, are actually interpenetrating into each
other (morphing) in the course of which a new Nigerian is being born.
Of course, in practical terms we know that this is not what is happening.
What is happening is, no matter how Nigerians penetrate into each other's
territory they try to maintain their separate identities. Sabo, the Hausa
quarters in Ibadan and Hausari quarters in Maiduguri indicate to us that in
both, and all such cases, the Hausa immigrants had succeeded in maintaining
their Hausa identity. But the social anthropologists who studied such cases have
shown to us that this is not due to the immutability of the people, the Hausa
immigrants in this case, but due to the circumstances of their existence. At the
initial stage they were and indeed seen by their host communities as aliens.
As agents in the long distance trade that linked their home base and their
home of business, they need to maintain their goodwill with their home base, but
also to devise means of protecting themselves where they are living. To preserve
themselves and their identity clinging to each other is the most obvious way
open to them, as then and up to now, government has no policy of protecting
aliens in host communities. If we want seriously to promote unity and
integration in Nigeria, these are the issues we must address sincerely,
adequately and methodically. The mechanics of doing this must obtain adequate
_expression in our Constitution, so that they are not left to the whims and
caprices of men of power.
But the business of reinventing and reconstructing Nigeria goes far beyond
solving in-migration problems. Accepting integration as a morphing process, we
now have to reconstruct our Constitution to place integration as its central
purpose and main business of governance. We must start with the in-migrants. If
circumstances had enabled them to be integrated (i.e., morphed with their host
communities) there would have been no question of indigene/settler problem, as
it had happened on the Plateau with disastrous consequences, after the settlers
having had lived and interacted with their host community for over 100 years.
Indeed, as the Hausa migrants themselves would say, they only mingled; they did
not mix (zaman wake da shinkafa) like rice and beans.
All over Nigeria, that is the pattern. There is no need to be so. It is so
because government had not seen it fit to place on ground rules and regulations,
including incentives, rewards and punishments that would make the integration of
our people a reality, wherever they are staying, and with whomever they are
staying. Even the National Youth Service Corps Scheme, which was specifically
designed to foster the desired integration has woefully failed after more than
30 years of its existence. It is now pitching itself towards a more serious
disaster as the more serious states are said to be potching on the qualified
professionals from other states like doctors and quantity surveyors into their
services, while these other states are sinking deeper into the morass of
underdevelopment, just for the lack of same.
All these antithetical occurences will stop, or at least be minimised, if we
put the pendulum at the right point between six or seven constitutional and
developmental strategies, which we had hitherto ignored or wrongly applied, with
the disastrous consequences of disunity and lack integration, which we are
reaping now.
Our constitutional and developmental strategic choices lie between the
following pair of concepts, among which we have to make the right choice, or get
the right mix:
1. Centre - State relations (power sharing)
2. Region (State) - Nation (patriotism)
3. Ethnicity - "Nigerianity" (loyalty)
4. Settler - Indigene (Citizenship rights)
5. Efficiency - Representativeness (Federal Character)
6. Home Development - National Development (Residentiality)
7. Religion-Secularism (freedom of worship)
All these contentions, which are real and dangerous, can be solved by taking
some hard decisions, which I also consider must decisions. First of all, we must
recognise the impact of whatever criteria we pick for our constitutional and
national development needs. So far, since our Independence we have
overwhelmingly depended on the geo-political criterion for attaining unity and
integration, or solving consequential problems arising therefrom. Look at the
unending fissiparations that had gone on in the name of allaying fears of
domination by this or that, or attaining even development by "bringing
Government closer to the people". Today, even if we want to break up, we don't
know with whom to break-up!
And the fission has not ended; and will never end, as long as each fission
always creates new estates for new landlords! The geo-political orientation
stays, and cannot be discarded, if only because only within the institutional
framework of geographical space - States, Local Government Areas; etc, people
live and development takes place. But it must be doused with socio-economic
criteria, because development is for people; not for mountains, hills and dales.
In any case, if you hold the geo-political criteria - States, Local Government
Areas as supermost, you would always get those who will find it easier to
manipulate them than human aggregations. The geo-political units must remain
mere administrative units.
We may then retain the geo-political criterion for what it is worth, but must
turn our dependence to the socio-economic criteria - people and their health and
wealth. We must push our revenue sharing formula to support people even as the
geo-political units remain as the theatres of operation. In this regard, one of
the most important, urgent and intractable problem we must solve is that hideous
settler - indigene confrontation. Also in this regard, the constant refrain by
governmental leaders telling us that a Nigerian is free to live anywhere he
likes, earn wealth, build properties, is only good as rhetoric. The Constitution
itself had given it validity. But it is the one problem that had deepened our
disunity.
