By LEROY EDOZIEN
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to have a one-to-one chat with an iconic personality, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, GCON. He is a former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth. He was, briefly, Nigeria’s Foreign Minister during the Shehu Shagari presidency.
Chief Anyaoku is quintessentially polished and patriotic. He is Chairman of a body of senior, eminent Nigerians known as ‘The Patriots’ and our conversation was about the recent visit of The Patriots to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during which they pressed for the restoration of what has come to be known in Naija lingo as ‘true federalism’.
Chief Anyaoku explained that Nigeria cannot move forward with great strides without addressing its intrinsic pluralism, and the structure for achieving that is none other than federalism. He asserted that no country with a plural composition can survive without (true) federalism. Even if it takes 100 years, the country will ultimately collapse. To back this assertion, he gave the examples of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia which collapsed after many years of patchwork unity (pseudopluralist federalism), and contrasted these with Switzerland (federal since 1848), and Canada (federal since 1867) that have achieved enduring stability through authentic federalism. India too.
I wondered that it might not be as simple as a dichotomy: unitary or federal system. How about confederation? In theory, he accepts, this is an option but in practical terms the relationship between centre and regions is so loose that the centre has little impact on the day-to-day lives of the citizens and the citizens do not identify with the centre, with consequences for social cohesion.
I suggested to Chief Anyaoku that our number one problem is not our geopolitical structure but the type of leadership we have had in six decades. His response was that if you brought the most saintly figures from any religion and put them in charge of Nigeria, they would not go far with our current structure. The structure has to be an enabling one for quality leadership to fluorish.
Mr President agreed to consider the recommendation of The Patriots but said his immediate focus was on restoration of the national economy. I asked Chief Anyaoku what he thought of this. He said the two – economic revival and geopolitical restructuring – should go hand-in-hand; they are synergistic. Economic recovery would be more challenging with the current structure; on the other hand, restructuring would itself boost economic recovery.
Words of wisdom from an elder statesman. I learned a lot from our chat and thought I should share this with my social media friends and followers. If only public intellectualism were allowed a higher pedestal in our national affairs.
Prof EDOZIEN, Ubili Ka Nkwu Ahaba, a renowned gynaecologist, PhD (Law), who earned his degrees in Medicine and Law from universities of Ibadan, London, Glasgow, first published this piece on his Facebook page
