Opinion: Restructuring and National Integration, Panacea to a Prosperous Nigeria By Ekpenyong Isaiah

Restructuring and National Integration, Panacea to a Prosperous Nigeria

By Ekpenyong Isaiah O.

The strength/greatness of Nigeria lies not in our mineral resources nor our numbers, but in our ability to first accept that there is a conceptual fault lines that has over the past 59 years kept us perpetually down. That the entity called Nigeria was created to the benefit of the British Colonial masters alone cannot be overemphasized. The forceful mergers of people with different tongues and values, the elevation of one ethnic group above the other, are all pointers to a country created not to the benefit of the inhabitants, but for economic convenience of the creators. Nigeria has refused to grow beyond the imagination of the colonialists who saw her as an economic Greenfield that should benefit they, the  colonialists alone.
There is a rumor that Nigeria as a sovereign entity do not actually know her oil production capacity(Whether this information is true or not, is yet to be verified), as oil production is mainly done by Britain, our colonial masters and her allies.  Oil has remained the major source of wealth for Nigeria over the years, and very unfortunate that, except for few privileged Nigerians who owns oil wells, the  process of mining oil in Nigeria  is 95% not in the hands of Nigerians.
Nigeria is not the only country that was colonized by another country. India, the World’s current medical powerhouse was once colonized by Britain. Pakistan, one of the World’s military power was also colonized by Britain. We may be right to blame our colonial masters for forcefully bringing people with different tongues and values together to form Nigeria, but, blaming them for our refusal to take our destiny in our hands since after independence in 1960 is one blame that may be termed ‘an excuse in failure’. How did India do it?, How did Pakistan do it? Rwanda, an African country today has been able to develop smart phone from scratch. How did they get to this stage that seems very impossible for Nigeria?
Nigeria has remained a Greenfield for milking by world powers and her allies. A country whose leaders are only interested in going to Abuja to share in whatever comes out of the milking process at the detriment of Nigeria and Nigerians. Oil is not the only mineral resources in Nigeria, as evidence have shown that Nigeria is blessed with a lot of other mineral resources like gold  in Zamfara and some other northern states, Lime stones in Cross River and Ebonyi States, Coal in Enugu State and a lot of other mineral resources. The discovery of oil in Oloibiri in current Bayelsa State in 1956, and the scrapping of the regional governments in Nigeria to form the current unitary system of government where proceeds of oil is taken to Abuja from source and then shared to all states of the federation, has led to a situation where nobody wants to develop any other mineral resources in Nigeria. In fact, the quest to control oil revenues is one of the major factors that led to coup and counter-coups in Nigeria during the military era, though actors then may pretentiously not   agree on this, and will tell you their actions were patriotic, evidence have shown that all what they wanted was who should be in-charge so as to control the oil money. The quest to control oil revenues is also one of the reasons for the current ethnic tensions and power struggle amongst the different ethnic groups in Nigeria. While Nigeria is being milked and the oil revenue flows, the communities for which most of these oil wells are seated are living in penury and abject poverty.
Accepting that we must think out of the box and that the current unitary system of governance is not helping us could be the beginning of our greatness. Restructuring Nigeria to create a system where wealth is created from bottom-up, a system that allows communities take charge of mineral resources in their domain and pay tax to government at an agreeable percentage, a system where communities and  local governments can directly be in-charge of their security, basic development needs, while the central government regulates it,  could be a step that will guarantee National integration, respect for one another and an atmosphere of justice and equality. It will be a right step in the right direction as almost all communities would want to develop mineral resources in their area since that will mean community development and empowerment.
What then is Restructuring?
Restructuring is one word that has caused so much tensions in Nigeria over the years. It is for the same purpose that the Olusegun Obasanjo regime organized what was called “National Conference”. The Goodluck Jonathan regime went further to termed her own, “Sovereign National Conference”. These two conferences were geared towards appeasing both the proponents and opponents of a restructured Nigeria.
Restructuring can be said to be a corporate management term for the act of re-organizing the legal, ownership, operational, or, other structures of a company for the purpose of making it more profitable, or better organized for its present needs.  The Business Dictionary definition of what restructuring is, is very interesting. It says that restructuring is “bringing about drastic or fundamental internal change that alters the relationship between different components or elements of an organization or system”.

This two clear definitions of restructuring above, defines the reason why something must be done about Nigeria. The cry for Nigeria to be restructured now is very loud. To the proponents of restructuring, everything about Nigeria is faulty and Nigeria requires a drastic fundamental internal change that will alter not just the relationship between her different components, but will also better organize her for her present needs.  The opponents of restructuring sees nothing wrong with the current structure of Nigeria, to them, what is required is that Nigerians should restructure their character(what a funny postulation). While  I  totally agree with the opponents of restructuring that Nigerians should restructure their character,  because in a Nigeria with a restructured human character, there will be nothing like “Cold Rooms” in our university campuses, parents will not sit for exams or pay for their wards to pass entrance exams, Army, police, customs and Road safety officers will not collect bribes in our highways and their other points of duty, our soldiers will not collaborate with miscreants to commit crime, just like in the Bala wadume scenario in Taraba State; our politicians will not embezzle monies meant for developmental projects in our communities, our religious leaders will not deceive their followers in order to make money, our youths will not walked naked on the streets in the name of fashion, etc; but, are these the fundamental issues holding Nigeria down? The answer is capital NO. If a restructured character is what Nigeria and Nigerians only need, the setting up of anti-corruption and other enforcement agencies to enforce certain behavioral standards would have solved the problems.
While I don’t subscribe to the agitation in certain quarters that Nigeria should be divided, i totally agree with proponents of restructuring in Nigeria that almost everything is wrong with Nigeria’s present structure. A structure that encourages laziness, a structure that says that every revenue generated must be brought to Abuja and then shared amongst everybody will never encourage growth. For example, most states in the north like Kano and the rest will happily destroy beers in trucks seen in their states, which according to them; their religion forbids that being sold in their state. But they will also happily share in the Value Added Tax(VAT) derived from the sales of these beer in some other States, this is grave injustice.  A system that promotes mediocrity, nepotism over merit in the name of quota system must be altered. While quota system is not entirely a bad idea, we should look for a system that allows it only to be done by a section of the country that wishes to do it in their domain, and not as it is currently forced on everybody. A system that sends Segun, Abubakar or Emeka who do not hear or speak my dialect to my local village as a policeman to police a village they do not know will encourage subversion as my people will always see them as strangers coming to execute the plans of those who may not wish us well. Every action of these “strangers” police officers will always be seen as actions against the community at this point in time where every tribe is highly suspicious of other tribes
For Nigeria to grow and prosper, we must sit down in a round table with whatever name it shall be called to discuss on what form of government we want, what should be the structured components of the country, how do we share our resources. These has become necessary and imperative because during the amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria by our colonial masters in 1914, nobody was given the opportunity to talk about these things and this is one of the reasons why our resources are seen as ‘National Cake’ that must be shared by whoever governs Nigeria with his tribe and allies to the detriment of development of even the communities that these natural resources are situated. We must sit down and fashion out a system that will not promote falsification of census figures for resource allocation, a system that will not promote falsification of voting strengths for elections manipulation, a system that will ensure creation of wealth from bottom up. We must work towards a system that will allow those who owns mineral resources in their lands to ultimately benefit from it and those who have not, not to be neglected as these will arouse active competition within the system and stimulate economic growth.
Those who currently benefits from the skewed Nigerian structure may not want to hear anything about restructuring, but, it is the only way to avert the future disintegration of Nigeria. It is better we sit down and jaw jaw, than war war which will eventually lead to Nigeria’s disintegration. National Integration can only be achieved in a restructured Nigeria where there is mutual respect for all.

May Nigeria succeed

Ekpenyong Isaiah O.
MCPN, c.itp, ASFICA
is the National President, Nigerian Youths for Good Governance(NYGG)
Commander, Infantry Pen Battalion
E-mail: isacool4good@yahoo.com