Without reform, Nigeria may be headed for a break-up - Punch Newspapers

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AS violence, state capture and separatist agitation threaten to spiral out of control, influential voices are warning afresh that unless immediate steps are taken, Nigeria could break up with unforeseen consequences.

A natural federation of over 250 major ethnic groups and sharp diversities in cultures is run like a mono-cultural, single ethnic polity. The military-imposed 1999 Constitution perversely has 68 items on the Exclusive Legislative List and only 30 on the Concurrent Legislative List. Thus stripped of resource autonomy, the 36 states are beggarly appendages of an all-powerful central government, relying on funding allocations from federally collected revenue for survival. It cannot work.

Though the incumbent regime led by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari , inherited the quagmire, he has worsened it. Buhari exacerbates the divisions, mismanages the diversity, and stands resolutely against reforming the crumbling edifice into a sustainable polity.

The central law enforcement system has broken down beyond repair. Denied policing powers by the constitution, the states are at the mercy of criminals, unable to design and fund security systems suitable to their peculiarities. Worse still, the Nigeria Police Force is not only understaffed, under-funded and under-equipped, it is also highly politicised and sectional.

The country is clearly at a tipping point. Militant separatists and once moderate voices are aggressively bent on self-determination. A mood is running across great swaths of the country for minorities to assert their identities, to claim perceived rights. As Soyinka said, the signs are visible; “unless the government is decentralised, Nigeria cannot continue to survive as a single country.

There should be no let-up in the drive for restructuring to save the lives, property, and destiny of all 206 million Nigerians. A truly federal polity is a win-win for everyone as it has been for the 24 other federal countries in the world listed by the Forum of Federations, which include some of the largest and most sophisticated democracies, among them, the USA, Brazil, India, Germany, and Mexico.

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