THERE is a curious assertion of statehood, the rights and powers of states against the extent and limit of federal control in our so-called federation that has emerged in the last couple of months. Suddenly, some individuals and groups are waking up to the realisation that Nigeria is not all about the Federal Government, that the states are important constituents of the Nigerian state whose status is enshrined in the Constitution. They are not willing to make similar argument for the local government areas. This move, totally self-serving and perverse in intention, is mostly being championed and promoted by state governors and some federal legislators, among other state and non-state actors. 

It may on the surface appear progressive but closely viewed and scrutinised, it is one of the most retrogressive, anti-people efforts that is bound to enfeeble attempts towards making ours a truly federal republic in practice and not by mere nomenclature. It should not be allowed to succeed and the way we respond to the decision of the Supreme Court in the suit brought before it by the 19 state governments led by their attorneys-general will go a long in showing how serious we are about getting out of the economic and political quicksand we have driven ourselves into in nearly six and a half decades of independence. 

It is becoming clearer that Nigerian politicians will always try to find a way around any attempts to make them behave in accordance with the law. It is not even enough these days for the Supreme Court to have ruled over an issue. Our politicians are prepared to further litigate, even if they have to return to the Supreme Court in feigned ignorance of the intendment of its rulings, what is already a settled position of law. Otherwise, they go ahead and enact local laws that are customised to undermine and short-circuit even Supreme Court decisions they are unhappy with. We recently saw this with the Anambra Local Government Adminsitration Law. 

We have all been blindsided and led to accept without question the partisan claims of politicians and their followers that the parlous state of the economy, for eaxmple; the failure of the various reform policies of the last 18 months, not to mention decades of populist legislation, to tick the appropriate boxes of progress in the lived experiences of Nigerians- many of us have fallen for the easy argument that Nigeria is where it is today all because of the incompetence of President Bola Tinubu, the obvious ostentation of his adminstration, without any regard to the fundamental structural problem that will perpetually keep in abeyance what should be the gains of a truly federal arrangment that should accrue to a polity as economically, ethnically, culturally, religiously and politically diverse as Nigeria. We are addressing our problems typically from the top where what we need to do is to go down to the bottom and work our way up. 

For the eight years he was governor before his hand-picked successor chose to challenge the constitutionality of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Yahaya Bello lived and enjoyed himself as the White Lion of Lokoja. But the moment the EFCC slammed him with a corruption charge that amounted to N80 billion, then did he and Usman Ododo, the present governor, remember that they have an anti-corruption agency, a replica of the EFCC, in Kogi State. The EFCC, as a federal agency, they concluded, has no jurisdiction over state matters. As if on cue, 18 other state governments chose to join Kogi State in its shameless challenge of the EFCC in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. 

There are far more important constitutional issues that should concern these state governors but those can’t be of any moment now. The governors are obviously afraid and are seeking protection from the new legislations that are making them more politically and financially accountable, especially in their handling of local government funds. These latter-day defenders of state powers, while questioning the rights of local governments to be free from the apron strings of governors, are demanding freedom from federal interference. Does the 1999 Constitution not recognise the existence of local governments? What should be the extent and limit of the powers of the governors in local government affairs? Should local government chair persons be randomly selected and removed from office by governors who exercise total control over the State Independent Electoral Commission? 

Why is it now that local governments are to be directly credited, from November 2024, with their own 20.60 per cent of the revenue allocation- why is it now that state governors, already enjoying their own 26.72 per cent, in addition to the local governments’ funds, are realising that federal anti-corruption agencies need to be scrapped for Nigeria to be truly federal? We know both the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission  are not doing enough but, perhaps, their job is now more clearly cut out for them with the new revenue payment plan that is coming into effect. Why are the governors unhappy about this? 

Why should a senator whose surrogates have been arrested and jailed for drug trafficking and whose home has twice been raided for harbouring drugs users and traffickers, as Brig. General Buba Marwa of the NDLEA has alleged, be the one demanding the scrapping of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency or the creation of another body to rival the anti-narcotic drug agency?  The states are not demanding fiscal federalism or the devolution of power to all constituents of the federation. They are not demanding that local governments take charge of their own election. They are only demanding indemnity from prosecution for corruption. The argument that the states did not give their consent to the establishent of the EFCC is simply specious. How many of these states gave their assent to the establishment of the Nigerian federation as did the 50 states in America, beginning with Delaware in 1787 and Alaska, the last to join in 1959? 

The Nigerian federation, except for the brief period of regionalism, is entirely a product of enforcement. It has suffered structural violence from the 1914 amalgamation  by Lord Lugard throughout its entire history of states creation that the military midwived between 1967 (Yakubu Gowon, 12 states), through 1976 (Murtala Muhammed, 19 states), 1987 (Ibrahim Babangida, 21 states), 1991 (Ibrahim Babangida, 30 states) and finally 1996 (Sani Abacha, 36 states). How many of these military rulers sought the consent of these governors’ predecessors and forebears before carving out the land space they manage today as governors? Of all things, why should the governors’ demand for federalism begin with the scrapping of the EFCC? Are they for real? Fake, fake, fake in Nyesom Wike’s voice!