Parliamentary Or Restructuring- A nation At Self-Inflicted Crossroads

Since 2015, Nigerians have debated quite vigorously critical national issues that border on restructuring, community policing, refineries, agriculture, education, security, forex, medical tourism, and fuel subsidy removal, but the state of the nation today is a clear testament that most promises from the political class are often worthless, but sadly, Nigerians never learn.

For a country rocked violently by massive hunger and increasing security breaches, countless solutions abound for getting out of the woods, and one of the most ludicrous prepositions is to revert the country to the parliamentary system of government. A system of governance truncated almost 60 years ago is today sponsored by 60 members of the Green Chambers of the National Assembly, and the bill is on its second reading.

The most potent argument against the current presidential system is that it is too expensive, but is the parliamentary or presidential system of government the problem of this country.? Whose interest are these 60 lawmakers projecting.? Were they sent from their constituencies as usual despite the hunger protests across the land.? There must be something fundamentally wrong once people get to the corridor of power.

This agitation for a parliamentary system is simply a wild goose chase orchestrated to toy with the emotions of Nigerians, and it is a charade taken too far. Can these lawmakers honestly return this country to a unicameral parliamentary system if cost-cutting is the motive.? Can they muster the required votes to realize this.? Let us assume that by a stroke of chance, this sham sailed through- can Nigerians trust a few parliamentarians to produce a government that will truly reflect the wishes of the people, or we may transit from the era of filling the pockets of a few allegedly corrupt judges/justices to making new sets of billionaires in the parliament and reenacting the days of the Wild-Wild-West.?

Great Britain, the mother of all parliamentary democracy and the American-invented presidential system, have been around for centuries yet serving their purposes around the globe. Countries across the divide- parliamentary or presidential, boast of leaders delivering sound governance, development, and prosperity irrespective of the system, so why is the sudden fixation on the destiny of this country irredeemably tied to the parliamentary system.? The presidential system is not the problem, but the age-long parasite killing the nation is CORRUPTION, pure and simple!

The call for a parliamentary system is a futile exercise that the purveyors know is dead on arrival. As usual, the charade will go through the House of Representatives, but the Senate will shoot it down like a misguided meteorite because it is all pre-arranged to keep the proletariats busy.

The biggest worry for some sections of the country is restructuring, a loose federalism, or an outright confederation, given the fall-out of some ethnic-sensitive questions grossly mismanaged by the penultimate administration. It has deepened the restiveness and ethnic nationalities consciousness on top of the age-long underbellies of resource control pushed by a segment of the country, and understandably so.

There are frantic efforts to balkanize what restructuring should look like. While some argued that the picture is blurry, parochial, and unpatriotic, such assertions are untenable, so restructuring the country is imperative, and a surgical constitutional reform driven by a virile political will anchored on equity, justice, and fairness is inevitable.

For many, the indisputable roadmap to a restructured Nigeria is a dispassionate constitutional reform that invokes the nostalgic gains of the Richard Constitution. The Richards Constitution took cognizance of the broad cultural diversities in the country and laid the foundation for a federating state with formidable regional identities/governments, thus formalizing regionalism in Nigeria.

It sparked healthy competition or rivalry amongst the leadership in the regions that triggered rapid socio-economic growth. For many, that was the golden era as the naira stood neck to neck with any currency in the world. From the sky-touching groundnut pyramid in the north, the palm oil in the East, to the versatile cocoa economy of the West- the regional economies were some of the fastest growing on this side of the globe.

With the trio of the Sardauna Ahmedu Bello, Zik of Africa, and iconic Awo, the country became the giant and big brother of Africa not for her crude oil exploration but the political and economic dexterities and superiority of quality leadership these men, including Tafawa Balewa, brought to bear. It is the possibility of restructuring put on the table when each federating state can engage its destiny and do everything under the Sun to elevate the lives of its citizens.

So, dismantling the 1999 Constitution is inevitable, and the process for a true constitutional reform that will bear the mark – we, the people of Nigeria, must commence urgently. This 1999 military fiat, called the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has outlived its clandestine purposes and fallen short of modern civilization and ethnic integration necessary to bind together a vastly polarized people. This military hang-over of Unitarianism that shaped and skewed our pseudo-presidential system is nothing but aberration and vexation of minds.

So, whether it is called devolution of power or restructuring, the matter is straightforward enough – strategically depopulate the content of the Exclusive list and provide greater latitude and influence for the federating units by expanding the Concurrent List. Studies affirm, and it is public knowledge on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that every state in the federation is endowed with a significant amount of natural resources to make them viable- sadly, this constitution supports these kwashiorkor-like states to come begging with cups in hand every month for underserved victuals/manna from the center.

Little wonder, the country is in a quagmire and strapped with unprecedented poverty, making many people brand it as a fraud because the crude oil that provides the major foreign exchange is taken from a section of the country to run the behemoth called Nigeria. However, local explorations of other mineral resources are mined and pocketed by some individuals and state governments, and it is such development that approximates the entire agitation for restructuring to mean resource control.

Again, let us state unequivocally that the benefits of a restructured nation catalyzed the unprecedented leaps of economic development and healthy competition amongst the regions witnessed in the first republic, and such sustainable regional growth was not a function of the parliamentary system but a tangible regional identity creatively driving solid and verifiable development. Nigeria was about one of the fastest-growing economies in the world before crude oil exploration, and the ingenuity of the founding fathers was legendary. But tragedy struck too early as these founding fathers inadvertently turned their arsenals against one another because of ethnicity and religious bigotry that are still very much with us today. However, this does not in any way justify the calls by some for the nation to return to regionalism because such contemplation is retrogressive, given the evolutionary growth of the country and today’s civilization.

The President is a front-liner for restructuring, but the spirits in Aso Rock are playing a different melody to him presently. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu may be the best president to approximate the possibilities of a restructured nation- the lure of controlling the center and exerting more influence may be a demon to contend with. This demon made nonsense of attempts at constitutional reforms by previous administrations because the outcomes seemed to threaten that fame as the Most Powerful President on earth above the American president.

So, we are at a self-inflicted crossroads because constitutional reforms failed for fear of losing political relevance as the chief executive of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, ambition, prestige, insincerity, corruption, ethnic agendas, and the godless aggrandizement of the political class.

Today, imagine Aba enjoying and celebrating uninterrupted power supply running into days on end, courtesy of the constitutional reforms of power that gave the state the right to generate and distribute energy even though it was a private sector initiative by a man who saw tomorrow – Prof Barth Nnaji. Anybody can say anything contrary, but what Gov. Sanwo-Olu has done with the railways in Lagos is another possibility a restructured Nigeria can become.

How can people be afraid to move forward, conquer their spaces, and set in motion a guaranteed destiny? The key to the great possibilities in front of this nation is restructuring if we can approach it with mutual respect, sincerity, support, the mind of collective destiny, and a people bound together by providence. And the most profound obstacles to restructuring in this country are suspicions, godless threats, and unfounded fears. Every segment of this country will thrive with restructuring, but haters and narrow-minded Nigerians should purge themselves from unpatriotic tendencies.

The possibilities of a restructured Nigeria are endless, and no sane,  progressive, upwardly mobile and globally-atoned citizen, should be afraid of it.

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