TMG Cautions Against Creation Of More States And Rejects Removal Of LGs From Constitution By National Conference
As the deliberations of the ongoing National Conference enters its final phase, the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) wishes to use this medium to draw the attention of Nigerians to certain recommendations of the conference, which in our view would not augur well for our dear country. While we endorse the attempts to use dialogue to resolve some of the intractable issues dogging the nation at the conference, TMG however urges delegates to tread with caution with respect to certain proposals they have made.
This point is important so that the nation does not suffer a devastating set back as a result of what is coming across to us as counter-productive recommendations that would eventually do the nation no good when they see the light of day. Two of the many recommendations that immediately compel us to react are the recommendations relating to the creation of states, as well as the one implying that Local Governments be removed from the Constitution.
State Creation
TMG is absolutely taken aback by the recommendation of the conference for the creation of 18 more states in a federation where the existing 36 states are hardly able to fend for themselves. Even the most viable of the states in the current 36 states structures are severely constrained by the minuscule nature of the resources at its disposal for the purpose of development. We therefore wonder why the conference has decided to willfully add to the nation's mounting existential challenges by the creation of another batch of states to join Nigeria's beggarly federation, where Abuja would be the monthly rendezvous for the collection of handouts in the name of monthly allocations. It is disturbing that this recommendation could sail through; knowing the implications this would have on our nation's revenue profile, as well as the developmental aspirations of the Nigerian people.
Nigeria's 36 states as they are at the moment have far reaching challenges, which have informed previous TMG interventions calling for a return to the model of regionalism, which was on the verge of catapulting Nigeria to its place in the sun in the short lived First Republic. A model of regionalism would have given each region the leeway to create the number of states and Local Governments the region deems to be within its economic capacity to manage. In the end, the current state structure would not be totally jettisoned, but would be well managed under the purview of a region, where the people would have a dialogue on the number of states required to bring development within the region.
Unfortunately, the easy road the conference has decided to travel means that the creation of the 18 states translates into 18 more shares of the nebulous security votes, expansive state bureaucracies, executive, legislatures and other paraphernalia that would guzzle resources handed down, without any significant alleviation of the plight of the ordinary man.
It is our considered view that those who have canvassed the need to assuage the plight of marginalized ethnic groups in the current 36 states as the reason for creating the 18 new ones, do not seem to have done enough reading of Nigerian history. Sir Roberts Willinks who chaired the Willinks' Commission of Inquiry in 1958, which looked into the fears of minorities had observed that the creation of new states would result in the creation of new minorities. We make bold to say that the truism in that assertion has remained unchallenged. The fact of the creation of 18 new states would further stoke claims of other minorities for their own states.
However, TMG's biggest problem with the creation of the states is that resources that should have gone into the development and industrialization of the country would be blown away by the administrative structures and bureaucracies that would be put in place in these states to service the egos and tastes of an elitist minority. No country can develop by frittering scarce resources on the creation of structures that would not radically alter the conditions of the ordinary Nigerian. TMG makes bold to say that the move to create these states is an elitist ploy to further grant access to the nation's resources to a privileged. We therefore do not expect these contraptions to be agencies of the development Nigerians at the grassroots so desperately need.
Instead of the creation of more states that would guzzle the nation's increasingly dwindling revenue of the country, our expectation was that the conference should have long declared a national emergency on the problem of youth unemployment. That would have served as a basis to put forward a robust plan for industrialization and job creation, which would put our young people back to work. That alone would have created a framework to reduce the number of able bodied Nigerians available to be recruited by Boko Haram terrorists, politicians and crime syndicates. It is not too late for the conference to do this, and we urge them to think along these lines in the remaining days left for deliberations.
Removal of Local Governments from the constitution
Similarly, it is with grave concern that we view the recommendation of the Committee on Devolution of Powers, that Local Governments, which constitute the third tier of government under the current arrangement, be removed from the constitution. The idea as proposed and adopted by the committee is that the states and the Federal Government should be the federating units, while states should create the number of Local Government Councils they deem fit for the purposes of their developments.
It must however be noted that for several decades, the civil society had been advocating for better funding of Local Government and that they should be granted autonomy, so that they can fulfill their functions as a distinct third tier of government. Unfortunately the conference has gone ahead to create more states, instead of pushing for a model of regionalism that would have put our nation on the path of stability and prosperity, and reduce the excessive powers at the centre, as was the case in the First Republic. The only justifiable basis to scrap Local Governments would have been recreation of regionalism.
The hurried move to expunge local governments from the constitution is akin to cutting off a head because it is afflicted with a simple bout of headache. The problems of the Local Governments within the context of Nigeria's democratic process have mainly revolved around the twin issues of lack of autonomy, as well as inadequate funds to carry out developmental activities at the grassroots.
We have argued in time past that the emasculating tendency of tying Local Governments to the apron strings of overbearing state governments, which starve the councils of funds, and stifle the developmental aspirations, is at the heart of the lack of initiative at that level of governance. The only way to break that is to grant autonomy and financial independence, while putting in place and appropriate mechanism for checks and balances at that level of governance.
TMG makes bold to say that the Local Government is the tier of government closest to the common man. Notwithstanding that it has been rendered prostrate over the years because of the structural deficiencies of the Nigerian federation, it remains the bedrock for governance and development.
We therefore ask: what is the positive thing in an arrangement for devolution of powers, which further hijacks the power of the people at the grassroots? While we do not encourage the hand out federalism in which states and the local councils wait on Abuja every month for beggarly stipends to run their affairs and develop their areas, the TMG is optimistic that if given a fair amount of space, millions of creative Nigerians in their different localities would be up to the task of generating the resources needed to fulfill the functions of the Local Governments as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution.
Moreover, it is our firm belief that if the performance of many of the states in the Nigerian federation were to be thoroughly scrutinized; we wonder if their functions too should not be taken over by higher authorities. TMG therefore does not subscribe to the attempt to use the Local Governments as scapegoats for the abysmal failure of the entire Nigerian federation. It is in this light that we unequivocally reject the recommendations for the removal of this tier of government from the constitution. We are not unmindful of some of the imbalances that characterize the Local Government structure in Nigeria.
TMG believes there are creative ways to resolve these, without further over-heating an already drained polity. And we insist that the solution to the problems of the Local Governments is in granting them autonomy, and not scrapping them to appease dictatorial state governors.
Long Live Nigeria!
Signed
Comrade Ibrahim M. Zikirullahi
Chairman, Transition Monitoring Group
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