“Every age has its own manners, and its politics dependent upon them”- Edmund Burke

Having laid the moral boundaries for the legislators, it becomes incumbent upon society that it devolves its problems on that body of eminent men and women, to be examined against the mood or temper of the times as Burke would advice, as well as in keeping with the laws of the country and the prevailing principles and practices of government in the land.

By this reasoning, it is the legislators who should be tasked with the duties and chores of “restructuring” the country by virtue of the mandates given to them and the special status conferred upon them by the society. It is they and no one else who should undertake the task of reviewing the constitution of the country for instance.

To the apostles of restructuring, that would seem like an anathema since they view the legislative body and all the institutions of the state as currently configured in Nigeria as unsatisfactory, lopsided, skewed, arbitrary, undemocratic and what have you. Instead, they indulge in what Burke described as “captious criticism and rash experiment”, by rushing to propose half-baked and ill-conceived notions about government that meets neither the requirements of Nigerians or the logic of organisation of human societies. Their solutions are always arbitrary and peremptory and devoid of accommodation of different viewpoints. Anything that goes against their ideas is lambasted as retrogressive, reactionary, feudal etc.

Take for instance the agitation for a new constitution for Nigeria. This has been pushed with such vehemence and uncompromising insistence that one will be made to believe that everything is completely wrong with that instrument. What the critics don’t say however, is that their entire premise about the constitution is wrong and misplaced both from the point of view of history and the logic of evolution of the state. For instance, after throwing away the 1999 constitution, on what form or theory of government are they predicating this change that they are clamouring for? What system of administration and organisation of the state will they bring as substitutes?

This false and dangerous sense of urgency that is being urged on the nation in the “restructuring” debate and the “national question” in Nigeria should be looked at from the rational perspectives of history and evolution of our governance systems since the colonial times. Indeed, if we are to be thorough in our response to the restructuring agitators, we should even try to go as far back as possible to examine the molecular aspects of our state formations and societal organisation before the British arrived with their system of government in Nigeria and its transplantation on existing structures already in formation.

We must divest ourselves of assumptions based on unsubstantiated premises while calling for the review of governance methods and strategies in this country. We must also do away with tendencies that are inimical to the progress of our country that are also detrimental to its unity. We must not allow ourselves to be seduced by false agendas but we should endeavour to restore balance to the debate on the “national question” including the agitation for restructuring, if this is indeed necessary.

In this state of affairs where “Anarchy predominates without freedom, and servitude without subordination or submission”, as Burke so astutely observed, we must be wary of advancing and entrenching pernicious tendencies that could easily dissolve our bonds of attachment to our country, without whose existence our identities would be severely diminished and our worth as a people will be rendered inconsequential.

Most importantly, we must recognise the fact that what has emerged in Nigeria since 2015 around the restructuring debate is that it has become a means by which every action of government is called into question, and the very existence of the state is challenged unlike probably at any other time in the country’s history.

All this is done nonchalantly, and with complete obliviousness to consequences and attendant results on the sanity and wellbeing of the society in which we all live. This state of affairs come about when vacuum is created in the vigorous exercise of power and determined demonstration of individual official capacity as well as responsibility.