It created the problem of dual-indigeneity, which people seem to enjoy and
operate, much to the annoyance and inevitable resistance of the host
communities. Our Constitution therefore must be amended to give single
indigeneity of anywhere a Nigerian chooses to stay, giving him indigeneity
rights only in the state where he is staying. Hence, only his State of residence
where he is living and earning is his State of origin. This must be made
justiciable, and my long-lost friend, Chairman of the National Population
Commission Sunday D. Makama must be made to recast his Census Registration Form,
to effectively reflect this innovation. For the avoidance of doubt, what is
meant here is that the State of origin concept must be abrogated and frozen
immediately, and everybody automatically becomes the indigene of the State he is
now staying and earning his livelihood. No more to-ing and fro-ing between the
two poles; no more ferrying of personal goods between the two poles; no more
marriage between "home-boy" and "home-girl", as deliberate policy of rooting
oneself in his so-called "State of Origin". Loyalty must be to where you are
staying and prospering; not to where you belong by birth.
The National Youth Service Corps Scheme, which had failed to serve its
purpose because of lacking such a focus must now be reoriented, and State
Governments must retain at least 10% of those serving in their respective State
every year; to remain in the State of their service, not just at the mercy of
fate but mandatorily absorbed into the State Civil Service and given all the
protection and inducement that could make them accept the indigeneity of the
state of their service, in replacement of that of their so-called State of
origin. Federal Civil Servants, other than the men of the armed and security
services, can be given the option of permanently staying in the station of final
service, or return to the State of their origin. Members of the armed and other
security services can also be given this option.
All these are necessary because if we say "unity" and "integration", it is
not geographic spaces that unite and integrate. It is people that unite and
integrate. Ibadan will not come and integrate with Kano. Lagos will never come
and integrate with Gwoza, though substantial Hausas and Gwozas are living in
both towns and are making a good life of it. So, if you do not force or induce
them, they will never integrate. Man being what he is, selfish and greedy, he
will always exploit both situations to his maximum benefit. And we will remain
disunited and un-integrated for the next forty-five (45) years. The freedoms
enshrined in our Constitution are worthy, but for the moment are they not at the
expense of our unity and integration? This is also another hard but must choice
we have to make. We have to transfer our loyalty to our adopted State from the
State of birth. To facilitate this State, Local Government Area and township
must be enabled to develop its local resources and attract in-migrants as social
integration index will also attract Federal Allocation. Cynics will say this is
crazy and childish. But the sane and matured one we are using had not worked;
and will never work!
What remains is now to provide the facilitations that will be used to make this
proposal work. Since every Nigerian will now be an indigene of where he is
staying and not where he was born, there will be no animosity over which part of
Nigeria is getting development attention. All parts of Nigeria will, and must
get equal attention. That is what we call even development; even development
measured in human term. The question is how do we get this "even development".
Well, the Federal Government must take the most preponderant responsibility
for it. All States must contribute to a national blue print. To effect this and
to ensure implementation, the State Governors; not Ministers, will form the
Executive Council of the Federation. For day-to-day policy implementation and
supervision, what now passes as Federal Executive Council can be retained as
Secretaries of their respective Ministries.
Funding is assured by the provision of Section 162 sub.2 of the Constitution
but the Federation share can even be increased as the centre will now assume
responsibility for even development, the formulation and implementation of which
the President and the State Governors sit together on one-among equals basis.
This is not abrogating Federalism because State Governors will still retain
responsibility for the management of their States.
This may also be seen as a crazy and unworkable proposal. But it does not
seem crazier than the present situation where never more than 50% of the Federal
Budget ever gets implemented even as the President puts federal money and
development where he wants. This proposal will also douse the "resource control"
fire that keeps on raging, and the danger of federating geo-political units,
which are always contending with each other for "fair share" of the "Federal
Cake", which at the end of the day, never seems to be fair to any of the States.
As responsibility for even development is now squarely placed on the
shoulders of the Federal Government (the centre), jointly formulated for
implementation with the State Governments and Local Governments, all provisions
of the existing Revenue Allocation Formula may stay. Additional socio-economic
indices such as literacy rate, population, poverty rate, social integration
rate, and United Nations Human Development indices rate, must be included to
enhance the principle of even development at the socio-economic level, and to
centre people, rather than regions, as focus of consideration. The Constitution
should be amended as, and where should be so that the heat can be taken out of
the present geo-political confrontations, which solved no problem, but kept on
raging ever since the break up of the former regions in 1967 to allay the fear
of "Northern Dominion"! Now, the 'monolithic North" is no more, but the demand
for more States, Local Governments, etc keep on coming, which means our
long-standing approaches never solved any problems, and we must try other ones,
no matter how hard and crazy they are!
The conferees to this National Political Reform Conference should not shy away
from this responsibility of theirs. This time, we must get it right.
Professor Tijani, a consultant to The Guardian Editorial
Board, is with the Department of Public Administration, University of Maiduguri.
