By Prof. Ibrahim A. Kolo
The ultimate goal of Nigerian Nationhood is for a united, secured, peaceful and economically prosperous country.
Therefore, all our short term and medium term restoration agenda must be focused to dove tail into putting in place a common wealth of our economic, human capital and natural Resources for the common good of all on a nationally understandable and agreeable terms freely entered into by all our people.
The following considered critical areas for long term national agenda for the country as the ultimate outcome of immediate and medium term development programmes and projects of the President Buhari-led APC government:
Political and Economic Restructuring of Nigeria:
Either by acts of short-sightedness or ineptitude of post first republic governments, an effective and efficient political and economic structure that will propel Nigeria on the path of sustainable development was inhibited from harmonious festering. From a regionally structured federation of political and economic national system, we started emphasising a unitary and centralised system that created state and local level structures which over the years almost completely became dependent on the central government economically.
As the press recently put it, the federal structure as presently operated is more of a “Feeding Bottle” system for the states and local governments most of which have only become unviable appendage economies. The emergent federal system also resulted in a too powerful central government that had not been in sync with the political aspirations of different parts of the country.
The consequence has been the elevation of corruption at every level of overnment with no clearly defined development sector mandates. What the APC federal government is inheriting in terms of political and economic structures in Nigeria are: A federal (central) level government that is not able to create significant development impact at any level; States that are almost all dependent on the federal government; and local governments, also almost all of which lack development capacities with barely any significant grassroots project to show.
Basically, the political and economic restructuring of Nigeria is contingent on constitutional review, requiring political consultations and convictions as acceptable on the basis of give and take and sensitivity to the sensibilities of all parts of the country. The ultimate political restructuring Nigeria requires include devolution of powers, development mandate prio-ritisation, and ideological political engineering.
One of the long term development agenda thrusts of the APC federal government should be to ensure that by 2019, the central government will focus only on National Security (Armed Forces and a new National Guard outfit to contain cross border and national insurgency, and a supervising Federal Police); Border Infrastructure and Control (Sea and Airport, Immigrations and Customs Services);
Federal Budget and Finance; Foreign Affairs; Research, Science and Technology Infrastructure; Information and Communication; Mineral Resources (Petroleum and Solid Minerals); Higher Education; International Trade and Tertiary Health Care. Aviation should be completely a privatized sector with Government Agency Controls. This prioritization of Federal Government Mandate in my opinion should leave the Development Sectors of Agricultural Development and Commerce; Investments; Infrastructure and Transportation (Roads, Railways, and Inland Water Ways); Power; and Industries and Manufacturing to the proposed Federal/States arran-gement for which joint Federal and State budgets shall be appropriated by the National Assembly.
Operation of True Federalism:
As a constitutional matter, government should constitute a presidential committee to be chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to study both the 2014 Constitutional Conference Report and the 7th National Assembly Report on Constitutional Review with a view to recommending a roadmap for operation of true federalism. Again, I am of the opinion that devolution of powers from the central level of governance to states; formation of a buffer governance structure between states and the federal governments through creation of zonal/regional affiliations between states for economic cooperation and infrastructural development between states; and suspension of the present local governments to re-evolve a new system beginning with development area councils should form the basis of the constitutional amendments.
The idea is to evolve in the long run; strong, viable, prosperous and sustainable federating regional units of a pan-Nigerian national union. The process is not going to be a short one; hence we should look forward to a roadmap to true Nigerian federalism by 2019.
Diversification of the national economy for a resource control roadmap:
The greatest task before the Buhari-led APC government is the diversification of the national economy.
The country’s over-dependence on oil is not only the cause of the downturn of the economy for now, it has been responsible for the emergence of a redundant human resource base and high level of corruption. It is also at the root of agitations for resource control, particularly from the South-south.
While diversification of the national economy is the inevitable panacea for saving it from eventual collapse, a roadmap to maximum of 60 to 70% resource control is the sustainable approach to both sustainable economic prosperity and political stability.
Through the National Assembly and constitutional review mechanisms, a gradual and phased approach to increased derivation formula for all resource generating areas and communities, backed by economic venture measures in all federating units (states and regions/zones) needs to be initiated.
Again subject to constitutional review processes to be initiated, we expect to see the beginning of a roadmap implementation from 2019 of developing regional/zonal economic alignments, investments-based economic diversification based on exploring and developing all facets of Nigeria’s natural resources; sanitization of the oil sector; and periodic increment in derivation formula from the entire extractive industry.
Nigeria is in dire need of change: Not cosmetic change that will sooner than later erode away; but change of sustainability; change of not just “thinking outside the box, but one of thinking without the box.” The change Nigeria desires is one that will stimulate sustainable growth, guarantee growth and peaceful coexistence, and above all political stability for the realization of the full human and economic development of the country. Achieving this requires studied short, medium and long term planning as articulated in this write up.
Prof. Kolo is immediate past Vice Chancellor of the Niger State government-owned Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai
