By Afe Babalola
“Each federating unit should be entitled as of right, the half of the entire proceeds of his state and also a further part constituting his own share from the distributable pool”. AS I stated last week, events in Nigeria following the coup of 1966 continue to show that the decision to adopt the Presidential system was not well thought out. Firstly the American form of Presidential System of government currently being experimented by Nigeria is too expensive for our resources to conveniently accommodate. It is time we faced the reality of our existence. Having regard to the history of America, its experience and its resources the American Presidential System of Government is perfectly suitable for its federalism which is being operated religiously and in accordance with the tenets of their union. The same situation, background experience and history do not justify its application to Nigeria. The adoption and wholesale application of American federalism and Presidential System of Government by the Military is a monumental mistake in the first place. Monumental mistake The importation of the system has not done the Country any good at all. That is the bitter truth. The application of the American presidential system in Nigeria has been nothing but a huge failure. We simply cannot afford 36 Houses of Assembly, 36 Cabinets of Commissioners, large number of State Legislators, National Assembly of more than 400 Legislators, thousands of staff for all these offices, over 40 Federal Ministers and numberless staff and assistants. Emphasis must be on zones: To do away with problems of the past and to allow for meaningful development across board, emphasis must be placed on the geo-political zones in the country. This placement of emphasis will be two-fold. Firstly the zones will be regarded as the Federating Units as opposed to the current system in which the states are the Federating Units. Secondly each zone must economically viable as opposed to the current dispensation in which the States have been weakened and left to the mercy of an all-powerful father Federal Government. Zonal governments should be federating units: If it is considered that Nigeria is an amalgamation of nations and diverse cultures the first objective should not be too difficult to achieve. Culture and tongues These culture and tongues have been identified. Given the definitions of state and nations earlier proffered, it goes without saying that within the Nigerian state are, for example, Yoruba Nation, Igbo Nation, Hausa Nation, Ijaw Nation, Tiv Nation, Jukun Nation etc. These are some of the identifiable groupings in Nigeria that is “a large group of people having a common origin, language, and tradition”. These respective nations, endowed with common affinity should constitute individual zones for zonal governments which, in turn, would represent the component units of Nigeria. Each zone would have a parliament of elected representatives of the people from the states on party basis. To allow for even representation the Zones may be increased from the present 6 to about 8 to accommodate more zones of common origin. The zones shall retain the present 36 states within their zones. Under this arrangement, the requests for creation of more states may even be granted allowing for as many states as possible. Structural arrangement However as stated earlier, the Zones or Regions other than the States as we know them today will be the Federating Units. Each zone must be economically and politically strong: To achieve the second objective of strengthening the Zones politically and economically, I suggest and indeed recommend that we go back to the structural arrangement under the 1963 Constitution. Important items such as agriculture, education, health etc should be left to the zonal governments to administer while crucial items that affect the entirety of Nigeria such as currency, foreign affairs, army, customs amongst others should be the exclusive preserve of the center. Permit me to restate it here that the unattractiveness of the centre in the 1960 and 63 Constitution was such that the three main political leaders of the time namely: Chief Obafemi Awolowo (west), Sir Ahmadu Bello (North) and Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe (East) manned their regions while their party men of lieutenants were sent to the centre. A classical example was Sir Ahadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and leader of the Northern Peoples Party (NPC) who had all the opportunity in the world to become the first prime Minister of Nigeria but rather preferred to stay in Kaduna as the Premier of the region. He sent his deputy Alhaji Tafawa Balewa to the centre and he eventually became Nigeria’s first Prime Minister. However, with the incursion of the military into politics, everything has changed. Today, not only is the center attractive, it is where everything happens. The center controls virtually the heart and soul of Nigeria. The sharing formula, right from the days of the military has never been fair. A situation where the centre takes between 45-55% of the entire revenue leaving the remainder to be shared between 36 States and 774 Local Governments in anything but fair. All this when the centre contributes nothing to the collective pool. Little wonder then that everyone wants to be in the center. Proceeds of mining rents and royalty Under the 1963 Constitution the federal government was entitled to pay to each region a sum equal to fifty percent of the proceeds of mining rents and royalty in respect of minerals derived from each region. The Federal Government was then obliged to credit to the Distributable Pool Account 30% of the proceeds of the royalty and mining rent received by the federal government after it had given 50% to the producing state. The federal government was thus only entitled to keep for itself only 20%. The remaining 30% left in the Distributable Pool Account was shared in the following manner: (a) Northern Nigeria – About 40% (b) Eastern Nigeria – About 31% (c) Western Nigeria – About 18% (d) Mid Western Nigeria – About 6% The system of derivation therefore encouraged healthy competition and consequential growth of the economies of each region. Each region was assured that it was entitled, as of right, to about half of the entire proceeds of its region and also a further part constituting its own share from the Distributable Pool. With such a situation, the governments of each region had enough incentive to look for means of developing their regions and thereby increase their revenue base. Thus the North had considerable exploited its considerable reserves of groundnut and cotton, the East — Oil Palm and Western Nigeria Cocoa, Timber and Oil Palm. The entire nation then depended almost absolutely on income from these agricultural products. Unemployment was virtually unknown. Food was plenty, crimes aware few and far between. Life was safe, corruption was almost non-existent and the national currency was strong.
Leave a Comment