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| Who owns the oil? The failure of federalism in Nigeria |
Following the distractional comment today 1st of February 2016 by Mr president on the ownership of oil in the Niger Delta, I invite you to examine with me the validity of his claim, distraction in the sense that the nation woke up this morning to hear the news of the massacre of 300 men, women and children on Saturday night in the village of Dalori in northeastern Nigeria, the president being expected to issue a presidential statement on especially the burning alive of children, diverted the country's attention to the same oil politics that has consumed the lives of millions of people ,especially Biafrans in the 30 months of genocidal war and beyond.
The definition of federalism by these scholars rest on the fundamental principle that, federalism is a form of governmental and institutional structure, deliberately designed by political ‘‘architects’’, to cope with the twin but difficult task of maintaining unity while also preserving diversity .Livingston, (1787 American constitution) ,while another scholar defines federalism as the method of dividing powers so that general and regional governments are each, within a sphere, co-ordinate and independent of one another. Thus,K.C Wheare’s proposition posits that the federal principle essentially entails a legal division of powers and functions among levels of government with a written constitution guaranteeing and reflecting the division. K.C Wheare will be use as a templates to determines Nigerian federalism and the extent to which Nigeria has fulfilled the basic tenets of federalism. The basic tenets according to him are:
a) There must be at least two levels of governments and there must be constitutional division of powers among the levels of governments.
b) Each levels of government must be co-ordinate and independent.
c) Each levels of government must be financially independent. He argued that this will afford each levels of government the opportunity of performing their functions without depending or appealing to the others for financial assistance.
d) There must be Supreme Court of the independent judiciary. He argued that in terms of power sharing, there is likely to be conflict hence, there must be independent judiciary to resolve the case.
e) In terms of the amendment of the constitution, no levels of government should have undue power over the amendment process.
He maintained that, once a country is able to satisfy these conditions, such country is said to practice federalism.
EVOLUTION OF NIGERIAN FEDERALISM
Historically, the structure of Nigeria federalism can be traced far back to 1914 when the Northern and Southern protectorates were amalgamated though with unitary form of administration. Since then, governmental power that existed in Nigeria started to be shared between the central government headed by the Governor-General and the governments of Northern and Southern protectorates headed by the lieutenant Governors. Therefore, with the existence and recognition of the two autonomous parts of Northern and Southern provinces, the administrative system of Nigeria wore a somehow outlook of a federation.
The further division of the country into three regions by the then Governor of Nigeria Sir Authur Richards under the Richard constitution of 1946 gave more support to the emergence of Nigeria as a federal state. The Macpherson constitution of 1951 gave further concrete support in the sense that, the constitution appointed lieutenant Governors to head these three regions and granted legislative power to the legislative and executive councils that were established. The Lyttleton constitution of 1954 removed the final shade of a unitary system of government from Nigeria by establishing a true federal state in the sense that it shared powers between the central and the regional governments. To avoid constitutional conflicts that might arise between the central and regional governments, a supreme court was established to handle such conflict
After independence, Nigeria constitution has continued to retain the federal system imposed by the departed colonialist but with some minor modification. Based on the forgoing, the analyses of the evolution of Nigeria federalism can be based on three fundamental reasons.
a) The British deliberately imposed the federal system on Nigeria in order to maintain a neo-colonial control of the country after independence. Since federalism is more or less an evidence of some form of disunity, political weakness and uneven economic development, the British deliberately wanted to keep the federating units as apart as possible so as to meddle in the internal affairs of Nigeria to their own economic and political advantage after they would have granted her independence.
b) The second aspect emphasizes the fact that historical and geographical factors determined the political evolution of Nigeria. Nigeria being a large and culturally variegated country could not have been governed from one centre. This interpretation is much more objective than the former. But it must be pointed that while the historical and geographical factors determined the constitutional evolution of Nigeria, these factors did not determine the shape and form of the federation that the British helped to create in Nigeria.
c) It was not a question of a country that was originally unitary, being broken into federating units, but of formerly totally independent kingdoms, Empires, nations and Autonomous communities being brought together, and ending up in a federal union.
In line with this historical evolution of Nigerian federalism, it should be noted that, the choice of federalism as the preferred system of government for Nigeria was not accidental. Given the heterogeneity of Nigerian polity, the founding fathers of Nigeria adopted the federal system as the most viable option of protecting the core interest of the federating units. This was demonstrated in the federal constitution, especially in the 1963 federal republican constitution, that clearly defined the jurisdictions of the federating units. For example, each of the federating units had its own constitution, one of the key properties of federalism. It should be noted that, before the attainment of independence by Nigeria in 1960, the federating units – Eastern Nigeria, Northern Nigeria and Western Nigeria – were, in all intents and purposes independent entities. That the three federating units attained their independent in 1957 (Eastern and Western Nigeria) and 1959 (Northern Nigeria) further buttressed their respective sovereignty. If they had wanted, there was nothing preventing any of them to go their separate ways as independent states in the international community in 1957 and 1959 respectively. Thus, when some contemporary analysts of Nigerian politics blame the British amalgamation of 1914 as the source of Nigeria problems, they should be reminded of the lost opportunity exhibited by Nigerian leaders especially Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe who saw himself as’’ Zik of Africa’’ as such needed to transform his pan Africanism into Pan Nigerianism in entirety as against Chief Obafemi Awolowo who urged him to go for independence since the North was not yet ready, to disengage from the forced amalgamation when they had the choice in 1957.
