Nigeria’s restructuring debate carries a similar risk as Brexit, contends K BOLANLE ATI-JOHN
Almost everyone in Nigeria now agrees on one thing: the present constitutional arrangement is failing. Almost no one agrees on what should replace it.
The word “restructuring” has become broad enough to accommodate state police advocates, resource control campaigners, regionalists, fiscal federalists, local government reformers, constitutional gradualists and those who simply want Abuja’s power reduced. That breadth is not proof of consensus. It is proof that the country has not yet done the hard work of turning grievance into design.
The grievances are real. The centre carries too many responsibilities and discharges too many of them badly. Many states are fiscally weak, institutionally uneven and politically dependent. Communities face insecurity while waiting for distant authority to act. Citizens feel alienated from power. Productive regions resent a system that rewards allocation more than enterprise. Nigeria cannot pretend the present arrangement is working.
But the fact that a system is failing does not mean that any replacement will succeed. A country can escape one disorder only to enter another if it confuses a slogan with a governing plan.
