On Friday, March 17, 2023, the then President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law 16 out of the 35 Constitution Alteration Bills passed by the national legislature and at least two-thirds of the state legislatures, in line with Section 9 (2) of the 1999 Constitution.
Section 9 (2) of the Nigerian Constitution provides that: “An Act of the National Assembly for the alteration of this Constitution, not being an Act to which section 8 of this Constitution applies, shall not be passed in either House of the National Assembly unless the proposal is supported by the votes of not less than two-thirds majority of all the members of that House and approved by resolution of the Houses of Assembly of not less than two-thirds of all the States.”
The most consequential among the Fifth Alteration Bills assented to by the ex-President include the provision for the financial independence of State Houses of Assembly and State Judiciary; removal of Railways from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent Legislative List; the power to allow States to generate, transmit and distribute electricity in areas covered by the national grid; requirement for the President and Governors to submit the names of persons nominated as Ministers or Commissioners within sixty days of taking the oath of office for confirmation by the Senate or State House of Assembly; and requirement for the Government to direct its policy towards ensuring the right to food and food security in Nigeria.
The signing into law of the revolutionary bills came at a momentous turning point in the history of Nigeria. The clamour for devolution of powers, nay true federalism had attained deafening decibels in recent years and difficult to ignore. That the presidential assent to the all-important bills almost went unnoticed by the generality of Nigerians could be interpreted as another case in the catalogue of unforced errors by the last administration. The timing coincided with the endless long queues at filling stations and Automatic Teller Machines of commercial banks, occasioned by fuel scarcity and acute shortage of Naira notes. Worse still, the presidential assent took place on the eve of Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections, when the nation was absorbed in another make-or-break exercise.
Just like other patriotic groups in Nigeria, this newspaper appears to have shouted itself hoarse on the need to devolve powers and return to full-fledged federalism of the First Republic. In our various editorials, we submitted in part:
“The British Government never lived under the illusion that a country having such a vast land mass and consisting of ethnic nationalities with disparate backgrounds, languages and cultures could live under a centralized government for long. It was thus that the then Governor of colonial Nigeria, Sir Arthur Richards, broached somewhat obliquely the issue of federalism before the proclamation of the Richards Constitution of 1946: ‘To create a political system … within which the diverse elements, may progress at varying speeds, amicably and smoothly, towards a more closely integrated economic, social and political unity, without sacrificing the principles and ideals in their divergent ways of life.’
“The federal arrangement bequeathed to Nigeria both by the Lyttleton Constitution of 1954 and Independence Constitution of 1960 was thus a compromise between the centrifugal and centripetal forces that inhabited the disparate regions of Nigeria. Our founding fathers like Nnamdi Azikwe, Obafemi Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello settled for a full-fledged federation as the basis of our existence as a nation in 1954.
“Indeed, it was the attempt to dump the legacy of federalism by the then Military Government of General Aguiyi Ironsi via Decree 34 of 1966, otherwise known as ‘The Unification Decree’, that led to the deadly riots in the North and a chain of events which culminated in a 30-month costly civil war.
“Subsequent military regimes progressively destroyed the federal principle. The present unitary structure disguised as federalism, where all roads lead to Abuja, is not sustainable. The present paradox, which ensures that the more the dollars we earn from the sale of crude oil, the poorer the masses become, is also the product of our jettisoning the federalism bequeathed to Nigeria by our founding fathers. That federalism was predicated on fiscal federalism which ensured that each region or state ‘ate what it killed’. Indeed, the regions witnessed tremendous development while proper federalism lasted.”