Like Nigeria, the federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was also a creation of British rule. It is significant to note that, unlike Nigeria, the constituent units of Rhodesia and Nyasaland elected to go their separate ways by becoming the independent state of Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi respectively.
Despite the introduction of federalism since the British left, Nigeria political system has been characterized by series of instability and backwardness. It is on this basis that we shall consider some of the problems that bedevil Nigeria federal system and find out if the president of the federal government of Nigeria Mohamadu Buhari was right when he said that the Niger Delta region has not right to claim the oil in their region because it belongs to the federation.
It is evident that the most comsumate student of federalism in Nigeria is Chief Obafemi Awolowo who wrote in his book thoughts on Nigerian constitution p.48 & 49:1. If a country is bilingual or multi-lingual like Nigeria, the constitution must be federal, and the constituent state must be organized on linguistic basis;
2. Any experiment with a unitary constitution in a bilingual or multi-lingual or multi-national country must fail, in the long run.
. Let us now place it to Nigeria situation and see whether Nigeria has been living up to the federal arrangement designed by K.C Wheare and Obafemi Awolowo. It is surprising that Nigeria only operates federal system on paper. The federal structures have never existed in Nigeria society. The reasons are not far fetch; First, the federal government, ever since the intervention of the military in government has always assumed superiority over the state government, Because military federalism had been more common than civilian federalism, this model made the federal government the ‘‘master in relation to the dependent’’ state governments. At independence largely autonomous regions possessed the residual powers in the federation and functioned almost independently. The regions had independent revenue bases; separate constitutions, foreign missions, and the primary and secondary education were under the residual list while the university education was under the concurrent list. All these changed under military rule. Attempts by the state governments to reassert their autonomy during the second republic were aborted by the return of military rule. Some state governments that were controlled by parties other than the NPN took the NPN-controlled federal government to court many occasions over matter of jurisdiction competence. This trend also reoccurs during the third republic when the Lagos state governor in person of Bola Ahmed Tinubu took the federal government to court over the issue of local government creation in Lagos state. This act, where the federal government sees itself as superior to the state governments dose not make federalism work perfectly. Federalism is therefore, an arrangement whereby powers within a multi-national country are shared between a central authority and a number of regionalized governments in such a way that each unit, including this central authority, exits as a government separately and independently from the others. As Wheare put it ‘‘the fundamental and distinguishes characteristics of a federal system is that neither the central nor the regional governments are subordinate to each other, but rather the two are coordinate and independent’’. Each government exist, not as an appendage of another government but as an autonomous entity in the sense of being able to exercise its own will on the conduct of its affairs free from direction by any government. Thus, the federal government on one hand and the state governments on the other hand are autonomous in their respective spheres. However, this autonomous entity has never being found in Nigeria federalism and this has continue to hamper the political stability in the country.
Secondly, is the issue of financial autonomy proposed by K.C Wheare. It should be noted here that this financial autonomy has never been achieved in Nigerian federalism. The high level of intervention of the federal government through national financial policies, grants- in-aids among others, increases the power of the federal government and makes the federating units subordinate to the federal government. The reason is not far fetch- the increased revenue from oil boom has made the federal government to be more financially powerful over the state governments than before. As a result of this financial power, the federal government now embarks on some projects which were meant to be in the state residual list. The universal basic education board project is an example of this. Similarly, this increased revenue from oil boom enables the federal government to give financial support to the state governments. In this sense, any state governments that proves ‘‘stubborn’’ or a state not control by the party at the centre is not likely to get financial support from the federal government. Vivid examples are Lagos and Yobe states among others.
. In practice, this act does not makes federalism work perfectly as proposed by K.C Wheare. In a federation, each government enjoys financial autonomy. This will afford each levels of government the opportunity of performing their functions without appealing or begging for financial survival as we have seen in Nigeria since the return to civil democratic rule.
Another issue to look at is the bolstering of local governments as a third tier of government. This process began with the 1976 local government reforms, which introduced a uniform local government system; Although these reforms were embodied in the 1979 constitution and also strengthened in the new 1999 constitution, State governments in the third and forth republic refused to allow local governments any measure of autonomy,
They (the state governments) want to claim their superiority over the local governments just as the federal government is claiming their superiority over them, these disputes have barred the masses at the third tier level from enjoying the dividend of democracy and further added to the unending problem of the nation ,they (the state governments) are still struggling to reclaim their autonomy from the federal government
When we therefore translate the above into the constitutional provisions on ‘fiscal federalism’ wherein the federating units own and manage their resources and revenues but make a contribution to the central government to fund federal responsibilities. Resource control is also defined in terms of the right to control or manage the revenue accruing from oil and other natural resources in line with the tenets of true federalism.
Therefore, it is the duty of our lawyers to come forward to use the constitutions operating in Nigeria to challenge the claim by the president that the people of Niger Delta and other federating units in Nigeria have no power to control their resources.
-M.M.Mbanaja.
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