By Lucky Okoedion
A major feature of a healthy system is the ability to adapt in order to survive. This is not supposed to be any form of sophistication or add-on, it ought to be built-in. When you build a system – hardware or software, it should have a failsafe by which it can save its core, restart or be at least intact enough to be able to get recycled into a different form of use. It is like the factory reset option in a phone, by which you can flash it back to factory state in which you can rescue it from complete failure.
Democracies in Africa should in the same vein have a failsafe whenever they get to the brink like Nigeria is today with rampant ethnic suspicion, secessionist agitation, mass hysteria, failing system of government, increasingly perceived injustice and marginalization, growing poverty levels, weakening social contract, citizens at war with the state, endless war against Boko Haram made of its citizens who connive with foreigners of the same tribe to wage war against the state for the establishment of an Islamic state, etc. War or military coups should not be the only destiny for nations with a faulty foundation. There ought to be democratic means for nations to reinvent themselves. And yes, there are such means. But…
The political leadership of a typical country like Nigeria has as its focus the preservation of the incumbent order of things – all statecraft; how to not change anything that could bruise the Interest of the political elite. Instead of focusing on how to satisfy the collective interest of the country. The proclivity of government is to take care of the interest of the political elite and to preserve the status quo. Expecting otherwise is like expecting a right-handed person to write well with his left hand for the first time. That is why it is easier for nations to fail and collapse instead of embarking on drastic structural and systemic changes.
It seems as though nations are like cement, sand and water. You can only mould them when they are still fresh. Once they cake, it is over. Or so it seems.
…yet there is a better way. We should be able to reinvent our nation. We should be able to look at the looming existential disaster and choose to discard the interest of political elites for once and awaken our survival instincts to put our collective interest first. We must be willing to make sacrifices to allow regions to have autonomy by creating a new constitution for Nigeria, using the 1963 constitution as a template. This is important because as it stands, we can only achieve unity by appreciating and institutionalizing our differences.
We need fully autonomous regions that only pay taxes to the federal government so that we can make good use of our differences to compete in innovation and development, and grow at our own pace respectively.
Click here to read previous publication on how constitutional amendment can help achieve this.
Lucky Okoedion is a believer of a new Nigeria where true democracy is practiced. He writes from Benin City, Nigeria.
