Restructuring, Religion, Population and Fiscal federalism

Nigeria is in constant threat of a revolt. The only solution to all these problems is restructuring.

Never has Nigeria been in trouble and pain as it is now. The tragic civil war of 1967 - 1970 pales in comparison to the situation of today even when no section of the country is at war with another. Nigerians are very hungry, thanks to President Bola Tinubu's disastrous removal of subsidy which plunged Nigeria into abject poverty without forethought on how poor Nigerians will be helped out of the pain. Nigerians are asked to see the removal as the pains they must bear for the joy of tomorrow. They are not just hearing that, since the Babangida days up till the administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, the singsong has become a constant refrain of the civil servants and technocrats who draft the speeches of these leaders.

But Bola Tinubu's era is more difficult, the problem of hunger is mixed with a variety of other nagging problems that Nigerians are finding impossible to cope with. Top of them is the Fulani herdsmen attack on other ethnicities. It didn't come with Tinubu but despite the attempt of Tinubu to use propaganda to give it a lesser effect, Nigerians who bear the daily pain of kidnapping and payment of ransom to these Fulani herdsmen cannot be deceived. They live with it and if they have not been kidnapped yet they are expecting their turn someday. The local Fulani, the ones that are indigenous to the geographical space called Nigeria have been joined by other Fulani that are from other West African countries and they are invading Nigerian territories and sending their Nigerian owners away from their ancestral homes. They kill the indigenes in hundreds and run away on their motorcycles. They speak French but through their indigenous collaborators they serve notice of their impending attacks on their victims who dare not challenge them. The locals take to their heels abandoning their long held ancestral homes. The soldiers are weak and sick, trying their best but giving reasons in their technical military language which the affected Nigerians are not willing and able to understand. Tinubu says he will not bend to any attempt by any foreign country to pressure him by some manipulations. He had just returned from France and London, journeys which Nigerians didn't understand why he embarked on them. Then America released a statement that come July, Tinubu's long held secret over drug allegation will be made public.

Is Nigeria still a sovereignty? A bunch of Ak 47 wielding ragtag Fulani terrorists invade a community, kill many and scare others to flee away. And a 'sovereign' is left holding meetings over meetings without any defence for it citizens. "We've never seen this before. We are served quit notice on our land by some french speaking Fulani and the president is away in France and he comes back and all we see is meeting with the generals. We don't know when they are going to rise to defend us." The Hausa had known themselves as Hausa/Fulani, a Nigerian coinage to assuage Hausa by their Fulani conquerors to give effect that both ethnicities are one and the same, especially in Islam. But now the Hausa are saying they want to be Hausa which they had been before the Fulani came and possessed them and their land. Both had intermarried but now the Hausa are divorcing their Fulani spouses and their fellow Hausa are very happy about it. One Hausa woman was heard on a WhatsApp video praising his colleagues for taking such actions. It has never been so in the North. Even Fualni-centric Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria's ruler before Tinubu wondered why two groups who speak the same language should be fighting. Other ethnicities in Nigeria can fight as far as Buhari is concerned but not Hausa-Fulani who speak the same Hausa because he also is Fulani with Fulanization of Nigeria as his agenda. In their craftiness, Fulani speak their Fulbe language only when they are in their houses, outside they speak Hausa which they had used to give effect to their supposed "oneness" with Hausa. But that is gone, Hausa are saying they have been enslaved for too long and they now want their land and freedom. They want to be rulers again in their land.

In the East, Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB is giving a hell of time to both governors and those they govern. They kill fellow Igbo. Going to the east by Igbo who live outside their homes in other parts of Nigeria and the diaspora is going to heaven. The leader of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu was kidnapped in Kenya by Nigerian security forces and has been in court with the security forces for as long as anybody could remember. Simon Ekpa, another and firecer secessionists based in Finland is expected to be extradited home to face charges. The usually calm forests of Yoruba land are no longer safe and many Yoruba youths are preaching the gospel of self-help. They will not let any Fulani whom they labeled as land grabbers take an inch of their Oduduwa land. Nigeria is in constant threat of a revolt. The only solution to all these problems is restructuring. But Nigerian leaders prefer to live a lie, denying this which without not. The Taiwo Oyedele Tax Reform Committee report is the primary evidence that the north prefer to continue to live a lie. Almost all governors in the north including surprisingly Professor Babagana Umara Zulum of Borno state who many see as performing rose against the report which favour that each state control its resources. While the traditional leaders of the north who have held power in the region criticized the report, especially the provision for fiscal federalism, yet the educated youth of the north rose up to denounce the retrogessive stance of their leaders. These youthful technocrats said there was no single anti-north provision in the entire bill. One of them said since the north is the foodbasket of the nation the bill offered it tremendous opportunity to make more money from VAT. "All the north has to do in the interim before it gets industries to process the food is to bag them, thus adding value and earning money, the north must ensure that no food leaves the north without it being bagged."

