Devolution Of Power To States, The Only Panacea To Nigeria’s Myriad Of Problems – Chief ‘Bode George

Chief Olabode George, an elder statesman, speaking on Nigeria’s 60th independence anniversary in an interview with media personnel, Akinrolabu Akinduro, Izaye Helen, and Adegbite Busola, bore his mind on the situation of the country, Nigeria.

Here, he concluded that the devolution of power to the States is the only solution to the country’s myriad of problems.

Read Excerpts:

Sir, let us look at Nigeria at 60; what is your assessment of the country’s situation in the last 60 years of its existence?

I am in my late 70s now. I was born in Lagos, grew up in Lagos, schooled all through in Nigeria.

Awolowo, Balewa, Bello and Azikiwe

Now that we are 60 years in age as a country, I try to sit back to do appraisal of all the aspirations and hopes we had about the country while growing up, and i must confess to you, I am highly dissatisfied with the situation of Nigeria now. This, certainly, is not the kind of country we dreamt of. The country has deviated from the philosophy of its founding fathers and this is very sad and disheartening. There was a time we were called the giant of Africa , that was when we were playing major troubleshooting roles in such countries like Liberia, Somalia, Mozambique, Namibia and Angola. Even in South Africa, the role we played to stop apartheid there is still a reference point till date.

If not for the historical and epic role played by Nigeria, South Africa wouldn’t have been liberated of apartheid. That was the strength and the level of the capacity of our nation at the inception. But looking back now, it is sad to know that, the country has diminished in its leading status. Recently, there was a conference of the G20, Nigeria wasn’t present.
We were not invited.

Other African countries like Rwanda, Ethiopia were invited but Nigeria was not invited. What is the implication of this to the country’s international image? What’s going on?
Doesn’t this call for some in-house rethinks? I think we need to sit back and ask ourselves the pertinent question : “is it really well with our country?

Sir, Nigeria while you were growing up and Nigeria now, is there any correlation in terms of development ?

When I graduated about 52 or 53years ago, we were just eight in my graduating class in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Lagos. Most of us were employed before we wrote our final exam. That was the system we grew up to know. In fact, then, most of our friends and colleagues who travelled out of the country to America and Europe, travelled because it was a bit tough for them to complete there education here because the standard was high and it was highly competitive. That was the state of the Nation. But now, after looking back, I continue to think on what could have been responsible for the sorry state of the nation now.

University of Lagos

Firstly, I thought we should as a matter of urgency, go back to the archives and check for the pre 1914 history, when we had the northern and southern protectorates. How did we become Nigeria? We need to go in-depth on this and do a research on it for the younger generation to understand where we are coming from. They need to get our past in details so as not to repeat such mistakes in the future.

Looking at Nigeria from that time, why haven’t we grown?

Look at Malaysia, they came to Nigeria to pick our palm kernel, and today look at where they are. They are the biggest exporter of palm oil in the world. Even the first television in Africa was established in this country as far back as in the 50s when some other European countries like France had not seen or heard about television at all! When you talk about the human resource, there’s no part part of this country that has not gotten one professional in one human endeavour or another. We then keep thinking, what has been the problem? Well, we may be tempted to say 1914 amalgamation is our problem because it put us together not because there was necessity for it, but because of economic consideration by the British, forgetting that we are human beings with different cultures, different norms and beliefs.

Therefore, putting us together at the first instance, should have required a better study rather than for pure economic consideration.

Having said this, may I caution here that, I am not condemning our coming together to become one big country. No. In fact, I really appreciate that because if we look back and check our beautiful idiosyncrasies as one big country, like our different cultures, traditions, languages, norms, we will see that as the rainbow of the country and our strength as a nation. But, the question that’s begging for answering now is: Where have we gone wrong?

There was a time we were doing some checks and balances on ourselves so that we could put ourselves on a right path. But now, instead being honest with ourselves, we are pretending that all is well when we know in actual fact that, all is not well at all with us.

Originally, during the first republic, there were three regions. Then the regional government, headed by the premiers were very strong while the center wasn’t too strong as we have today. The only major flop in that first republic was the fact that the minorities in each of the three regions were only to be seen and not heard. Once you have a Nation that has no equality, no fairness under justice, you are wasting your time. Nobody chooses to be born in the minority and the fact that you’re born into majority is not your making.
We are first and foremost Nigerians and we should be so treated. Equality under the law, justice under the law was the platform which we got the independence when we had three regions. At that time, each of the regions had representatives as ambassadors and high commissioners in different countries. But because the minorities were not recognized, that was the major issue in that system. Gradually, it was getting more serious, and until it exploded.

Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa 

One thing I notice again which is so disheartening is the fact that they have stopped teaching history in our schools. How? Who took that decision? Our youths today don’t know about the issues of yesterday, and how will they avoid the dangers in the future, if they are not taught of yesterday’s history? That’s the importance of History. For example, at war college, I mean the military war college, what we do mainly is to take a case story of every war and do an in-depth analysis on them to know why certain decision was made. By the time you are done with the analysis, you will have an in-depth knowledge of the case you are studying. And that will prepare you for the future in case there’s another break of war.

Our regionalism was adjusted after the first coup of 1966. There was a second coup in July and the excuse was that the first coup was tribalistic in nature. When the coup happened, everybody looked around and wondered what could have led to it. The worse part was the fact that Agunyi Ironsi, the Military head of States wanted to run Nigeria from one spot and this sadly led to the second coup. So after that second coup, we still had that same central control like the military formation.

Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi

Military is actually a unique organisation. Their chain of command comes from the point of the pyramid to the bottom. That is the major problem we have in the country now. Instead of chain of command to come from the bottom to to the top so that governance and democracy can be brought closer to the people who actually are the key factors in a democracy, we now have everything coming from a strong center to the bottom. This is how the military operate and it is unique to them alone. Sadly, this was the orientation Ironsi introduced to our political system when he became the Head of State shortly after the first coup.

Sir, by this, should we now blame the military for damaging the political system of the country?

I agree, being a retired military officer now, that the military imposed their style of management on the country. See, I want to be factual and real because if you deceive yourself and do not come out with fact, then there won’t be a sincere solution. Yes, the military now turned the management of the civil life into a military system because in the military, the order comes from the above and goes to the bottom. Therefore if you fall out of the line, there are consequences. But in the civil life, power comes from the base. The will of the people is paramount in any democracy. Whoever becomes a leader in any democracy, is a servant leader. In a democracy, any person elected in office is to go there to manage the resources of that nation or state or local government for the good of the people. Unfortunately that is not what we are doing. We are doing the wrong things.

Presently, our scenario can be likened to a group of voyagers in a distressed ship on a very turbulent ocean. Our ship is highly distressed, tossing up and down. What is urgently needed now to save it from sinking, is a very skilful and knowledgeable captain who will help stabilize it and take it safely to the shore. But sadly, we don’t have such a skilful captain to navigate us out of the turbulent ocean we in now as a country.

Today in Nigeria what we hear here and there, on a daily basis is cacophony of voices. People are tired of this imbalanced arraignment. They want a restructuring. They want to control their destiny by themselves. They don’t want somebody who doesn’t have adequate knowledge about their peculiarities to sit in a place far from them and be dictating to them how they should run their affairs. They want to run their affairs themselves because they have seen that the present political structure is not fair to them.

In my local parlance, Yoruba, there is this proverb that says “Ijo kan kin seru ijo”, meaning nobody is a slave to anybody. In order words, what they are saying is that we all are Nigerians, and no Nigerian has a higher status than another Nigerian. There must be justice and equity under the law for everybody. It shouldn’t be because your tribe becomes president, everything should now belong to your own tribe alone. What happens to other tribes? That is the main problem in the country now.

The system of governance must reflect democracy. The system of managing a pluralistic nation like Nigeria must be democratic in nature. In other words, there must be a devolution of power. We have concentrated too much power in the centre and everybody is looking at one man as if he is a magician.

Sir, what do you think is the way out of Nigeria’s present quagmire?

