I have a very close friend whose father made him an executor to his will ahead of his much older siblings in a large, but affluent polygamous family. That was rather uncommon in a typical African setting. It gets even more uncommon. The very detailed will gave mere stipends from a rather expansive estate to some of the siblings and excluded some out rightly.
Although the father gave some reasons for his actions, the executors went over backwards to try and accommodate the disadvantaged children. Several decades later, there are court cases from these older siblings wanting more and questioning the distribution of the estate. What started as goodwill had become entitlement and some of the court cases would have been averted if the executors had simply followed the testament of their deceased father.
The story of Nigeria sometimes reminds me of the story of this rich man who was detailed about how he wanted his estate to be shared but whose executors took the humane route and brought out a big umbrella in order to accommodate everyone. At the polygamous marriage of different nationalities to Nigeria, the brides had agreed that the offspring of the union would largely look after themselves.
This worked to some extent until the military took over government and crude oil was found in a region. Under the guise of an even development in a now unitary government, what should have been the exclusive preserve of an area became the property of the commonwealth. This in itself should have been grounds for divorce but the exigencies of fighting a war coupled with the power of the gun at the time, muted discordant voices.
Like the estate of my friend’s father, what started as goodwill to other regions had become a matter of entitlement by these regions with issues like population and geographical area coming into calculating what a region should get. All efforts to get back to the drawing board have always been countered by noises around the sanctity of the Nigerian union and why divisive voices must be silenced. Yet, every polygamous family knows that people bring different energies and contributions to the home and any attempt to rob Peter to pay Paul is a recipe for disharmony and possibly disaster.
The late Elders Adebanjo and Clark were some of the stronger voices on federalism in the country. They had their faults like most humans but you could not fault the strength of their conviction or their staying power. That they lived for so long and could not see federalism restored in their lifetime must be one of the disappointments in their otherwise fulfilled lives. Yet, slowly and almost imperceptibly, people are testing the waters and moving the needle on federalism. Zamfara and Lagos States tested the waters under President Obasanjo.
One moved towards religion and the other towards Local Governments. Obasanjo descended heavily on one and ignored the other. Today, both are a reality. Ondo State tested the waters under President Buhari with State policing when conventional Police Force seemed impotent against marauders. Today, many States have Vigilantes cooperating with the Nigerian Police Force. Lagos State has tested the waters with the Betting Game while cooperating with Rivers State to test the waters on Value Added Tax.
Both have achieved a level of success today. The Federal Government itself is testing waters on the economic front with its Tax Reform Bill having successfully tested some waters on the energy front – it was inconceivable twenty years ago that States could have their own Energy Boards. All of these show that as faulty as the 1999 Constitution is, there is still room to maneuver for those who wish to push the frontiers of federalism further. Even some States are staking claims however tenuous, to the mineral resources in their domain. It is only Crude Oil that the country seems fixated on as a Federal preserve, but time will tell.
The latest testing of waters is now in the educational front where some States decided to alter their school calendar because of Ramadan. The Federal Government seemed to have acquiesced, which means any State can now change its educational calendar to suit whatever purpose suits it. All proponents of federalism should smile at this development. I don’t know how Elders Adebanjo and Clark would feel about the reason for this development though. But I believe they would squirm in discomfort because they were strong proponents of education.
Had they been alive, they would question the message a State that shuts down education – and God knows what else – for five weeks because of religion is sending out. It is first, that we can now have a State religion where the rights and interests of other religions don’t matter. Second that educational and economic interests should play a second fiddle to religion. There is a law of unintended consequences.
That law in this instance, could mean the deepening of poverty which could lead to more banditry. A poorly educated youth is a liability to himself, to his State and to his country. Any leadership that dances to religious sentiments in illiterate, poverty stricken regions, rather than focus sharply on education and economic developments, does not belong to this century. Second, States that shut down for a month should live by the consequences of their actions. It is unfair and amounts to robbing Peter to pay Paul, to expect to be fed from the taxes and resources of those who worked hard during the period.
Finally, Nigeria was a secular State, the last time I checked the constitution. It is high time Governments got out of sponsoring pilgrimages of any kind and offering support for overtly religious activities. The voices of religious extremists are getting louder. We would be playing with a time bomb if we let these voices continue to sway the minds of uneducated, and therefore gullible minds which is what seems to be happening. Otherwise, it should not have been possible for enlightened minds to succumb to the religious blackmail of using Ramadan to shut down schools and certain aspects of the economy.
Maybe its time to test the waters again by addressing the secularism of the Nigerian State through the courts. The result would provide another clarity on federalism. The desire of our forefathers was to have a Federal Republic in the true sense of the word. And we will get there, even if it means a continuous chipping at the edges.
Credit: Muyiwa Adetiba