Still on Constitutional and Administrative Reform

Do you remember this post I made almost six weeks ago on the constitutional review process?

Well, the Joint Constitutional Review Committee is still bogged down on the question of which Big Man is the Bigger Man. The Senate Deputy President still insists that he alone be the chairman of the committee, and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives still insists that he be co-chair of the committee.

This is Issue Number One for the committee. Six weeks later, no one has conceded ground, so no work has been done on anything else.

There has been some movement on electoral reform -- if you want to call it movement. Three weeks ago, the Federal Executive Council (a.k.a. the federal cabinet) announced a series of weak, underwhelming "reforms" to the electoral system.

I did not bother to blog on it, because it amounted to no more than appointing new people to the Independent National Electoral Commission, which is a bit like saying the Nigerian Football Federation will be efficient if you appoint a new board.

We have a systemic, institutionalized, social and societal problem with democracy and electoral commissions in Nigeria. Elections were rigged in the First Republic, rigged in the Second Republic, rigged in the Babangida-Abacha pseudo-Third Republic, and have been rigged in the Fourth Republic. These were all different commissions, with different names (FEDECO, NEC, NECON, INEC), and different memberships.

The only decent element to the so-called "reform" of the electoral system was the decision to abolish the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs). The SIECs exist only to serve as tools for godfathers and state governors to manipulate, rig and control elections in the respective states. As bad as INEC is, the SIECs are worse.

Not surprisingly, the state governors immediately moved to oppose any abolishment of the SIECs.

This is important. In Nigeria we like to believe that our Presidents, Heads of State, and (in the past) Prime Ministers are these all-powerful individuals, when in reality most of them were figureheads appointed to be the face of the political class. We have had political instability, coups and counter-coups in large part because the political class disagree on who this figurehead should be, and not because there is any ideological difference between them or any disagreement in their ranks on what the Nigerian Federal Republic should be. I would go so far as saying that the principal goal of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is to bring together all of the Big Men under a single umbrella to decide this issue "by consensus", thus making long-term stability (albeit corrupt stability) in governance possible.

The point is, when a President or Head of State loses the confidence of the political class (plutocrats inclusive), he loses power, one way or another. For all the gra-gra of Olusegun Obasanjo's final two years in office, they denied him his Third Term agenda, and once he was out of office they were quick to lean on Umaru Yar'Adua to "punish" Obasanjo's senior lieutenants like Nuhu Ribadu. Yet, for "consensus" purposes, they have protected Obasanjo from revenge, much as they protect Ibrahim Babangida, Chris and Andy Uba, and the list goes on.

Umaru Yar'Adua will not scrap the SIECs if the governors unanimously oppose him doing so. Indeed, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is maneuvering to replace him as PDP presidential candidate for 2011. President Yar'Adua will have to tread a fine line if he wants two terms in office; even the abrasive Obasanjo kissed up to Atiku's political machine to get his second term.

Nigeria is unlikely to see any substantial constitutional reform. Remember what I said six weeks ago? Let me remind you:

Nigeria should have 7 states and 84 local administrative districts, instead of 36 states and 774-and-rising local government areas.

The combined total of state assemblymen and local councillors in the new setup should be at least 66% lower that the comparable figure for today.

There should be 25% fewer total federal legislators in a single parliamentary chamber, rather than two.

The “Federal Capital Territory” should extend no further than the limits of the current Abuja Municipal Area Council; the rest of the current FCT should be transferred to the most appropriate of the 7 proposed states.

The new, reduced, FCT would be one of four geographically dispersed cities we should designate ‘federal territories’ and kept unaffiliated to any of the 7 states.

The above quote is, in my view, only the starting point of a real process of pan-Nigerian discourse on constitutional and administrative reform. There is so much more we need to talk about, so much more we need to do. And the thing is, with the political system we have, NONE OF THE ABOVE is likely to occur.

You know what we will get? More inefficiency and waste. The Federal Electoral Commission's proposals include the creation of several new bureaucracies. The State Governors' counter-proposal also includes the creation of several new bureaucracies. That is what we do. We avoid the problem, and just create a new bureacracy. If the NPF does not work, create ICPC. If ICPC doesn't work, create EFCC. If EFCC doesn't work, create ......