April 13, 2001
Introduction
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with as many as 120 million people, richly endowed with material and human resources. No discussion about the new wave of globalization as it impacts Africa in all its economic, technological, ideas and political ramifications is complete without throwing a lot of spotlight on Nigeria itself and its internal dynamics.
On May 29, 1999, Nigeria embarked on a new democratic journey, with all levels of local, state and federal governance in place. This was after a 16-year interregnum of military rule and a total of 29 years of such rule since its flag independence in 1960.
The journey started in a rather strange way: the Constitution under which all the officials were elected and are currently operating was not revealed until a day or two before May 29, so some would argue that the governments are illegimate, if not downright illegal. Yet given the dark military years of Abacha, Nigerians were quite ready to forgive and forget such minor details, hoping that any necessary changes in the Constitution would still be made as we went along.
It has not been that easy. After some initial reluctance to convene it, a Presidential Constitutional Review Committee has submitted a report to President Obasanjo, coming up with as many as 82 suggestions for amendments. A Joint National Assembly Review Committee is trying its own hands at the same job. Meanwhile, the clamour for a Sovereign National Conference - admittedly extra-constitutional, but proposed to involve all stakeholders right from the grassroots, and culminating in a Peoples' Constitution via a popular referendum - continues unabated.
Only today, still resisting calls for an SNC but bending somewhat to the idea of a
conference, the President announced a National Conference of sorts for May 29, 2001 (the second anniversary of his presidential inauguration) with zonal preconferences beforehand, all within a period of less than 60 days, and without waiting for the joint National Assembly's effort to bear some fruit.
Ethnic Tensions
The democratic space that opened since May 29, 1999 has also resulted in the bubbling up of ethnic, religious and regional tensions in the country. With respect to ethnic tensions, I do not wish to catalog them by date or specific events, but merely to state that both inter- and intra-ethnic conflicts - Yorubas, Hausa-Fulani, Igbo, Urhobos, Itsekiris, Ijaw, Ife-Modakeke, Aguleri-Umuleri etc., in major and minor towns North and South, East and West - have made the news, resulting in thousands of deaths. Just as there is an "Organized Private Sector" (OPS) in Nigeria, there is also an "Organized Ethnic Sector" (OES), with the Afenifere (Yoruba), Ohaneze (Igbo), Arewa Consultative Forum (North) and Union of Niger-Delta (UND) as its conservative wing, while the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC), Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of
Biafra (MASSOB), the Arewa Peoples Congress (APC) and Egbesu Boys respectively represent the militant wings of the OES. All of them assert varying degrees of self-determination, and/or (dis)avowal of (in)dissolubility of the Nigerian state.
Religious tensions
The adoption of Sharia Law in its legal totality by many states in Northern Nigeria (championed by Zamfara State) since the opening up of democratic space, coupled with the witting or unwitting powerlessness of the federal government to contain it, has also introduced a new element of serious religious tension in the country. I emphasise "in its legal totality" because Sharia has always been part of civil law and life in various parts of Northern Nigeria before and since Independence.
However, its extension into criminal aspects (including punishments such as
amputation) and social restrictions such as separate transportation and educational facilities for the sexes appears very troublesome to many Nigerians, who see it as a pernicious assault on Nigeria's Federal and secular constitution. Ironically, its proponents of the Islamic faith see
it as a fulfilment of that same constitution, which guarantees them freedom of worship, with the claim that provided the extended Sharia law is applied SCRUPULOUSLY only to Muslims and nobody else, there should be "No problem!", to quote a Nigerian lingo. Rhetoric and reality have
already clashed on a number of occasions in that regard.
With such disparate views, it is clear that a major challenge of Nigerian nationhood is how to allow multi-religious faithfuls to profess their various religions within a federal secular state without syncretism.
Regional tensions
Next the regional tensions. Although because of the peculiar ethno-geographical nature of Nigeria, these regional tensions have both ethnic and religious dimensions, yet it is useful to frame them in terms of the issue of "resource control" - in short "purse" or "money" control!
The tension here is "who owns the solid minerals, the oil, the land, the oceans etc.?", and next "how should the money derived from them be allocated between the various tiers of government?"
The 1999 Constitution states that the Federal Government is the main owner of the purse, in complete control of the solid minerals, the oil, the land, the oceans, but that it is OBLIGATED to allocate revenue accruing from these resources in certain ways, according to certain fixed
(sometimes minimum) percentages in some instances.
Historically, this has not always been the case. Both the Independence Constitution of 1960 and the Federal Constitution of 1963, which were products of intense and delicate negotiations among and between the Nigerian peoples (albeit umpired by the departing British colonial) vested
resource control to the regions, which then paid taxes, sometimes as high as 50%, to the Federal government.
At this early stage, there was a (near?) parity between agricultural resources such as groundnut in the North, cocoa in the West, rubber in the Midwest and coal and palm oil in
the East. Due to the fact that these resources required sweat contributions from the pertinent peoples of Nigeria, reasonable amounts of mutual interdependence and respect existed.
