Restructuring goes beyond resource control — Atiku

In this concluding part of the address delivered at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, former VP Atiku Abubakar speaks on how to restructure Nigeria. 

In the future if the federal government identifies the need for a new road that would serve the national interest, it can support the affected states to construct such roads. 

Thereafter the maintenance would be left to the states, which can collect tolls from road users for that purpose. The federal government does not need a constitutional amendment to start that process. “We do not need a constitutional amendment to transfer federal universities and colleges as well as hospitals to the states where they are located. 

The University of Nigeria, Nsukka, the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and the University of Ife (now OAU) were built by regional governments when we had a thriving federal system. We all know what then happened. 

The federal government, awash in oil revenues, took them over, rapidly expanded them, and began to build more federal universities in response to the inevitable demand from states that did not have any located within their jurisdictions. 

 Without adequate and sustainable funding the result is what we have today: universities, including the first generation ones that are no longer taken seriously anywhere in the world. “Yet many of our young people cannot find spaces in our tertiary institutions. 

This year alone, 1.7 million Nigerians wrote the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations. Last year the figure was 1.5 million. “According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, of the 10 million Nigerian youths who wrote the UTME since 2010, only 26% gained admission into Nigerian universities. 

That left out 74% that could not get in. This gross inadequacy of school spaces breeds corruption in the admissions process and sustains our perennial fights over quota system and the like. A decentralized system is unlikely to be that insensitive to the yearnings of the people and the needs of the economy. 

We must reverse the epidemic of federal take-over of state and voluntary organizations’ schools and hospitals which began in the 1970s, and also transfer those established by the federal government to the states. “Last year, 60,000 Nigerian students spent 300 billion Naira on education in Ghanaian universities. 

In that same period 18,000 of our youths spent 162 billion Naira in the U.K. Altogether, Nigerians spend a yearly average of 1 trillion Naira on foreign education because we do not have enough capacity to meet demand. “We must find a way to keep that 1 trillion Naira on our shores by investing it in building enough educational capacity for our own people and a quality of education which all our neighbours would aspire to. Think of the impact retaining 1 trillion Naira in our economy will have for the value of the Naira. “But why are we not already doing this? I do it in my own private university. 

I have seen the benefits. The American University of Nigeria at Yola has students from all over the world because we have invested in capacity. “Education is a priority. Of course when we are spending hundreds of billions on needless luxuries and on fighting yesterday’s wars we will not have the 1 trillion naira to spend on education. Nations do not become wealthy by having state of the art luxuries. 

They become wealthy by having state of the art schools. “Enough of that issue. Let us go to the next level. “The excessive concentration of power and centralization of resources in the federal government led the government to extend itself into virtually every aspect of our lives including as an investor in an array of businesses. And almost as a rule they were badly run. “The reason is because we have made our government into an enterprise rather than a service. 

We no longer have civil servants in the true sense of the word. Our civil service is more lucrative than the private sector such that when people see a nice house or a fancy car they automatically think it must belong to a top government official. “For twenty seven years I have been a proponent of privatisation. I was the head of the National Council on Privatisation and I know for a fact that if you privatise all the enterprises that government unnecessarily controls such as the NNPC, NRC, you will reduce the mad scramble for control of federal power and patronage positions in those organizations. 

“I oversaw the bidding round for new telecommunications licenses in 2000. It is on record that Nigeria had the most transparent bidding process in the world then. We generated $1.2 billion for the federal government and liberalised the mobile telecommunications industry which resulted in an increase from 500,000 lines to 100 million lines. “So privatisation took the power of telephony from our elites who could pay 10,000 Naira for a SIM card and place it firmly in the palms of the people of Nigeria. 

Today a SIM card is virtually given away for free and the power of telephony is in all our hands. It also had the benefit of directly generating employment for over 100,000 Nigerians in the new telcos and literally hundreds of thousands more indirectly via the resellers who sit under umbrellas at street corners selling recharge cards. “Privatisation and liberalisation create wealth and opportunity with little regard to where you come from. “This brings me to the economic aspect of restructuring. 

Nigeria is blessed with huge oil and gas deposits, but we will not become wealthy by merely selling more crude oil or more LNG. Our wealth must be tied to the productive capacity of our people. What is in our brains beats what is in our ground. “Let us not be afraid of any state controlling their resources as long as they pay the agreed taxes to the center. 

Let us rather be afraid of being so fixated on oil that we do not even see the wealth that is under our noses, and fail to realize when oil ceases to be that important. “As I mentioned earlier, oil is getting more and more redundant. We must turn our energies towards developing a real economy and not an economy based on rent seeking. 

“Before the discovery of oil in commercial quantities, the Saudi Royal Family received medical treatment from the University College Hospital, Ibadan. More than 50 years after the discovery of oil in commercial quantities our own leaders now depend on others for their healthcare. “Why has this happened? In my opinion, it is because we got drunk on oil. 