As simple as that. But it must be plain to the whole nation now especially to the vanishing breed of northern leadership that these youths are not going to tolerate what their forbears tolerated again. It must be plain to everyone from the south to the north that Nigeria cannot survive without a thorough restructuring that will allow each component control its resources. The major problem of the country now is the desire for dominance by the three major tribes, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. And nothing short of each region being allowed almost 100 percent control of its resources will solve this problem. For example, the east is complaining that its people are not given opportunities in the police. If the east is allowed full control of its resources and to have its own police, it won't need its citizens in the federal police again. In fact, the federal police will be so small and not as octopus as it is now. And the same thing applies to all other regions. But we can't afford small states as we have now. First, the reason for creating those states is not the logic of federalism. State creation began when the Gowon administration needed to create states to break the spine of the eastern region during the civil war. In other words, the desire to create states as it became the desire in subsequent state creation efforts is to subjugate other regions. Economic viability and geographical contiguity must replace those primitive and selfish motives. For example, some states were created on the whims of the military leaders or their wives. Only a few of the states are viable while almost all their resources go into salaries of civil servants. Current states must be merged into viable and huge regions. Component parts of a federation are not inferior parts to one another or to the central government as we have it now. This is why it is possible for President Bola Tinubu to use the large federal purse and the removed oil subsidy to lure the governors in opposition parties to the ruling party APC, to the extent that the opposition is crying that he wants to turn the nation into a one party state. The governors know the importance of more money in their purses, especially to their looting design and Bola Tinubu who has facilitated that can as well be president forever.

Nigeria must be restructured into six large regions after the six zones that we have now. Greedy and visionless grabbers who are in politics for what they can steal will not see any possibility of this. They will not see the possibility of this because they won't see the possibility of the states giving up their sovereignty. But Nigeria is better collapsed into six regions or cease to exist as a nation and that now. Large regions have advantages. They are a check on the predatory tendencies of any government at the centre. We have had two examples now, the Olusegun Obasanjo administration and now the Bola Tinubu administration. Large regions will ensure the emergence of strong and astute governors who will emerge not because they came from the majority area of the region but because of their political astuteness and sagacity, vision and brilliance. Ahmadu Bello, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo were examples of this. The federal government could not easily hoodwink them. The governors of the small states we have now are easy meat for predators at the centre. Late Chef MKO Abiola called them " eaglet governors." One of them prefers to dance all over the place and drinking away precious time, another in Bauchi said eduction is mere formality and not necessary for success in life. And that's a governor who hopes to be president of the nation. May he not be. With current small sizes of the states and the nature of men who got to be governors, it is very clear that we can never get good thinkers over the components of our federation. Good and wise men and women are in short supply in Nigeria for now and so we are likely to have them over six regions than over 36 states. Six regions will manage our resources better than now. More resources will be available for infrastructural development.

It must be noted that a six region restructure as proposed will never come by a conference, not ever. The ideas are already in the papers of such conferences that held in the recent past. So how would it come? Nature has a way of getting things done. When Nigeria will not tame its burgeoning population because religion and tradition must be assuaged, natural population control came in the form of Boko Haram, banditry, IPOB and ESN, kidnappings and killings in the east and various kidnappings in the southwest. The signs of implosion especially in the North is there for any clear-eyed person to see. Implosion will come to checkmate greed and looting in Nigeria. A mass revolt is in the offing and it will most likely come from the most unlikely part of the nation, the north. The north is no more submissive as it was when it’s leaders got away with impunity. Those youths in the north are no longer docile. They will kickstart a revolt and lead and encourage their brothers in the south. Unfortunately, it is too late in the day to avert it. It is the only thing that will force these drastic changes and get Nigeria on the march to greatness. It will come naturally and it will surprise those who have been walking about with blinkers over their eyes saying Nigerians are two divided to revolt.

The traditional authority has equally come to the end of their usefulness and a new institution must emerge to replace it. If the agitation of the Hausa for the repossession of their land and rulership must be attended to, and there is no how it won't be, then the emirates must be abolished. As they are now, they are symbols of Fulani conquests of the Hausa and a continuing historical irritation. So also must all the traditional institutions in other parts of the country give way to new institutions. A suggested institution is the mayorality. Mayoralities must take place of the current local governments. Mayors will be selected by political parties and presented to each community for election. Anybody, Hausa or Fulani in the constituency can be presented and elected. Similarly for other areas. It will prevent the ugly scenario developing in Lagos where the indigenous Yoruba are complaining that setller Igbo are planning to take over their land. This is a complaint that can cause another war, but because only locals will be allowed to contest as mayors, this trouble will be averted. Nigeria is not ripe yet for the kind of democracy where non-indigenes will rule over indigenes. It is a prescription for calamity. This prescription will also avert the canterkerous debate over superiority among obas in the Yoruba land. For instance, Baba Oba Oba Oyotunji, South Carolina, USA, Chief Chief Lukman Arounfale was allegedly attacked in the palace of Alafin of Oyo over issues concerned with this superiority contest. This attack, his family claim, subsequently led to his death. However, the Alafin, Oba Akeem Owoade has denied this. If left unchecked this superiority ambition will spin out of control and can mean severe damages in the country.

Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos