NIGERIA IS AT IT AGAIN!

NIGERIA IS AT IT AGAIN: ENDLESS DEBATE ON RESTRUCTURING THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA.

This time around it is the President Umaru Yar’Adua’s turn to tinker with the Nigerian Constitution while Nigeria is BURNING. It is like small children chasing BUSH RATS, GRASS CUTTERS AND OTHER RODENTS in a burning bush while the Houses around the raging fires are threatened and in danger of being engulfed by fire and being razed down.

As we say, Nigeria has continued to chase shadows while the main problem creating the shadows is left untouched.

There is NO UNITED NIGERIA for any well meaning individual to fight for and die for. Even the GEOGRAPHICAL NIGERIA we had in 1914 when the British amalgamated the Northern and Southern Protectorates no longer exists.

The Northern Nigeria, due to the DIPLOMATIC MANOUVERS of Sir (Alhaji) Ahmadu Bello, the then Sarduana of Sokoto, has enlarged its size by acquiring the former Northern British Cameroon which he renamed the SARDUANA PROVINCE, while Dr, Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik), because of his lack of tact, lost the Southern British Cameroon to the French that merged it with the French Cameroon, thereby truncating the Eastern Part of Nigeria.

As if that was not enough, General Yakubu Gowon (rtd) signed off Bakassi Peninsula to the Cameroon in his bid to destabilize the then BIAFRA during the Nigerian Civil War (1967 – 70). When, at the end of the Nigerian Civil War, Nigeria claimed that Gowon’s Action was not ratified by the Nigerian Government, the Cameroon then went to the International Court at The Hague to adjudicate on the matter. Finally, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, on his second coming into the Nigerian Political Arena as a Civilian President, 1999 – 2007, ceded the BAKASSI PENINSULA which was part of the Cross River State, to the Cameroon, further truncating the already truncated Eastern Part of Nigeria.

The question NOW is WHO REALLY IS A NIGERIAN? And in what time frame are we defining this Nigerian. WHAT ARE THE COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF A NIGERIAN? Is it a COMMON LANGUAGE, COMMON MANNERISM OR A COMMON IDEAL OR IDEOLOGY?

As I have written times without number within the confines of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru in restricted papers not meant for Public Consumption, but for the ‘eyes and ears’ of the Presidency which NIPSS reports to, and indirectly echoed by people like Prof. Wole Soyinka, Elder Statesman Tony Enahoro, late Justice (Dr.) Akinola Aguda (a former Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and the Chairman of the Team that chose ABUJA as the new Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria in the General Murtala Mohammed’s Regime) and many others, that Nigeria’s problems are not a CONSTITUTION per say, for now. The problem is WHAT SORT OF ASSOCIATION do people who now live in the NEW GEOGAPHICAL AREA of the 21st Century called NIGERIA want between and among themselves and what will EACH GROUP bring into the NEW ASSOCIATION to make a TRULY UNITED NEW NIGERIA where the wealth of the people are not used to “IMPOVERISH” them while others are using the same wealth to further ENRICH themselves in the highfaluting bogie of NEED rather than DERIVATION.

The few intellectuals who have over the years been tinkering with their own idea of a Nigerian Constitution should FOR ONCE tarry a while and go find out from Nigerians (literate and illiterate) what they want and whom they want to associate with in a NEW UNITED NIGERIA OF THE 21ST CENTURY. They should also find out what type of ASSOCIATION the Nigerians of the 21st Century want among themselves.

These 21st Century Nigerians are no longer the 19th Century Nigerians of old when the mainstay of the economy was AGRICULTURE and most people ploughed or tilled the LAND or FISHED in the Rivers which were easily available to most Nigerians of that time. Everybody worked HARD for his sustenance.

Now in the 21st Century, what do we have? A small group of people taking the NATION’S WEALTH in terms of the Crude Oil and the Gas Resources and enriching themselves and their CRONIES and impoverishing the PEOPLE on whose LAND and RIVERS the Crude Oil and Gas are found. They unashamedly sit in long meetings to decide what small share of the Oil Revenue these HELPLESS and “seemingly but not really ignorant” people should have. They quibble about 13% derivation or 18% or even 25% derivation, whereas the WHOLE WEALTH BELONGS TO THESE PEOPLE BY VIRTUE OF THEIR HAVING LIVED ON THAT LAND AREA SINCE THE CREATION OF THE OLD NIGERIA IN 1914, and even before 1914.

What sort of POLITICAL SYSTEM are we running that gives other people the RIGHT to take what does not belong to them and share it the way they like, to the disadvantage of the owners of the natural resources in their land?

Does a Parliamentary System inherited from the British or the Presidential System inherited from the United States of America mean that the so-called Federal (or Central) Government should arrogate to itself the WHOLE WEALTH of the NEW NIGERIA and share it the way they like and impoverish the very PEOPLE who own the Natural Resources? Does the political system adopted by Nigeria mean that the leaders should STEAL the bulk of the Nation’s Wealth and share it among themselves and their families and cronies? I DON’T THINK SO!

The Substance of this paper was written many years ago while the author was still a staff member of NIPSS, Kuru near Jos in Plateau State and delivered restrictively in various forms at In-House Seminars within the confines of NIPSS, so that the Federal Government of Nigeria whom NIPSS reports to, can think of the problems without losing face with the Nigerian Public. Since the various Federal Governments over these years have thought it fit to ignore the well-thought out warnings and admonitions contained therein, and since the author is no longer a Government Employee nor an “Adviser to Government”, he is now doing no injustice to any Nigerian Government by putting this version for Public Consumption. Maybe the younger generation can make use of the points herein highlighted to work towards a “better and more united society for the NEW GEOGRAPHICAL AREA NOW CALLED “NIGERIA”.



Prof. Eugene Arene, mni
Lekki, Lagos.
January 2, 2008.