We need to go to rehab. And if resource control, within reason, will do that for us, then we should stop resisting it and start embracing it. “Addressing restructuring along the lines I and other like-minded patriots have suggested will not be the solution to all the symptoms of the disease of insufficient capacity plaguing Nigeria. 

However it will be the critical first step to tackling Nigeria’s various diseases. “So let me now turn to the critical issue of security facing our nation’s unity and the well being of our people. “By devolving power to the States and local governments, the federal government equips them with the resources, authority and capacity to tackle local problems that has national significance. In this way it will help solve the issue of herdsmen-farmers clashes, kidnapping, militancy and other forms of insecurity that may manifest themselves as cultism or other anti-social behaviours. 

We should do more than merely ordering the police or the military to crush terrorists, kidnappers, cultists and separatists. We must also address the environment that allowed such issues to erupt in the first place. If you pull out the leaves of weeds without removing the weeds by the roots, they will grow again. “I believe that the benefits accruing from these first steps will help us as we move towards the changes that require amendments to our Constitution. Let me mention a few critical ones just to illustrate. 

Creation of and Funding of Local Governments by the Federal Government. Few things illustrate federal overreach into state matters than the creation and direct funding of local governments by the Federal Government. As I have said on numerous occasions, this makes a mockery of the word “local.” No good evidence has been produced to show that our local governments are now doing better than they were prior to federal intrusion. 

That intrusion must stop. Local governments are not federating units. State governments should have the freedom to create as many local governments as they wish or not have local governments at all. Citizens at every locality would then know that it is the responsibility of their states to provide services for their welfare. 

A possible compromise to help reduce opposition to this needed change is for the existing number of local governments to be maintained during the transition with the federal funds going the respective states as part of devolution of resources. Henceforth local government administration should be the responsibility of state governments. 

 A constitutional amendment allowing for the establishment of State Police is another critical element of the required restructuring. With that, the Federal and state governments should be able to decide on jurisdictions and which matters would fall under federal statutes and which under state statutes, and where there would be joint jurisdiction (in which case the federal government can take over in cases of conflict). 

One thing about federalism that we seem to have forgotten is that it is about freedom, autonomy and choice. State police would not be mandatory for every state. Those states which, for whatever reason, prefer federal police would work out arrangements with the federal police on cost-sharing and other matters related to policing their jurisdictions. Reduction in the Number of Federating Units. I strongly believe that we need to reduce the number of federating units. 

The decades of excessive reliance on oil revenues and the relative neglect of other revenue sources as well as our near addiction to states-creation mean that even the increase of the resources transferred to the states may not make many of the financially non-viable states to become viable. 

Those calling for new states seem oblivious of the fiscal crisis the existing states are in and how dependent they are on transfer payments from Abuja. If we are to maintain the current state structure, how do we ensure their financial viability? Obviously they would have to diversify their economies and revenue sources, but what happens to those unable to do so? One option that I have suggested is a means-test requiring states to generate a specified percentage of their share of federal allocations internally or be absolved into another state. 

Or we may revisit Chief Alex Ekwueme’s suggestion that we use the existing geopolitical zones as federating units rather than the current states. Using the zones would ensure immediate financial viability and scale and also address the concerns of minorities about domination by our three major ethnic groups. The issue of Resource Control is perhaps the most contentious. 

It is the big elephant in the room but the one most proponents and opponents of restructuring prefer to dance around while often throwing insults at each other. Fear, greed, envy, and resentment are at the centre of our disagreements on resource control. On the one hand, those who feel they are better endowed with the currently important or exploited national resource, oil, express some level of greed and resentment and a desire to monopolize those resources. 

On the other hand, those who feel less well-endowed express some degree of fear, envy and resentment. We must start from the point of view that no country’s regions or localities are equally or uniformly endowed. Diversity is the norm, and often the strength. And there are also historical swings or changes in fortune: the well-endowed areas of today may become less so tomorrow. Sharing is part of human existence and part of what makes human societies possible. 

I have consistently advocated for local control of resources but with federal taxing powers to help redistribute resources and to help address national priorities. Local control will encourage our federating units to look inwards at untapped resources in their respective domains and promote healthy rivalry among them. “I must point out that all of these do not have to be done in one fell swoop. We recognise that fundamental change is often difficult, especially for those who feel that they are beneficiaries of the status quo. But we must change. 

We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. “We can start with the less contentious ones, including state police, and returning jurisdiction for local governments to states. “Discussions and negotiations among leaders from across the country can be speeded up to ensure timely resolution of these contentious issues. 

 Our generation cannot afford to be the one that is unable to negotiate and bargain for a workable federal system that truly serves our peoples and enables them to live in peace and harmony with mutual respect. “The Nigerian federation is a work in progress. 

We just have to continue that work, a truly serious work, to build bridges across our various divides. That’s what we need in order to create the kind of country where our young people can thrive and realize their full potentials, young people such as Ms Immaculata Onuigbo, the best graduating student and Valedictorian for the Class of 2017 at the American University Nigeria, Yola. We owe it to them and the generations to come”.