Federalism: the Panacea for Nigeria’s Survival

For over 40 years, the Nigerian state has refused to address the key question of nationhood, and transform itself properly into a nation-state with a shared consensus on its identity and future. An invidious kind of conspiracy has sustained Nigeria as a country of many nations, surrounded by the explosives of political, economic and social differences.
Successive civilian governments of Shehu Shagari, Olusegun Obasanjo and now Musa Yar’adua rather than address the defects in the 1979 and 1999 Constitutions, inherited from the military, have feathered the conspiracy and imbalance in the structure of the Nigerian federation which has been, and is still inimical to its development. The Obasanjo government had tried to re-invent the Petroleum Decree of 1969, abrogated by the Babangida administration, by re-introducing the onshore-offshore dichotomy in determining the allocation of oil and gas revenue. Before then, Governors of the South-South geo-political zone had fought bitterly to get the Federal Government to pay the 13 per cent derivation enshrined in Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution with effect from May 29, 1999. These Governors insisted on resource control, an issue that was further dramatised in a Supreme Court case that was determined in April 2001.
The creation of OMPADEC by the Babangida administration, NDDC by the Obasanjo administration and now Niger Delta Ministry by the Yar’adua administration did not stop the radicalisation and armed struggle we saw in the Niger delta these few years. Suffice it to say that the mysterious death of Isaac Boro and callous execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa did not quell the agitation of the oppressed Niger Delta people. The recent amnesty granted by the Yar’adua government and palliatives for the militants is for a ‘’cooling off period’’ Even if the amorphous 10% ownership clause in the Petroleum bill before the house and senate is passed, the issue of true federalism and resource control would come up another day, for it is about Power and Resources and ultimately the survival of the Nigerian state.
A detailed historical review of the beginnings of the crisis in the South-South may be unnecessary but there are certain key points that need to be established. The first is that oil is the curse of Nigeria rather than a blessing. It could have prolonged our colonization if it was discovered before independence. If the politics of oil continues to be mismanaged; it would be the end of Nigeria. The United States National Intelligence Council in a document entitled "Map-ping Sub-Saharan Africa's Future" has predicted "outright collapse of Nigeria" as a nation-state within the next 15 years. On page 17 of the report under the heading "Downside Risks," the US Intelligence claimed that "while currently Nigeria's leaders are locked in a bad marriage that all dislike but dare not leave, there are possibilities that could disrupt the precarious equilibrium in Abuja. In a swift response, the then President Olusegun Obasanjo described the prediction as "glib(ly) talk" arising from "dubious or diabolical benchmarks."
However, the recent armed struggle, bombings and internationalised campaigns for resource control in the Niger Delta region which almost crippled the nation’s economy is a testament of this prediction.

Before 1960, the minorities in the Nigerian Federation had complained loudly about their marginalisation in the colonial arrangement by the British which recognised and promoted only the interests of the majority groups. In 1957, the Willink Commission had established this concern to be true and genuine but these were left unaddressed with the hope that under a Federal Constitution, the fears of the minorities would be taken care of.
The tragedy of Nigerian history is that this has not happened, thus creating an endless rivalry with threats to national unity between majority and minority groups. The struggle for power and resources became worse with the discovery of oil, and the regression of the national economy into a mono-cultural trap. The present struggle is about the control of resources or derivation, with the oil-rich South-South states insisting on a minimum of 25 per cent derivation, to be increased eventually to 50 per cent derivation, or as the South-South Governors had declared in 2000-2001, 100 per cent control with only royalties and taxes to be paid to the Federal Government.
It is curious that there is so much furore over derivation; for before 1969, this was not the case. Section 34 (I) of the 1960 Constitution as well as Section 140 (I) of the 1963 Republican Constitution provided 50 per cent derivation. The civil war changed this, and by 1969 with the Petroleum Decree of that year introduced by the Gowon government, the Federal Government discarded the revenue formula that had been agreed by the regions and the federal government in 1954. The Gowon government introduced this decree to establish full federal control over the oil resources; it was the prize that the Nigerian government awarded itself for winning the civil war.
Successive governments found it convenient to hold on to this power over resources, and the unitary state that had emerged. As the sale of crude oil brought enormous resources, and easy money, with our excess crude earnings well over N1.15 trillion, the country became indolent. Government officials looted the oil money, and awarded oil blocks and other facilities to themselves, their agents and friends. States and regions which were established as centres of economic activity prior to 1969 became tax-collection units. The Federal Government collected oil revenue, and states went to Abuja to collect their share.
The bitter, second point, is that this easy money during the Gowon oil boom era did not translate into development, rather it encouraged greed, and a desperation for the control of the Federal Government, and its increasing powers. In practical terms, every other economic resource in the country was abandoned: the Western region which had been sustained by cocoa, and other resources and 50 per cent derivation suddenly stopped being creative; the North abandoned its groundnut pyramids, its hides and skin, the Middle Belt closed down its tin mines, ignored its reserves of uranium, and in the East, the coal mines, home of about the finest grade of coal in the world, were left to grow into bushes. Farmers across the country deserted the villages, everyone wanted to be in the city to share out of oil money. Oil had become gold, and it was proudly referred to as the national cake.
If the oil resources had been distributed on a just and equitable basis, perhaps there would have been no problem. But while the rest of the country lived in open affluence, spending the proceeds of oil exploration, the people of the Niger Delta whose soil and waters produce the oil wealth which accounts for 95 per cent of Nigeria's contemporary resource base, wallowed in abject poverty. The Niger Delta is not just an endangered region, since the days of the Royal Niger Company, its people have grown from poverty to poverty; and throughout this history, they have resisted this marginalisation, this injustice: it is the refusal to listen to them that has now radicalised and militarised the entire region fully and irretrievably.
The people took their destinies in their hands, turned their anger on oil companies and the Nigerian state, and they have produced heroes of their own struggle in the process. They have taken to arms and resorted to violence, bunkering, kidnappings and ultimately declared war on the Nigerian state. The centre can no longer hold and things fall apart (apologies to Chinua Achebe). Every Nigerian government tries to resolve the issue as earlier mentioned through legalism or the introduction of development projects that are in the real sense anti-development in orientation and execution, or at best no more than mere tokenisms. But the solution is political. It is so to the extent that it is about federalism; and the creation of a Nigerian state in which every Nigerian can be a shareholder, and a contributor, in a just and equitable society.
The only solution is for Nigeria to return to its pre-1969 position on revenue allocation, whereby every state shall be entitled to 50 per cent derivation.
The principle of resource control is not for the South-South alone; it is in fact meant to benefit the whole of Nigeria. Which is why it needs not become a South-South vs North affair, although the truth is that it is the present status quo that has sustained Northern feudalism. If states control their resources, then the Federal Government would become weaker, Abuja would become less attractive and there would be a greater emphasis on productivity and development as each state would have to start thinking more creatively about how to manage its own resources. The impasse is also not about oil alone: other related issues that would need to be re-examined and resolved include the nature and future of the Nigerian state, the collection and management of the Value Added Tax, the Land Use Act and Constitutional Review.
Whatever happens, we can only either address these problems once and for all, in keeping with the democratic spirit, or risk the infernal danger of eternal repetitiveness or postpone the evil day. Resource control is both the way to the past, and the way forward for Nigeria: we can only ignore it, over-politicise it, or force the wrong issues, at our own peril. The radical youths of the Niger Delta, the oil producing communities and other militant organisations across the country are the ones who hold the key to that evil day not the politicians and their dubious rhetoric.