Agenda for JCCR: Merger of the States
By Jideofor Adibe
editor@adonis-abbey.com
The task of the Joint Committee on Constitution Review is not an enviable one. Reviewing the country’s constitution is usually a thorny issue, often compounded by the lack of unanimity on areas that deserve to be reviewed, and in which direction any review should be made. In Nigeria’s political history, the only successful attempt by a civilian regime to amend the country’s constitution was in 1960, when the independence constitution was amended to produce the 1963 Republican constitution. At that time, t he major area of amendment was agreed at a national conference of political leaders a few months before it was given legislative backing. Perhaps the exercise succeeded because the politicians were conscious that the Big Brother eyes of imperial Britain were watching them, and that behaving badly could have unacceptable consequences.
There were no such Big Brother eyes when the Obasanjo regime started a process of the review of the 1979 Constitution on 19th October 1999, with the establishment of the Presidential Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution. Though the Committee submitted its report in February 2001, the contentious nature of the exercise and strident calls by some that what Nigeria needed was a sovereign national conference and not a constitution amendment, frightened the wits out of the normally rancorous Obasanjo. Similarly a Bill produced from the proceedings of a committee set up by the National Assembly in May 2000 to review the Constitution did not go beyond second reading before the tenure of the assembly lapsed in May 2003. Any demand for constitution amendment in the country normally triggers emotions and tendencies that remind all of us that the fundamentals of our statehood remain contested. Some are already arguing that the standoff between the Senate and the House of Representatives is an indication that the current exercise could go the way of previous efforts.
Despite the sensitive nerves the exercise triggers, there are fundamental flaws in the constitution that undermine the country’s state-building project and national development efforts, which should be urgently addressed. One of these is state creation and the politics it spurns. Originally conceived as part of the strategies of allaying ethnic minority fears of domination by bigger ethnic groups, and of bringing ‘development’ nearer to the people, the exercise has now run out of control, and has become a major impediment to economic growth and a contributor to the anarchical nature of our politics.
The current 36-state system for instance clearly undermines the principle behind the adoption of federalism in the country, namely, that each of the federating units, should, within its sphere of competence, be co-ordinate and equal. With the possible exception of Lagos and the Old Kano state, virtually all the states in the country are dependent on allocations from the federal government for their economic survival. Many struggle to even pay the salaries of their public servants, not to talk of embarking on any meaningful development project – a situation that is likely to get worse with dwindling revenue from oil.
Related to the above is that the current 36 states have become agents of underdevelopment. For those wondering why there is so much poverty in the land when the country is a major oil producer, consider the economic impact of having 36 state governments spurning a commensurate number of ‘His Excellencies’, commissioners, hangers-on, thugs, state Houses of Assembly, state public services and other paraphernalia. Add to these a certain percentage of the revenues from the Federation Account embezzled at various levels in each of the 36 states in the country and it becomes easier to see why development has eluded the country. It is instructive that India, whose population is about eight times that of Nigeria, has only 28 states.
I propose a merger of the current 36 states into six regions coterminous with the six generally accepted geopolitical zones in the country. Under this proposal, the current 36 states should be restructured into local governments but should not be recognised as units that share from the Federation Account. Each of the federating states should have the power to create sub-units and devise its own revenue allocation formula among such units. Town unions, which historically have been agents of self-help development in many parts of the country, ought to be recognised as units for sharing revenues at the state level.
Consolidating the 36 states into a manageable number will concomitantly reduce the size of government at the federal level, leading to efficiency and cost savings. Section 14 of the 1979 Constitution for instance makes the states the basic units used in determining whether the government is ‘reflecting the federal character’ in its appointments, composition of the federal public service and dispensation of privileges. This leads to a bloated federal government, as it has to ensure balanced representation of the 36 states in its appointments.
Reducing the number of states is also likely to impact more favourably on our politics. Section 126 (2-6) of the 1979 Constitution for instance demands that to be elected president a candidate must have no less than 25 percent of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the states in the federation. This provision gives the number of states in each geopolitical zone a special political salience. Rival geopolitical or ethnic groups such as North v South or Yorubas v Igbos have therefore been overheating the polity with their politics of state creation to ensure either that they maintain their current power balance or get more states in its zone to redress a perceived imbalance. Of course elites who feel that new states will make them big fishes in small ponds do not help in this regard. Reducing the number of states is therefore likely to reduce the jockeying and bickering for political influence by the various geopolitical zones, which the politics of state creation generates.
Certainly any effort to consolidate the existing states will meet with massive resistance from vested interests, including from Governors and Members of the Federal and State Legislatures whose positions could suddenly become redundant. But it is a position that is likely to serve the country better. The crucial question however is whether we have the nerves to confront this issue head-on?
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Jideofor Adibe is editor of the multidisciplinary journal, African Renaissance and publisher of the London-based Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd (www.adonis-abbey.com). He can be reached at: editor@adonis-abbey.com