The military coup in 1966 and the ensuing war effort during the 1967-1970 led to a revision of this delicately-negotiated circumstance, leading, first in 1967 to the creation of 12 states from the four regions (there are now a total of 36 states), and in 1969 to a decree asserting TEMPORARY ownership of resources by the Federal government. This included particularly the oil in the rebellious East, at a time when oil was just increasingly become the economic lifeblood of the country. 32 years later, 26 of them under a very unitarizing military rule, discovery of
significantly increased amount of oil both onshore and offshore, particularly in the Niger-Delta area of Southern Nigeria, has made what was temporary to now take on a permanent mantle. Oil, once contributing near-zero percentage of foreign earnings, now contributes about 90% of it.
Many of the states in Nigeria, particularly the Southern states, and more particularly the oil-producing states of the Niger-Delta, want a return to the old regime, and have framed it under the slogan of "Resource control."
Virtually all the states in the country agree that the Federal government is keeping too much money to itself, even sometimes in violation of the Constitution such as "hiding" money away from the Federation Account into special accounts. The oil-producing littoral (coastal) states of the South have an additional beef: they allege that the constitutionally-mandated minimum of 13% due to derivation is being denied them because of an offshore/onshore dichotomy created by the Federal government.
On this issue, the Federal claim, supported clearly by the 1999 Constitution and settled international practice, is that offshore resources belong to the Federal government and not the contiguous states, while the littoral states argue again from history that no such dichotomy
existed before 1969, and that in any case it was explicitly abrogated by Babaginda in 1991 or so!
The case is now before the Supreme Court of the land for interpretation - first court date April 9, next court date May 21, 2001 - after the Federal Government, in a surprising move, sued all the 36 states. Stay tuned.
Necessity for Serious Popular Constitutionalism
The common thread between all of these ethnic, religious and regional tensions are an overbearing Federal government and varying interpretations of an unpopular and rather unitarist constitution. It is a flawed document for which there is no national consensus. Ironically, if there is to be NATIONAL INTEGRATION, the changes in the constitution must properly reflect the diversity of the country, giving more power to local levels of governance, then devising intentional ways of forging a nation out of the diverse nations in the country.
Let us take for example the offshore/onshore dichotomy. This is easily resolved via a constitutional amendment which would enable states (rather than only the Federal government) to register companies (eg oil and mining companies) and to tax them appropriately, together with the Federal government. After all, companies with offshore interest eventually have to operate their offices from the land, and their workers have to pay income taxes from their homes on land! Various ethnic tensions within states may require the creation of additional local governments, but the present DIRECT allocation of revenue to local governments from the Federal government would have to be reviewd since there is currently a serious North-South imbalance in their number, and hence there are regional tensions stemming from concommitant imbalance in federal allocations.
Religious tensions are more difficult to legislate against, but as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said (paraphrasing now) "While you cannot legislate that a person love me (OR MY GOD), at least you can legislate that he not lynch me (FOR MY ETHNCITY OR RELIGION)!" I strongly believe
that devolution of power from the center will also have a positive reverberatory effect on religious tensions in Nigeria.
Conclusion
I am hopeful about Nigeria's long-term unity, but it is a cautious hope. There are too many good reasons - size, vibrant population, interdependent economy, pan-African ideals etc. - for Nigeria to remain one country, but some will state that there are also many good reasons - historically different nations before colonialism, ineffective leadership, ethnic strifes, etc. - why their various people might end up going their separate ways. Many Nigerians give bad reasons why Nigeria should stay together - eg an untouchable, indissoluble colonial creation - but those are really untenable.
Nigeria's unity should not be taken for granted. Thus, it is absolutely essential that a fundamental, comprehensive and popular review of the 1999 Constitution must be embarked upon in the shortest time possible, involving all stakeholders via a Sovereign National Conference. Such a popular-approved new constitution, a new compact between the nationalities of Nigeria, between the governed and their governors, the rulers and the ruled, the leaders and the led, should invariably result in greater devolution of powers from the center to some yet-to-be-defined federating units, and include a Bill of Rights acceptable to all Nigerians.
It is also important that serious electoral reforms be embarked upon without delay, so that not only more political parties, hopefully with IDEOLOGICAL complexions, be allowed, but such that elections in the country be TRANSPARENT and fair enough for leaders who can be accountable
to the electorate to be thrown up, and those not accountable to be thrown out.
Finally, it must be stated that many of the ethnic, religious and regional tensions discussed about Nigeria above occur in many other places around the globe. However, only when Nigeria is a strong and united country will it not be left behind or even buried under the present wave of
globalization, and only then will it take its rightful place as a champion of Africa and the Black race.
The above presentation was prepared for a International Globalization Conference at Howard University, April 10-13, 2001:
"THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF GLOBALIZATION AT THE DAWN OF THE MILLENNIUM".
Panel title: "THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF GLOBALIZATION FOR AFRICA"
Guides
FRIDAY ESSAY: