OF CIVIL SOCIETIES’ DEMANDS AND LAWMAKERS’ STRIDES

Everyone is talking. Government officials do. So does Labour. Civil societies are not left out. The cacophony of voices is over the removal of fuel subsidy. In the event, no one pays attention to the occupants of the dome in Abuja. They have been talking too; but they say something outside the subsidy brouhaha lately. It is part of a bill under consideration. Federal government has proved itself unworthy to provide Nigerians with electricity, lawmakers say; that arm of government has nothing to show for all the years it yoked itself with the responsibility, and now they want to give state government as well as the private sector the opportunity to come in and help.
 
What the lawmakers are doing is simple: they take from the federal government’s Exclusive List of Things-To-Do, and pass it to the Concurrent list of Things-To-Do for both the Federal and State government. This is significant; one, it is the first time anyone dares to take from the federal government and give to the states. Two, in the face of the problem at hand, lawmakers have touched an issue that is at the root of most of the nation’s problems. In that case, what they are doing ought to have more prominence in the public space and generate more discussions; it should excite Nigerians, make them ready to offer lawmakers sundry ideas on how to go about it. Instead, the debate, the bill under which it is considered, is flying by as if it is a  motion on how to increase the cassava content of bread. And to think other noise makers in the public space at the moment, when they are done, would yet report at the dome, cap in hand. That is because what the lawmakers say, even over the deregulation issue in the oil industry that takes so much attention,  is law. In any case, the deregulation issue itself, with its attendant problems,  cannot be separated from the skewed federal arrangement that all agree is a source of many of  the nation’s problems. Civil societies have been at the forefront of the call for changes in that direction. Yet the civil societies appear more willing, at the moment, to confront the symptoms rather that the source of the nation’s illness.

Why is the current move to rearrange items on the three lists of Exclusive, Concurrent and Residual relevant to the current national headache? To effectively answer the question, reasons for adopting a federal structure needs to be noted.  A federal arrangement essentially reflects outcome of the compromises that people  reach in their desire to be in a union, which also indicates their unwillingness to do away with their identities at sub-national levels. This form of governance appeals to societies with intra societal ethic and cultural pluralism as it also gives room for  mediation of potential conflicts that may be thrown up from time to time. This way, and by the  structural arrangement, component units have some level of independence in matters over which they exercise authority. However, the level of such independent exercise of power largely depends on the mode of federating. In simpler term, areas of power tend to be stated, itemized on a list that is popularly termed exclusive, concurrent and residual.

There is no doubt that much of the independence for the Nigerian federating units has been whittled by the military which is essentially Unitary in its organizational set up. From 1966 when the military first arrived power, till the time it finally left in 1999, there was a progressive reduction in the powers of the units. Creation of additional states was one way by which this was achieved. And there was the deliberate transfer of powers from the state to the central government through the constitutions conceived and delivered under the hands of the military midwife.  For instance, the 1959 Concurrent List had twenty-eight items, but sixteen of them had been moved to the Exclusive list by 1999. No item left the Concurrent List of 1959 made it to the Residual List in the 1999 Constitution. Just one item made it from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent List in the years between 1959 and 1999 though. And from the Residual List of 1959, component units lost seven items to the 1999 Exclusive List. It is that same 1999 Constitution that lawmakers now work on, the one in which they want to get both states and the private sector involved in the provision of electricity for Nigerians.

The view has been expressed over the years that the weight of the items the federal government has power over is the root of many of the problems in the nation. It is one reason people in state where a form of law is desired cannot have it within the ambit of the nation’s constitution; why some people cannot have control over their resources, instead they report to Abuja to collect revenue they should collect and send the federal government its share; it is the reason Governors are Chief Security Officers in their states but they do not have a police force to order around, and a reason Lagos State,  that has had governors who know their left from their right and are bold in asserting their rights as any state should in a federal arrangement, has been harassed by the federal government since the current democratic dispensation began in 1999. This need for a re-arrangement has been a part of the struggle of the civil societies over the years.

For the simple reason that the Sovereign National Conference,  National Conference that these non-government actors call for over the years has not met with the pleasure of the federal government, lawmakers in Abuja remain the only representatives of the people that can juggle powers and thus rearrange the federal structure of the country. Asked recently what these non-government actors would use in implementing their agenda for restructuring the basis of  being together as Nigerians, a sufficient mouth-piece for the civil societies, Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, stated that he and his constituency  would engage, and get lawmakers to implement their agenda, issue by issue, bill by bill, one step at time. It is a recognition of the pace at which those men and women in the dome can move, without toppling the cart.

The erudite lawyer and human rights activist was part of a Town Hall meeting held on the debate  over the removal of fuel subsidy. He had assumed the government would pay attention to suggestions about a systematic, phased approach to the issue of removal of subsidy, so he gave it to the government the only way he and his constituency knew. Barely days after, fuel subsidy was removed. Some arms of the civil societies have been saying they would sustain the protest against subsidy removal even if Labour negotiated with the government and withdrew from the streets. No one can quarrel with how civil societies wish to go about this war of resistance. But subsidy removal is one out of the many problems, out of many anomalies that plague the system. As things stand, lawmakers are on the side of Labour and the civil societies. Any executive would overlook this at its own risk. What if the civil societies concentrate their attention,  and make the most of this current goodwill to push through many of the bills that can kick the government out of the oil business, including the Petroleum Industry Bill?

There is no doubt that if any set of lawmakers in the nation’s history has seen red enough, has seen the negative effects on their constituents of the power concentrated at the centre, and has decided to do all it can to help improve the well-being of the citizens and grow its democracy, it is the lawmakers of the last two years, many of whom made it back after the 2011 election. If the kind of frank debate that is going in both the Senate and the House of Representatives is anything to reckon with,  the civil societies would do well in fully engaging these lawmakers. It may be a more lasting way of  dealing  with national problems that have their roots in the constitution, and which  some politicians are willing to cut from the branches rather than the roots.  
 
Tunji Ajibade is a Communications Consultant. tunjioa@yahoo.com.