Why is Nigeria refusing to face the reality that it has a problem. And that problem is its structure. This country was put together into a three region union by Britain for its own economic purposes. Their idea was that the feudal north would control the east and west. Everything went well for some time with each region self sufficient, the north with its groundnut pyramids, cotton and so on, the west with its cocoa and the east with its palm oil. But the north began lagging behind because of one issue in particular, the embrace of western education and values in the south.
Then there was the civil war which was won by the north and its allies and this has meant that total control of the country is virtually now in the hands of the north. First they created twelve states to further marginalise the east that lost the war and then increased the number of states to thirty six. The majority of local governments are also in the north. To make matters worse the military gave us a constitution, an Islamic constitution, even though Nigeria is supposed to be secular. But all these have not improved matters in the north despite the introduction of the ‘disadvantaged states’ doctrine and quota both meant to help the north ‘catch up’. But the north is not catching up rather the south is pulling away.
The north, or to put more correctly, the people who are ruling us control all the instruments of power, the military, immigration, customs, the police and all the major federal establishments. The president, a northerner, is also the Minister of petroleum, our economic mainstay. Despite holding on to all these in a supposedly democratic society the north, or the people ruling us, want to introduce other measures to tighten its total hold on the nation of nearly four hundred ethnic groups. First it unsuccessfully tried to introduce Ruga or cattle settlements for the benefit of Fulani herdsmen. Why? No reasonable explanation has been given. Cattle rearing or following cattle from Oagadougou to Cape Town is a business peculiar to Fulani people. a private enterprise. Now they are coming with a Water Resources Bill. The simple implication is that if you live by a river you belong to the Federal Government. And if you dig a well or sink a borehole in your compound you must have a permit from the Federal Government. So our Federal Government wants to control every thing in a supposedly ‘federal system’ of governance. So, before our very eyes, our democracy is now a dictatorship. But the south and the middle belt are restless. In this modern day and age people want to govern themselves in a world where democracy or self rule is gaining importance. Dictatorships are fading away. But it seems that the people ruling us will not learn from history.
History is replete with failed dictatorships. Even if the teaching of history in our secondary schools has been stopped, those of us who are older would know about the collapse of so many dictatorships. You cannot hold a people down by force for ever. They will fight for their freedom. The Soviet Union broke into fifteen independent countries without a shot being fired. Yugoslavia broke into six countries after a lot of blood shed. East Timor, of a million and two hundred thousand people, emerged as a nation after years of maltreatment by Indonesia.
There is an old Igbo saying that the death that will kill a dog will no longer allow him to smell shit! The few people of one ethnic group now ruling Nigeria want to control everything against the wishes of the vast majority of Nigerians. The noise from this group is that Nigeria belongs to them! And they can come, and are coming, from all over West Africa to live here. To hell with indigenous inhabitants. And they want to reestablish the old cattle grazing routes that existed sixty years ago at independence and take us back to the dark ages. It is unbelievable. The discontent of the majority of Nigerians does not seem to be getting through to our rulers. The Endsars protests ought to be a warning to them. If the old generation is cowed into just shouting and doing nothing the youth is not. The demonstrations may have ended for now but the sky is overcast. No tribe can ride rough shod over nearly two hundred million Nigerians. It used to be a northern thing. But now it is not. The middle belt and even virtually all the minority areas of the north have joined the west, the south east and the south south in saying, enough is enough. The northern elders say the system is not working. Even the ruling party has restructuring as one of its main campaign planks. Everybody wants Nigeria restructured. But the ruling tribe that holds Nigeria by the jugular is not interested. Nigeria belongs to them and they must insist on dictatorship!
Our rulers are not interested in the benefits of a restructured Nigeria. But for this country to remain united the about four hundred tribes have to get together and renegotiate the terms of unity. And the time is now. Whether we agree on having six zones or whether each state becomes a federating unit, this country has to be restructured. The power of the centre must be reduced. There have to be state police. How can a man from Talata Mafara police and patrol my town where he knows nobody or the customs of my people? The states have to own everything under their soil and pay royalty to the centre for the performance of those duties including the army for the defence of the nation, customs and so on. A live example is the United States of America where the states are all powerful and control everything within their boundaries hence California’s economy makes it the equivalent of the fifth largest country in the world with its Holloywood, Silicon Valley and so on. In the same USA the wife of one of the state Governors works in a restaurant! We cannot pretend to be copying the USA and paying our senators and Federal House members salaries out of this world and not doing the other things the USA does to reflect its being a consensus of states, rich and poor. This country cannot make progress where the centre keeps control of nearly everything and wants more and the states go begging at the end of each month to the centre. Those holding the reigns of power now have no state they can call their own. They captured and subjugated the Hausa people and continue to lord it over them but it is up to the Hausa people to fight for their freedom if that is not too late. But the majority of Nigerians say no to dictatorship. Nigeria must be restructured to be able to move forward with the rest of the civilised world.