3.2 Political Root Causes of the Niger Delta Conflict
3.2.3 Nigeria‘s Federalism: A Brief Explorative Study
In a recent article The Nigerian Federal System: Performance, Prospect, Challenges, Suberu (2010: 460) underscores six key phases in the development of Nigerian federalism:
[t]he late British colonial period (1954-1960); the First Republic (1960-1966); the first phase of military rule, including the civil war (1966-1979); the Second Republic (1979-1983); the second phase of military rule, including the abortion of an elaborate transition to the Third Republic (1984-1999); and the Fourth Republic (1999 to date).
In a combined work, Suberu and Osaghae (2005: 16) argue that the 1954 colonial institution of a tripodal federal system ―reflected the historic patterns by which the British
64 acquired and administered Nigeria as well as the country‘s tripartite major ethnic configuration, the three-region federal structure was inherently divisive, disintegrative and unstable.‖ In particular, the tripartite federal structure (emplaced by the British) created a dominant Hausa-Fulani northern region, which officially comprised of ―over half of the country‘s population and two-third of its territory; fostered ethnic majority chauvinism and secessionism by erecting the boundaries of the northern, western and eastern region around the identities of the major ethnic formations of Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and non-Igbo and Igbo, respectively‖ (Suberu and Osaghae, 2005: 16). Beyond this, the tripodal federalist set-up fuelled ethnic minority agitations due to the fact that
it denied the country‘s non-Hausa-Fulani, non-Yoruba and non-Igbo groups the security of their regions; and encouraged an enormous degree of ethno-regional polarization as the imbalanced tripartite ethno-region structure (which became even more structurally lopsided with the creation of the Mid-west region in the south in 1963) inexorably collapsed into a bi-polar north-south confrontation (Suberu and Osaghae, 2005: 16).
Further, Uzodike et al. (2010: 163) argues that ―Nigeria‘s federalism basically sought to regulate the coexistence of the majority groups with little or no reference or concern for the minority groupings, which were subsumed variously under the not-so-protective umbrellas of the majority entities.‖ Crucially, Nigeria‘s vast heterogeneity (especially its ethnic, linguistic, religious, and regional diversity) has been an abiding source of her societal tensions and conflicts. The mixture serves not only as a source of national strength and potential but also as a seam interminably threatening to tear at the core of national unity and prosperity. This has led to various conceptualizations of the Nigerian state as: the ―conglomerate society‖; a mere ―geographic expression‖; a ―multi-national state‖; a ―vertical-horizontal mosaic; and ―unity in diversity‖ (Graf, 1988: 29-30). More than anything else, Nigeria‘s diversity serves not only as the decisive factor that has shaped the high instability that characterises its political economy but also as the key factor that has rendered fruitless all efforts at institutionalizing democratic values within the country.
Since independence, Nigeria has also been plagued by primordial sentiments that, for a long time, were suppressed under colonial rule. The late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (1961:
249), Nigeria‘s first president, was once quoted as extolling the virtues of his ethnic tribe by saying that ―it would seem that the God of Africa has specially created the Igbo nation to lead the children of Africa from the bondage of ages. The Igbo nation cannot shrink from this responsibility.‖ The incidence of primordial sentiments in Nigeria once led Justice Chukwudi Oputa, the Chairman of the Human Rights Violation Investigation Commission (HRVIC), to bemoan: ―Where is Nigeria going? Indigenization politics didn‘t solve problems. State-creation did not solve anything. Everybody still clings to
65 his ethnic group. It is either you are Hausa or Kataf or Yoruba or Igbo. What will become of Nigeria?‖ (Akaruese, 2003: 217).
Arguably, the history of Nigeria‘s primordial sentiments, as well as its embedded structural inequalities, can be traced back to its federalist origins which are steeped in the colonial times. Nigeria‘s first post-colonial rulers inherited a state made up of three regional structures, which were configured by the British to use the majority ethnic groups as anchors for the regional governments: Hausa-Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the southwest and Igbo in the southeast. The vast territorial, population, and economic power disparities between these regions quickly proved politically damaging. Quite aside from the differences in the level of social and economic development of the ethnically based regions, there was an explosive contradiction between the political power of the Muslim Hausa-Fulani of the north and the socio-economic power of the Yoruba in the industrial southwest and the Igbo of the oil-rich southeast. Although this arrangement has turned out to be inherently problematic, it reflected British thinking that given Nigeria‘s ethnic makeup that regionalism should be emplaced as the organizing principle for the post-colonial state. The assumptions were simple and, as it turned out, inherently specious.
The first was the assumption that although the dominant ethnic groups in each region would dominate their respective regional governments; no ethnic group would be sufficiently powerful to dominate at the center. With about two-thirds of the land mass and over half of the population, the Northern Region dominated the center (Graf 1988:
29). The second was the belief that each region would develop a multi-party system, which would help to temper or prevent the possibility of parochial dominance at the center by any ethnic group. The actual reality was that the regions became one-party monoliths. The Nigerian People‘s Congress used its narrow ethnic majority in the north (16 million out of 31 million northerners were Hausa-Fulani) to control and dominate the entire country.
The third was that the constitutional machinery at the center would ensure the emergence of effective national governing institutions. The problem here was that the regional governments had advantages over the center due to established jurisdictional legacy. They not only preceded the federal government by more than a decade but also had established ―Nigerianized‖ bureaucracies, self-contained economic systems with their control of the marketing boards, direct access to the international economic system, and residual powers through the Independence Constitution (Graf, 1988: 29- 30). Finally, that there would be no discrepancy between political and economic powers that could not be easily tackled by the new federalism. A cursory examination of 1961 statistical figures on regional revenue and personal taxes demonstrate built-in problems.
66 For that year, the total regional revenues (exclusive of federal allocations) were accounted for by: the West – 58.5 percent; the East – 25.7 percent; and the North – 15.7 percent. In regard to national aggregate of collected taxes, the percentages were as follows: West – 67.7 percent; East – 27.2 percent; and North – 9 percent. These figures were supported by educational enrolment figures. In 1965, the North with more than half of the national population had 10 percent of the national total of all primary school population. For higher education in 1965, Northerners made up 8 percent of total student population compared 48 percent for the East, 5 percent for Lagos, and 39 percent for the West (Graf, 1988: 29-30; Mustapha, 2004).
Thus, the skewed federal structure in Nigeria combined with the equally problematic Westminster majoritarian model bequeathed by the British (complete with its winner- takes-all and dual executive arrangements), nurtured deep social and political tensions and grievances among all the ethnic groups in Nigeria. As Momoh (2002: 24) argues,
for the Niger Delta and oil producing minority, it is oil exploitation and environmental degradation; for the Igbo it is political marginalization; for the Hausa-Fulani it is uneven development (and the failure to have a perpetual and uninterrupted right and monopoly control of the federation); for the minorities of the north, particularly the Middle Belt it is one of internal colonialism (by the majority Hausa-Fulani); for the Yoruba it is power exclusion. Hence, everybody is demanding empowerment on the basis of one assumption-xenophobia.
In the absence of mediating influences (which the British provided as colonial overlord) and an enabling appropriate history and political culture, Nigeria gravitated rapidly towards political bedlam (1961-1966), coup (1966), counter-coup (1966), and civil war (1967-1970)—all these within ten years of independence. This is despite the efforts of several governments to address serious structural problems inherited from the British colonial government. Indeed, the defective structure of the immediate post-colonial state was a key factor in the prolonged political crisis and civil war between 1967-1970.