PROF. BEN NWABUEZE: NIGERIA AS A FAILED STATE CHALLENGED. BY BARR. PASCHAL IFEANYI NWOSU. EMAIL: hellonwosu@yahoo. Director: Centre for Development Imitatives and Advocacy. Few people are ignorant of who Prof. Ben Nwabueze is but quite a larger number are nonplussed by what he represents to the Nigerian State especially in his latest remark which described Nigeria as sliding into a failed State. Prof. Nwabueze is an Icon of constitutional Law and one of the most respected fluid writers of his generation whose writings are as valuable as the stained glass paintings of the ancient Churches, and like Zeus watching the frailties of human proceedings with illuminating eyes, timeless patience and attention to details summed up in letters guiding our statutes, legislatures, the executive and the people on constitutionalism. He is a light house that guides the legal voyagers safely ashore. His writings have been made into Songs by the Choirs of law for a Man whose footprints are large in the Sands of time and like a light House guides the Sailors of Justice ashore safely. Nwabuezze is a god of legal law, and a professor of professors; an Oracle of sort who as a Colossus bestrides the Nation’s gulf of Laws and must be taken seriously when he speaks. Prof.Nwabueze is the Architect of Constitutional Law in the Nigerian State who framed its tools of Constitutionalism and perhaps its political oratory by extension and seemly did a great disservice by voicing out the fear that Nigeria is on the Political Cliff of disintegration as a failed state. It is a back breaking insightful summation because having helped to build the state, his disillusionment is dizzying and confrontational and the responsive challenges from the media Hounds of Aso rock has been bombastic, in the likes of lesser Known Controversial Dr. Doyin Okupe whose dogged determination to be relevant in the National discourse has made him more enemies than he needed. Prof Nwabueze, Nigeria’s first academic Senior Advocate is an erudite scholar, teacher administrator, and former minister of Education and youth development. He was born in 1932 at Ogbaru local government of Anambra state. He attended the CMS central school Onitsha and thereafter proceeded to the London School of economics and Political science, the school of Oriental studies, University of London. He earned his Doctor of Laws from the same university in 1976.He is a renown professor of law who has published over thirty books and lectured in many Universities. He is a great advocate of the Igbo cause and associated with M.I Okpara, K.C Mbadiwe, Akanu Ibiam, P.N Okigbo and co-Founded the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Socio cultural Igbo nationalist organization. He is a gold fish in the waters of Justice and has no hiding Place. He is in better position to appreciate the Political fragility of the Nigerian state having held Office as an education minster. Okupe’s response has been carefully predetermined to attack the Character of the god of laws by deeming his comments as irresponsible and unpatriotic and expressing disappointment that such comments were not expected from a Statesman like Nwabueze. It was rather like a weak appeal for understanding because Nwabueze cannot be the Statesman of a failed State. This is coming from a man who had discarded the aprons of controversies preceding his appointment as Senior Special assistant to the president and has disappointed many by his approaches to issues which illuminates his ignorance, influences and orientations. Okupe, has neither been known to be expressive of intellectual pursuits, but yet in a curious way he seems always to make the right points about money and always interested in the financial aspects of issues. However in attempting to provide the indices of a failed State and sustain a legal argument to show that Nigeria was not sliding towards failure, one is left with no greater desire but to laugh because he makes the exact opposite of the points he intended. According to Okupe on the indices for a failed State; A State is presumed to have failed if there is an erosion of legitimate Authority, instability, and the Public can not be provided with public services like water, good roads and electricity! {Which he refers to as light}A cursory look at these indices show clearly that Nigeria is sliding towards a failed State by Okupe’s indices. There are indeed factors suggesting the erosion of legitimate authority in Nigeria to wit, endemic corruption, failure of the police service, terrorism, and intolerable inefficiency in the public service. The functions of the Police service have been virtually taken over by the National Assembly where the likes of Mr. farouk Superintends his own variation of integrity, investigations and custody of exhibits. The Provision of public service are virtually non existent and mostly all the roads are bad or not constructed especially in Imo State where there is a complete neglect by the federal government in the provision of infrastructures. The Nations ailing industrial sectors are frustrated by the inadequate provision of electricity negated by obsolete technology and infrastructures. Everyday, the press is inundated with alarming corrupt practices including the subsidy Scam and pension Plunders. The Boko Haram Security threats and the orgy of killings going on in the North are clear vindication of Nwabueze of the growing anarchy and loss of control by the legitimate authority. Osaro Onaiwu, the Special Adviser to the PDP Chairman on governors and Governance, makes a better point when he posits that one of the Indices of a failed State is international rejection and that Nigeria having welcomed N9 Billion Dollars in foreign direct investments is a negation of the idea that Nigeria is a failed State. Interestingly, he fails to appreciate the fact that with growing international aggression against Money laundry by the international Bodies and community, that these investments may actually be Nigerian with a foreign face, especially in the Power Sector and telecoms. Besides, these so called foreign investments are often in the Oil and telecom sectors where short time participation can aggravate unprecedented rewards in the face of corruption and poor ethical infrastructures to regulate foreign enterprises. Nigerians are overcharged in the telecom sectors and in the Oil sectors, the global giants are deeply involved in the theft of Nigerian crude oil and under accounting. They are taking as much as they can within the time they can without regulation. The nature of investments in the Nigerian sphere is not for long term which requires patient development of infrastructures and development of human capital and resources to manage it. As Nigeria marks its centenary, there is nothing indeed to celebrate in our one hundred years of history of the ugly contraption called Nigeria ; of people who passionately hate each other in the backdrop of genocides, pogroms, robust corruption, ethnic conflicts religious upheavals, police brutality and failed service, feudalism, educational atrophy and the inefficient balkanization of the federating units into weak and dangerously ineffective states that can barely challenge the federal might. Everything that promotes the nature and sovereignty of Nigeria is dead or dying as Nigeria remains a classic proof that blacks cannot govern and incapable of elevated behaviorism as the Yoruba aptly puts it ,”Iyan dudu pelu iwa dudu”. In other words, there is no Alchemy by which golden qualities can be produced from leaded individuals. Ben Nwabueze’s conceptualization of Nigeria as sliding into a state is liberating as Nigeria makes frantic efforts to celebrate the folly of our amalgamation between religiously incompatible people who take delight in killing each other and for which three Million Ibos were slaughtered and starved to death. Nigeria only remains glued together by the leadership agreement to exploit and plunder its resources without accounting to the law or the subdued spirit of our Nation that has been violated in the most unacceptable form of rape. However in addition to the views expressed by Nwabueze, I wish to examine from the points of law and international jurisprudence on what amounts to a failed State. A state is deemed to have failed if it has lost its territory, fails to provide Police services effectively, unable to interact with members of the international community, It is unable to enforce its domestic Laws, the rules of governance are arbitrary, there is widespread criminality and corruption, ineffective control over its government, Large-scale, internal strives, General level of insecurity and internally displaced people and the inability to provide Social services. A look at this road map to a failed Sate will show that Nigeria is close to its destination and only waiting for its final disintegration or eclipse. Perhaps a miracle can save the Nation and a better appreciation of the evil of exclusions particularly of the Igbo by the so called Gowon protocols that have set out the blueprint for their marginalization immediately after the war which is still active especially in the exclusion of the Zone from the development of a Port or refinery under a federal budget. We have watched with calm tension the widespread religious conflicts and intolerable imbalances in the share of the National resources. Okupe has made a grave error in displaying a political dishonesty and understanding of the Nigeria state. Denying the existence of the problem is not the solution. The solution lies in finding adequate safeguards to prevent the sliding into the void of disintegration by reengineering the leadership of the Nation state. The government needs to review its Policies on Corruption and attempt to regain the exercise of legitimate Authority, control of its territory and confidence of its people. Moslems and Christians must learn to live peacefully with each other. I still believe that Nigeria can be salvaged but its jaundiced leadership must reevaluate its stand on the marginalization of Ndigbo, systemic corruption and the reoccurring slaughter of its people in the far North. If this is not done, the quest for National Integration is as elusive as the search for the Holy Grail for the simple reason that you cannot put something on nothing. It will collapse. Follow me on Imotalks/politics as Next week we start an 8 part tour on good governance Summit examining the Imo state government successes and challenges in administration, education, infrastructural developments, legislations, Community government, City developments, sports and industrial development in two part Articles.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 08:08:58 +0000
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