Regional development: The feasible solution to the compounding problems facing Nigeria

BY OSINEYE OMOTOLA OLUKAYODE

I must remind you that before anything, I am a citizen of this country who only but hold better thoughts toward this country in achieving greatness and surpassing the best. I am a teacher of God’s word but I also put the interest of my nation in mind because governments are God’s own institutions. The pulpit is meant for the word of God and not a place for political debates or supports but outside the pulpit, I practice my faith by putting it into actions but it doesn’t kill my allegiance for supporting the truth in every form. Instead, my brain is effectively put to use to help people and promote unity. I believe this is what every religion should preach.

As a citizen, I am constitutionally backed up to speak as an entity regardless of my faith and I stand in that capacity to give my own opinion on the matters affecting our progress in this country. Apparently, only few have the drive to support commonsense without introducing obscurity or sentiments. I am a Yoruba man but I will not because of my tribe neglect the important things of this nation. Some are politically reserved just I have been for many years, but my silence and yours will only speak one thing — The bad can continue to happen since I am not affected or perhaps till I find my own way of getting out of this messed country. Hence, it could only mean the interest of others doesn’t process a thought in my consciousness.

Interestingly, Nigeria is a nation blessed with resources and every corners of this country have a resource to boast of at least. Unfortunately, we are blinded by the golds emanating from oil stocks, which should have been used to foster and develop our shaky entity called Nigeria. But some greedyguts would prefer to plunge this nation into insobriety in order to have the national cakes for themself. I must say the political structure of this country was a preconceived one by some major mischief-makers who carefully mastered the plan to put the country under duress. This must stop.

Now, I am not a political scientist that I can boast of but I believe from my observations and studies, I can make few contributions as regard the political structure we should consider adopting if my reasons are right. I have come up with what I believed as a “better” solution which could moderately minimize the fraud in Nigeria political structure. Having it in mind we have the predominantly Hausas from the north, the mainly Yorubas from the west and the majorly “kwenus” from the east, there is no argument in saying that Nigeria is a country so much blessed with rich cultures. It is not an exaggeration to state that we have roughly over 200 ethnic groups in the country. By virtue of this, the problems in Nigeria cannot be overstated. To give satisfactions to these beautiful cultures from a single source is a tale of a man who successfully filled a basket with water. A good parent nurturing 6 kids or more will understand this dilemma better.

Can a central government bring unity amongst these ethnic groups without one of them crying foul? A sincere answer will give almost impossible. The federal system is a more better option but history has shown it could never work because of the disruptive clauses inserted into it. The federal character and zoning policies are carefully constructed to favour some particular groups and the minorities are left out of the fun.

Let us be sincere, we don’t need theories and experiment to tell us that Nigeria political structures is not working. What aggravated the problem is that the people at the helms are neither working. I am not promising you a perfect deal but a fair deal to end the ever compounding problem of our dear country. I have done my part not to involve in blaming games but to present a logical deal that can drive us out of these tribal, political, religious, economic and social mess we put ourselves in.

Therefore, I bring to you an improved regional system of government with a structure of a weak central. How can we put to rest(relatively) the rising tension of marginalization, the cry of mass corruption, the unending case of favoritism and the ineffectiveness and inefficiencies of the Nigerian economy and the Force? I can only think of regional government. Mind you, Regionalism is not a scape way of dissolving or disbanding the entity Nigeria but a way to limit and break down the problems of the country into regions.

Hence, I suggest five regions namely:

1. The Hemisphere of the North
2. The Hemisphere of the West
3. The Hemisphere of the East.
4. The Deltan Hemisphere.
5. The Central Hemisphere.

*Each of these Hemisphere should be headed by five individuals representing each regions commonly called Premiers. The premiers have rights to hand pick their deputies.

* Each Premier must be voted in by the electorate of each region by institutions. By institutions, I meant to say a divided bodies.

*The institutions are to be of two groups namely; The Technocrats and the Univoice school.

The technocrats consists of the University lecturers and professors, the CEOs of companies, the working class, and traders

The Univoice consists of the University students and the unemployed. These would allow the electorate to make better choice of their candidates based on technicalities and not by popularity. Each voters card should be uniquely programmed for each of this institutions and each electorate must apply for either one of it. Now, the question now remains the citizens sincerity as no one can provide a framework for that.

Each candidate from the political parties is structured into the two schools. Each electorate line up according to the institution they belong having shown from their card they are duly registered for the school they queued for.

The National electoral commission should be replaced by regional electoral bodies.

Political parties should be regionalized and their activities monitored by each region electoral bodies.

Candidates for each premier slot are to be decided from each political parties based on their method of consensus without the influence from the regional electoral bodies.

Now if a candidate have a majority votes in the technocrats school and fall short in the Univoice school, it is a sure way to explain that the promising youths don’t  trust their future with the winning candidate in the technocrats school, hence, he or she cannot be declared a winner. So also if a Winner in the Univoice school fall short in the technocrats school, it is a sure way of saying our business and companies cannot move forward under the said Univoice winner, hence this sure give a consensus from both school by picking as the winner the candidates having the cumulative highest rank scores(according to their positions) in both schools.

Now, there is need to form a weak central authority comprising of the five premiers and their deputies and the CBN governor which must be elected into office by the consensus of the five premiers and the deputies premiers and must be rotated for a fixed of tenure of four years among the five regions. The five premiers and their deputies have the absolute right to remove the CBN governor based on 7-3 majority votes. Among the five premiers, a national president must be recognized which must be elected into that office by the majority vote of the central legislature(No more bicameral). The complete neutralization of the House of Representatives is required. Also, there must be a structural reforms of the Senate seats distribution

*Governors and the state assemblies members will be elected based on status quo.

*The governors report to their respective premiers and issues of national unity and security are to be reported by the premiers to the National president.

*The central government exclusive lists should only include National security and money supply

*The premiers have exclusive power over their regions and can only be checkmate by governors of each regions. The governors have the electoral power to remove the premier if found in gross misconduct, ineffective and inefficient in his responsibilities.

*The Nigerian police force should be regionalized and each should be headed by regional inspector-general and should be independent of any influence from the regional government. They stand to protect the citizens ahead of any political players. The regional inspector-general can be removed by the premier of each region upon gross misconduct and inability to discharge effectively and efficiently. The voice of the masses should also have a role to play in their removal.

The National president and the five premiers have a fixed tenure of five years and any re-election bid will be disanulled. If you can’t get your feet within five years, you sure cannot get it in the next five. Simple logic.

The Nigerian army should maintain the status quo on ground. The Commander-in-Chief should be the National president.

Ministries should be regionalized under the leadership of the premiers. Appointment should also be done by the premiers and approved by the majority of the votes cast by the governors.

The interior ministry should only be under the control of the central government. Ambassadors are to be elected by the central government with validation from the Senate.

The local government reforms should includes disannulling the councillorship and only maintaining the chairmanship.

The revenue funds going into the purse of the central government must be maintained and be shared among the five regions. Sizeable amounts of funds must be left to cater for the central government responsibilities. The sharing formula should be according to the derivative principles, population target, economic indices, and development potentials(all subjected to review) but not limited to these indicators.

Each States sources of fund should be maintained and salary structure should be adjusted for efficiency.

The federal civil service commission should be regionalized and reverted into regional civil service commission headed by the heads of regional ministers under the supervision of each premier.

Constitutional review must be adopted and the Senate and the central government have the right to assent to it. The Constitution must be binding on all regions since each representatives of each region came up with the codes after calling for a constitutional conference.

Regional constitution should be enacted but must be made in line with national constitution. In a case the regional constitutions is conflicting with the National constitution, it should be expected the National constitution supersede that of regions.

In a case a premier of a region is caught in the act of gross misconduct and is heavily backed up by the governors representing his or her region, which are saddled with the constitutional right of removing their premier, the other premiers and their deputies can invoke a section of the Constitution that matter on regional unrest and can politically remove the premier of the affected region by replacing him or her with his or her deputy. This is a case of check and balance and promotion of national unity.

The downstream sector should be privatized and controllably deregulated.

What have I achieved by advocating for regional government?

* I have successfully removed the element of marginalization in the national spectrum and reducing it to a regional problem.

*  The ugly cases of religious sentiments, tribe superiority and godfatherism will be a case of regional problem once and for all.

* The development of each region will be accelerated and non performance trait of each region will not be characterized by tribal remarks and religious bigotry.

* National unity will be maintained and must remain unthreatened.

* Efficiency is upgraded

* Dictatorial capacity is greatly reduced as no one can claim right of impunity.

* Tenure elongation is finally put to bed and the interest of people is always at the forefront.

* The introduction of the two electoral institutions is to eliminate (to the barest) political manipulations by some mischievous people. Hence, the people decide their future.

* The scorecards from both schools will also give a clear statistics of the working population and the dependent population for better economic planning.

* Also, the scorecards from both schools will serve a good yardstick for balancing the votes between  popularity and technicality.

* Minorities can now have a better chance of ascending into power, not for show offs but to contribute in the progress of the nation.

* The problem of national government has been greatly and successfully distributed into regional problem. Each region must then find solutions to the problems affecting their lives and well-being.

I must say whatever I have stated here should  not be regarded as the best solution to our national or communal problem. But waiting for the best will not suffice as the best comes after better and better after good. I only rolled out suggestions and it is never binding on the entire populace. You are entitled to your our opinions and additions and subtractions is highly considered. We are striving for a better nation. If we don’t take care of our country, who will? Enough of this dog-whistle politics.

For every policies and procedures, more importantly in the political spectrum, there is  every chance of carving out a loophole. But the minimal the loopholes, the better.

I am a good citizen of this great nation. I do my best to serve all humanity.

God helping us.