The unity of Nigeria is negotiable – part 2 There are a lot of dubious claims and counterclaims by the government and the actors from different regions. I think we should quickly examine some of them. Why is the national unity is ‘no go area’ if there is a unity in the first place? The Presidential Advisory Committee on National Conference claimed that “it discovered that majority of Nigerians wanted the country to remain as one indivisible entity.” How was the study carried out? … who are the majority they are talking about? There is no fact in this statement because is not verifiable. I think it will be beneficial for the analysis in the long run to examine the merits in each of the positions by different actors as well. The most important question is why is Nigeria not working properly as it should be? Obviously one thing that is missing from all the assertions by the actors are facts and figures. If they know the importance of it and how vital is to build analogy from it, it could have helped ordinary Nigerians to understand their position rather than mar it. What I am saying in essence is that none of the actors carried out research about why they have taken their positions. I will give instances later. We have two actors among the Yorubas: the elders’ and the APC/Tinubu position. In fairness, the elders were calling lately that the “outcome of the proposed national conference should have a sovereign status that neither the Executive nor the National Assembly will be able to review.” Their position is that the outcome should be open to referendum. What is not clear to me is that - is this a perquisite to attend the conference or a mere talking shop to satisfy their opponents? This is because the government and the way the conference was designed show outrightly clear that is a national conference. So if it is not sovereign would they (Yoruba elders’) still be attending? which will be a shame and waste of resources. Are the elders giving sovereign status as a condition to attend or do they see it as another opportunity to have 3 months holiday in 5 star hotels in Abuja. Bear in mind they are the one that will nominate themselves and their children to represent us. I think we should leave the controversial issue of representation for now. The Yoruba elders’ are demanding for true federalism that will give the federating units autonomy. What they have not proven to us is that federalism is one of the major problems the country is facing. There is a difference between what they think which might or might not be right. And the position on issue based on a rigorous study. If we agreed with the eleders’for a moment that autonomy is an issue, ley me put this question to them - why are the state not performing? At least the states have enough autonomy to develop. Yoruba are stealing in Yoruba land, Ibo in Iboland and Hausa/Fulani their heartland. So, what difference would a regional government make? The Yoruba elders’ have not come out with a convincing argument. Honestly, I am sympathetic to the elders position that federalism is not the best for Nigeria but they are not making the best out of a good argument. For example they could have let us know an approximate amount that is used to run the federal system of government now and how much saving it will be in naira and kobo if regional government is introduced. They also need to tell ordinary people what they can achieve with the difference (in different regions) in developmental sense. In terms of visibility they are in different newspapers (hopefully in electronic media) but they have not used the most potent tool/technique of communication to explain their points. Assuming I am the one leading this effort, after a thorough research of determining approximate amount we are making as a nation and how much is been used for elected officials in federal system we are running now and how much we would be using under regional government. I will then use a cow as analogy to communicate with ordinary Nigeian to solicit support beyond Yoruba region. Who is not going to understand this: assuming what we are making as a nation in a year is a cow. We have 7,000 elected officials in Nigeria and they eat more than half of the cow for only running the system; the system that is not giving us any added value. Because the system is rotten and encourages corruption, another quarter is unaccounted for or stolen within the rotten system. The remaining 160 million of us are now sharing the a quarter of the cow (two legs and the cow tail only). But when we have regional government we would be using only the head of the cow for the elected officials because their number will come done drastically, more transparency can be built into the system and the remaining part of the cow (whole body, legs and tail) will go to the 160 million of us. The savings we can make in governance alone is enough to have free education to secondary school level or free health care or uninterrupted electricity in each region of the country or anything practical that people can relate to. That is how we relate our research work to laymen .. imagine telling a layman about coefficient .. that is the end of the discussion. If the Yoruba elders have used this approach, they could changed the issue from been regional to national issue. And some people in the other regions might see the benefits of regional government as oppose to useless system we are running now. I just don’t want it to be too long ... in the next part I will be examining the position of APC/Tinubu and other actors that were mentioned in part 1. Good morning!
Posted on: Sat, 15 Feb 2014 07:08:48 +0000
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