Leadership (Abuja)
Nurudeen Abdulsalami
1 October 2007
opinion
It is good news that the current National Assembly has, among its priority agenda, the issue of the review of the 1999 Constitution. This no doubt, has opened a new opportunity for the agitators for the creation of additional states in the polity. The issue of states creation itself will remain a recurring one unless and until there is an equitable, distribution of power and equation within each tier of government in the country.
It is therefore very important that the next exercise in this regard must of necessity be in a more fundamental way in which equity, fairness and justice are manifestly central in the final outcome. If handled in that way, we may likely reduce significantly, such agitations in the future, if not eliminating them completely. Achieving fairness and justice must however entail the genuine participation, appreciation and respect of the equally genuine voices of the agitating groups. In essence, the agitating groupings must be part and parcel of the decisions and final outcome of where they should finally belong to as opposed to our entrenched delusory culture of orchestrations, deceptive schemes and selfishly myopic political manipulations, reminiscent of the infamous OBJ era, or even the arbitrariness that characterized all such previous exercises in the country. Indeed, such insincerity, manipulations, arbitrariness and imperial mindset and myopia in many instances, have been substantially responsible for the endless need and agitations for self-determination inherent in the c1amour for states creation in Nigeria.
The colonial creation of Nigeria was done inspite of its constituent parts. This could also be partly responsible for the apparent deep-seated dichotomy between the North and the South. Such arbitrariness must have ignored and or suppressed some peculiar interests and sensitivities of some groups which accumulated overtime into a monumental inequity and injustice, leading to the feeling and belief of subjugation, thus breeding resentment and the ethnocentric mindsets that have continued to bedevil our national identity and unity.
States creation, which was largely a military era phenomenon, was executed with a similar fiat in which the emergent states were not exactly the free choices of all the constituent groupings within such states. If given a free choice, many minority groups would opt elsewhere than in their current states. This situation therefore habours an inherent insatiable quest for selfÂ-identity in the minorities until recilized. This is even made more so given the conducive atmosphere and the freer aura of Yar' Adua administration's stated policy of due process, rule of law, a truer democracy, integrity, etc, and the NASS entrenched interest in amending the constitution.
States creation itself has an inherent dynamics of its own, which generates and regenerates the reason, the agitation and the need for itself. For example, in each states creation exercise, new sets of majority/minority dichotomy and friction are created, as hitherto minorities suddenly became majority in the new states so created, like in Kogi state where the Igalas
were a resenting minority in Benue but now an overwhelming majority in Kogi over the Igbiras and Olams, etc. The same is to a large extent true of the Tiv in the defunct Benue-Plateau state, and later a suffocating majority in both the old and current Benue state over the Idoma people. This situation is replicated in most states of the federation.
The unfortunate lack of political magnanimity on the part of both the old and new majorities in the exercise of their demographic advantage and status in their respective states, will continue to restrict the political aspirations and attainments of their minorities, thus engendering the reason and need for a separate political unit where their demography will guarantee an unrestricted self-attainment and fulfillment, either as outright majorities or equal/principal partners. It is perhaps only when such majority status, and its attendant political advantages, is exercised with accommodative magnanimity in which minorities, especially major minorities in each state, are statutorily guaranteed leadership positions, like in rotational leadership, they will continue to be excluded from the leadership of their respective states and consigned to lesser portfolios at the whims of the majority, who unfortunately always exercise and flaunt their demographic advantage with ignoble discrimination and imperial impunity.
It is rather unfortunate that the majority groups in Nigeria have each proved incapable of the political goodwill and magnanimity necessary to assuage the feelings of exclusion, marginalisation and political insecurity in their respective minorities. The abysmal failure of this idea of the voluntary political goodwill of the majority is what engenders the endless agitation for self-determination in the minorities, which a statutory and enforceable guarantee should overwhelmingly reduce if not eliminate completely.
Thus, the Southern Kaduna person that of southern Borno, southern Kebbi, the Daura/Funtua groups of Katsina state, the Aworis ofOgun, southern Adamawa, the Kaltungo/Billiri groups of Gombe state, and many others allover the country have all been effectively excluded politically by their respective majority tribes. Baring any unforeseen circumstance of say death or like the rare emergence of now ex-Gov Boni Hanma in Adamawa, it will be extremely difficult for a southem Kaduna person to govern the current Kaduna state. The same is true of the Biu person in Borno, Zuru person in Kebbi, Bachama person in AdiUIlawa, Idoma person in Benue, Igbira/Okun persons in Kogi, etc. Given a free choice opportunity, it is very doubtful if any of these minority groups would prefer to remain in their current respective states, and that is why most, if not all of them, are in the race to present their respective requests/agitations to the NASS for consideration.
On the other hand, most of them would arguably, remain where they currently are if there is some statutory guarantee, enshrined either in the national constitution, or in some kind of an enforceable Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, within each state, agreed and consented to, by all its constituent groupings. Such MOU will contain among other things, the terms and conditions of the political union and relationships of all the contending groupings within each state as articulated, formulated, exhaustively discussed, and negotiated, and mutually agreed and assented to by all parties, and must most importantly be recognized and guaranteed by the national constitution.
This rather novel approach is a creative departure from previous such exercises when groups were coupled together in a political unit more out of administrative convenience and the whims of some primordial considerations with insufficient inputs from the minorities and in utter disregard for their political handicap and vulnerability, security concerns, aspirations and their peculiar circumstances. And those groups that found themselves in the majority unfortunately only exacerbated this vulnerability and resentment in the minorities by their ethnocentric political irresponsibility. This phenomenon will rain endless unless and until such exercise is spiced with the statutory guarantee of equity, fairness and justice for the minorities.
States creation and adjustments may be inevitable in the current NASS, given the seeming determination and entrenched interest especially in the upper legislature. Taming this inevitability from becoming an endless recurrence must require a massive dose of justice and goodwill anchored on freedom of choice, negotiation, consent and enforceable agreement among all groups within each political unit in which the principle and practice of rotation is institutionalized. Thus the ever elusive sense of belonging, restricted political aspirations and attainments which fuel and drive the dynamics of minority agitations would give way in the face of a sincere institutional guarantee devoid of the characteristic subversive manipulations. In other words minorities would find self-fulfillment anywhere they are in Nigeria, such that moving on would be unnecessary.
Nurudeen Abdulsalami contributed this piece from Malali, Kaduna.
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