The System of governance, the methodology of managing this country is faulty and unless we get serious and look deeply to this issues aforementioned, we may not get the solution.
If we can recall, there was a national conference that was organized by former President Jonathan to address all these troubling issues. The conference sat for months and came out with some far-reaching recommendations that could have saved the country from all these headaches we are having. But sadly till we speak, the recommendations are not implemented. We must give it to Dr. Jonathan a civilian president, who organised such a beautiful conference because it had never happened before. Something similar like that was what Chief Obasanjo did during his first term as President. That was when he set up a committee to review our constitution because the constitution handed over to us by General Abdulsallam was completely military in every format. So, when Chief Obasanjo came in, he tried to review some things that could give the country peace.

Olusegun Obasanjo

First, Obasanjo started by forming a government of national unity. He had all parties government. Every party became part of his government. That actually gave a resemblance of stability in our polity then. Also, as a result of the myriad of problems created by late General Abacha while he was the military president, Obasanjo’s administration set up a truth and reconciliation committee which was popularly known as the Oputa panel. This panel was to calm down the people’s nerves at that time because people were really bottled up with different angers occasioned from Abacha’s regime.

But Sir, at the end of the day, the recommendations of Oputa panel were also not implemented by Obasanjo. And this made Nigerian to feel disappointed. What’s your take on this ?

Whichever form you choose to look at it, what I know is that you won’t deny the fact that people were given the chance to express their grievances freely. Let’s put the implementation or no implementation aside, the fact is that, Nigerians who were aggrieved because of one issue or the other were given chances to express them.

But people complained they were not compensated by government. Examples were Fela Anikulapo whose house was burnt by the so-called unknown soldiers and his mother killed in the process, and Dele Giwa who was killed by bombs. The lawyers of these people complained that, despite the fact that the truth was established, their clients were not compensated by the government. In the light of this, can we say chief Obasanjo’s government then was sincere?

Fela Anikulapo Kuti

One thing we should remember when we want to sincerely talk about this is issue is that, the Oputa panel was not a judicial panel. Rather it was a Truth and Reconciliation Panel. And so, the mandate giving to them was to reconcile and pacify aggrieved people and which they were able to do. Coming to talk about compensation now is not the issue. The fact that, people were allowed to voice out their grievances showed that the government was sincere. We may not know, whether the government, after the whole scenario, called party A or B to apologize and say let’s move on.

Another major issue regarding the development of the country is corruption. This has been considered the bane of our development since independence. What’s your take on corruption and how do you think it can be eradicated in Nigeria ?

Corruption is everywhere in Nigeria. From top to the bottom of the country’s structure, there is visible presence of corruption. It is so bad that, virtually all Nigerians, irrespective of class and status are involved in it. The artisans, professors, civil servants, politicians, and so on, all are involved in it. And the major reason for this ugly development is the lack of ethical teachings in our country’s educational curriculum. Our schools are no longer teaching ethical values. And if our schools are not teaching ethical values how would the people get the positive orientation ? That’s the problem. We must make sure we put into our curriculum, such subject as civic orientation. This we help a great deal in channeling a good path for the society, especially our youths.

What is the Nigeria of your dream? Where do you want to see the country in the next 10 to 20 years?

I want to see Nigeria restructuring by devolving power to the States so that they can independently control their affairs with little or no interference from the top. That’s why I said that if the resources of the people can be well managed for their use, there will not be mismanagement of resources. So, all States should be allowed to manage whatever resources they have. If States know that there is no more free launch from Abuja, they will learn how to cut their clothes according the resources available to them.

Also, before 2023, we must revisit the report of the constitution conference we had during president Jonathan’s administration. The process of election must also be credible. That why I want to use this medium to give kudos to the INEC for the way they conducted the last gubernatorial election in Edo state. The election in Edo was the best so far conducted by INEC. It was free, fair, transparent and credible. They had done this and they were saluted for it locally and internationally, therefore, they must not deviate from it. In any election in Nigeria, the will of the people must be allowed to prevail. Again, INEC must ensure that they modernise the electoral process in the country before 2023. Electronic voting should be adopted in the country. In this 21st century, it is unimaginable for a country like ours to be carrying ballot boxes around. This gives room for manipulation. So, INEC must make sure they digitalised all elections before 2023.

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