How Egocentrism of the Elite Few is Corroding the Foundation of the Oduduwa Renaissance

“Building stronger states means ensuring the devolution of more power to the states, enabling them to control more of their resources and make more of their own administrative decisions such as the creation of Local Governments, the establishment of state and community police forces as well as state correctional facilities; creation of special courts and tribunals of equivalent jurisdiction to high courts. The point I am making is that states must have more powers and more rights."

"The nation cannot be wealthy when it's component parts – the states – are poor. The standard of living of the federation depends on the standard of living of people who live in the states. In other words, the federation can only be as rich as its richest state and as strong as its strongest state. Our national indices merely aggregate the realities of our weaknesses and strengths as present in all our constituent units. Consequently, we can only build a stronger and more prosperous nation by building stronger and more prosperous states.” - Vice President Osinbajo on Devolution of Power. 

The last time the people of Nigeria came together and deliberated on the creation of a new state or region was in 1963, which culminated in the creation of the Mid West region out of the Western region. The last three or four exercises took place under Military Governments headed by Northern Military Head of State and Governments. And General Sani Abacha was the last of a succession of Northern Military leaders to do so. 

General Sani Abacha, a Kano State native, allocated 44 local government councils to Kano State. On the other hand, Lagos State, with a little larger population counts than Kano State, got 20 local government councils in the same exercise. Seemingly resentful of the lopsided calibration of Abacha, Asiwaju Tinubu, on emerging the first civilian Governor of Lagos State after many years of military dictatorship, embarked on a constitutional anomaly. He created additional local government councils in Lagos State, commensurate with its population strength in relation to the number of local government councils existing in similar states within the union. But President Obasanjo, a fellow Yoruba native, (also, the first democratically elected President after many years of Military leaders of Northern extraction), wouldn't take any of Asiwaju's constitutional violation. As a  punitive measure against Asiwaju, Obasanjo placed an indefinite hold on Lagos's statutory allocations from the Federation Accounts. 

Surprisingly, when Chief Asiwaju's political party, APC, won the Presidential election and became the ruling party in 2015 and until now, Asiwaju has not considered it germane to make any pronouncement on that lopsided contraption of Abacha and Professor Yadudu, which, in the first instance,  compelled him to create additional local government councils in his Lagos State. However, to the chagrin of most informed Nigerians, when a few years earlier, President Jonathan, a Niger Delta native became the President and convened a National Conference, Chief Asiwaju turned out to be President Jonathan's major nemesis. He was the lead actor of the adversarial forces organized to truncate the fulfillment and the ideas of the National Conference. He mobilized all the Governors under his political party to undermine the essence of the conference, even though his tribal or regional folks are the major advocates of True Federalism and Decentralization of Power. Chief Asiwaju and his serving Governors in the old Western region turned the exercise into a partisan show.  

It is worth knowing or remembering that the late Chief Olu Aboderin, the Publisher of the Punch Newspaper, blazed the trail for the demand of a Confederal System of Government in Nigeria,  which was later supported by the late Chief Bisi Onabanjo of Ogun State. Both of them were prominent Yoruba leaders, who knew where the Yoruba race and their institutions were prior to October 01, 1960, and refused to play political correctness, allocating blames for their setbacks many years after independence. Where are we today? And what has Asiwaju made of his numero uno status within the Ogbe Omo Oduduwa lineage in the last twenty-one years? 

The major issues of the conference were resource control and decentralization of power, among other national ills pleading for a concerted review and reform. The disparity and the lopsided nature of the new states and new local government councils created by the Abacha Military Government were also on the table. Chief Asiwaju as the leader of his party in the West, saw it as a show of strength and of relevance between himself and President Jonathan. It was simply personal and not for any significant or strategic regional interests. His mission was to curry favors within the rank and file of the Northern political leaders whose disdain for the idea of a National Conference and the True Federalism is legendry. 

President Obasanjo, like Chief Asiwaju Tinubu a Yoruba man, in pursuit of his political ambition, sabotaged the interests of Lagos State by starving it of the needed funds for daring to create additional local government councils. President Obasanjo had his mindset on a third term and he was willing to be willfully blind to the reality that informs the creation of more local government by the Governor of Lagos State, Chief Asiwaju Tinubu. That was an opportunity for President Obasanjo to convene a national conference to address the grievances that erupted within certain quarters over the shoddy, but deliberate jobs done by General Sani Abacha. He didn't. And out of gross ignorance and strict adherence to partisan bent he failed to do what a Northern President would have done, faced with similar surcharge.  

Twice, Chief Asiwaju failed his people in the national question. One, he did not support the vision of the National Conference put together by President Jonathan. He couldn't see beyond escalating his personal political ambition at the national stage. And when his party came into power, he was pushed under the bus, sidelined. Asiwaju and APC campaigned on True Federalism and five years as the party in power, Asiwaju is yet to make a statement on the wisdom of the True Federalism. He frustrated President Jonathan who convened a national conference even though Jonathan's PDP didn't campaign on convening one. And five years in the count, he has slept on his rights and forgotten his campaign promise to adopt True Federalism. 

In late 2017, the Northern Traditional Rulers and some power brokers in and out of the government at state and national levels, met, deliberated, and resolved that the demand for National Conference, True Federalism or Restructuring is analogous to an invitation to disintegrate. Even though they told the agitators to bring it on, adding that they are ready, their communique was a tacit rejection of the call for True Federalism and Sovereign National Conference. Not so unexpected, on his 2018 New Year Day Address to the nation, President Buhari, in few lines, rejected the calls for True Federalism, insisting that the problem we face as a nation is process-related and not structural. Whatever that means; it remains the last pronouncement and likely the final we've heard of the APC promise of Decentralization of power. 

As for Asiwaju, the incubator of APC, he has not spoken on the record. It is very likely that he was not aware of that paragraph in President Buhari's 2018 New Year Address. Maybe, he will start speaking, when the Buhari is gone, and Abba Kyari and the Cabal eloped with the key to Aso Villa. Just as President Obasanjo couldn't fathom any trace of wisdom in assisting Chief Asiwaju to create more local government councils in Lagos State, Asiwaju did not see any wisdom in lending his humongous weight behind the Jonathan's National Conference, with a view to addressing the electoral machinations of Abacha and give Lagos State what it deserves. And that is the end of the story of two sophisticated powerful from the Wilde Wilde West.