(First published on February 6, 2022.) 

 

Nigeria, at Independence, had a Federal constitution. There was Regional autonomy. The Regions made their laws. They had their police, and thus had the capacity to enforce their own laws.

Then came Military rule. Military rule was a sad narrative in two chapters. The first was from January 15, 1966 to October 1, 1979. The second was from December 31, 1983 to May 29, 1999.

One is tempted to say we are now in the third chapter of the tragic narrative. That temptation comes from the nature of the current constitution and the type of politics and politicians it has engendered. 

In the first chapter of the tragic narrative of Military rule, the Ironsi administration enacted the unification decree of May 1966. By military fiat, a country as vast and diverse as Nigeria, envisioned by its founding fathers to be Federal, was to be governed almost exclusively by the government at the centre.

According to the provisions of Section 1 of The Unification Decree, Number 34, promulgated on May 24, 1966, “The Federal Military Government hereby decrees as follow: Subject to the provisions of this Decree, Nigeria shall on 24th May 1966 (in this decree referred to as ‘the appointed day’) cease to be a Federation and shall accordingly as from that day be a Republic, by the name of the Republic of Nigeria, consisting of the whole of the territory which immediately before that day was comprised in the Federation.”

Inter and intra-regional conflicts of the First Republic served as pretext for the mutiny of January 15, 1966, a mutiny in which principal actors were from one region, while politicians and top Military Officers from other regions were killed. 

The regional affiliation of the principal actors, and the pattern of killings, rightly or wrongly provoked suspicion of domination by one region of other regions. These two factors, as well as the Unification Decree, would serve as pretexts for the mutiny of July 29, 1966 during which Gen Ironsi, Col. Fajuyi and many others soldiers of Eastern origin were murdered.

The two mutinies and subsequent military interventions in Nigeria, the killings of the Igbo before and during the war precipitated by the thoughtless intervention of young Military Officers in politics will forever remain morally unjustifiable. 

There is need for the Military and the Civilian politicians to admit their guilt and humbly ask for pardon for all the innocent blood shed in the history of this country. But instead of pardon we see hubris. Before the Military came, our politicians forgot or ignored the fact that human life is sacred.

They committed sacrilege at elections and murdered their opponents. The soldiers who intervened to “correct” impunity themselves committed sacrilege with impunity. They too either forgot or ignored the fact that human life is sacred. They operated on the logic of might is right.

So, they staged coups and counter coups. If your coup is successful, you are patriotic. If not, you are given a bad name, described as “disgruntled and unpatriotic”, tied to the stakes, and killed like a ram in a most gruesome manner. 

Of her 62 years of Independence, Nigeria has been under Military rule for 28. From the despotic monarchy of traditional and pre-colonial African societies, we were forced into the humiliation of racist colonialism, from racist colonialism, we were governed by arrogant and flamboyant civilians, from the arrogant civilians, we fell into the hands of brutal soldiers.

This country had a headache before Military rule. With Military rule, the headache became a brain tumor. Fifty-six years later, the patient is neither dead nor alive. It is important to make these observations in the wave of military intervention in four of the fifteen member countries of the Economic Community of West African States.

It is disheartening that, in this day and age, soldiers who took over in Mali, Guinea, Chad, and now, Burkina Faso are being lauded by a populace given the wrong impression by politicians that democracy offers no hope. Despite frustrations visited on Africans by their civilian ruling elite, democracy, well understood and well-practiced should never be exchanged for military rule. 

Soldiers make laws without consultation, and enforce them with the barrel of the gun. Who would dare question them? Such was the case of suppression of Federalism by the Unification Decree of 1966. The faction of the military that killed Gen. Ironsi accused him of fostering the domination of Nigeria by a particular section of the country through the Unification Decree.

But, by design, not by accident, that same faction, after emerging “victorious” at the end of the Nigeria-Biafra War, at gunpoint, imposed the 1979 Constitution, and its identical twin, the 1999 Constitution on Nigerians.

Both are Federal in name but not in content. In fact, they provide constitutional backing for the suppression of Federalism by the 1966 Unification Decree. What they accused Ironsi of doing before they murdered him is what they have done. 

The clamour for restructuring is a clamour for admission of their guilt and reparation for their sin. This constitution is not working. By placing sovereignty in the hands of the government and not in the hands of the people, it has made government to be more powerful than and unaccountable to the people.

By placing security on the exclusive legislative list, it deprives state and local governments of their right and duty to enforce the laws they make, and jeopardizes security. You cannot hope to secure a country as vast and diverse as Nigeria from Abuja. 

By placing oil in the hands of the government at the centre, it has impoverished the people to whom the oil belongs in the first instance. By enacting and smuggling the Land Use Decree into the constitution, people are dispossessed and impoverished.

By giving so much power to the government at the centre, it has made it attractive to covet the presidency. By making government so powerful, it has stifled the potential in the people. The government at the centre—the reader should note that I am refraining from calling it Federal government, for there is no Federal government where there is no Federation—is overbearing.

This constitution empowers the government at the centre to weaken State Governments, and State Governments have literally made Local Governments irrelevant. To make matters worse, section 9 of the constitution makes any constitutional amendment a near mission impossible.

Only those who benefit from this constitution—and they are its authors—would fail to admit that there is need for restructuring. But, fundamentally, there is need to redefine the relationship between the government and the citizen; there is need to redefine the relationship among the various tiers of government—Federal, State and Local. Consistent with the principle of separation of powers, there is need to redefine the relationship among the various arms of government—the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. 

When government is so powerful, its functionaries cannot be held accountable. Its agencies will oppress, brutalize and kill the people and go scotch free. Indeed, there is need to restructure this country along the lines of these relationships. A restructured Nigeria will have the potentials of its people unleashed. Now we are seldom respected in the comity of nations.

But a Nigeria whose constitution empowers the people will be a country whose citizens are seldom disrespected. A truly Federal Nigeria will be secure and prosperous. Why then are some afraid of Federalism?