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<\/a><\/p>\nBy Fidelis Uchechukwu Abara(USA)<\/p>\n
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There is nothing wrong with talking about reforming Nigeria. In fact, there is probably nothing more urgent at this point than finding a better political arrangement for a country that has spent decades struggling with the same problems.<\/p>\n
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But I have listened to some of the arguments being put forward in the latest reform conversation, and my feeling is that we should be careful before celebrating them as the answer to Nigeria\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n
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They sound good. Some of them are very attractive. But they are also incomplete.<\/p>\n
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The question we should be asking is simple: How permanent are these reforms?<\/p>\n
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Nigeria has seen this movie before. Governments have introduced reforms, committees have written reports, conferences have produced recommendations, and in some cases changes have even found their way into the Constitution. Then another government comes along and changes the rules.<\/p>\n
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That is why I am not convinced that another package of reforms, by itself, will solve Nigeria\u2019s problem.<\/p>\n
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Unless we build a system in which fundamental political agreements cannot easily be overturned by whoever happens to occupy Aso Rock, we may simply be postponing the same crisis.<\/p>\n
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But there is another question that deserves even greater attention: what is the sincerity of purpose behind the reforms?<\/p>\n
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Why are these reforms arriving at the eve of another general election?<\/p>\n
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Why the apparent urgency to push them through the Senate and the wider legislative process?<\/p>\n
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Why now?<\/p>\n
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These are not unreasonable questions. They do not mean that the reforms are necessarily bad. They simply demand that Nigerians examine the motives, timing and process surrounding them.<\/p>\n
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If these reforms are genuinely intended to address problems that have existed for decades, why were they not made a central part of the political agenda before now? Why were they not prominent in the APC\u2019s manifesto and campaign commitments during the 2023 presidential election?<\/p>\n
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If restructuring and constitutional reform were considered essential to solving Nigeria\u2019s problems, Nigerians deserved to hear a clear commitment to them when they were being asked to vote.<\/p>\n
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Instead, the reforms are now being accelerated at a time when the country is once again moving toward another election.<\/p>\n
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That naturally raises the suspicion that the exercise may also have an electoral calculation behind it.<\/p>\n
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Is the government trying to score a political point? Is it an attempt to create goodwill in parts of the country where the administration needs stronger support? Is the urgency about solving a national problem, or is it partly about winning the next election?<\/p>\n
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These questions should not be dismissed as opposition politics. In a democracy, the people have every right to ask them.<\/p>\n
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And if the government is sincere, there should be no reason to fear the questions. The best response would be transparency: explain why these reforms are necessary, explain why they are being introduced now, explain why the process has suddenly become urgent, and explain why they were not part of the governing party\u2019s principal electoral commitments in 2023.<\/p>\n
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Nigeria has paid a heavy price for reforms that were introduced without sufficient national consensus.<\/p>\n
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This is particularly important when we talk about the presidency.<\/p>\n
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Whatever anyone may think about zoning or rotation, it has served a practical purpose in a country as divided and suspicious of itself as Nigeria. People want to believe that their region, ethnic group and community have a reasonable chance of producing the president.<\/p>\n
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Take that away without putting something stronger in its place, and we may create another problem.<\/p>\n
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Nigeria is not a country where politics is simply about left and right, conservative and liberal, or even government and opposition. Our politics is deeply intertwined with ethnicity, religion and geography. Pretending otherwise will not make those realities disappear.<\/p>\n
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And this brings me to the issue that many people would rather avoid – the place of the Igbo in Nigeria\u2019s political arrangement.<\/p>\n
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How do we honestly tell an Igbo Nigerian that he or she is an equal stakeholder in Nigeria when there remains a widespread perception that an Igbo man can occupy almost every important position in the country except the presidency?<\/p>\n
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That is not a small matter.<\/p>\n
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It goes to the heart of the Nigerian question.<\/p>\n
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We have been here before. The Aburi discussions associated with General Yakubu Gowon and Lieutenant-Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu raised fundamental questions about how Nigeria should be governed and how its different peoples could coexist within the federation.<\/p>\n
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Many years later, similar questions came back through the National Conference convened under President Goodluck Jonathan.<\/p>\n
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Again, we talked.<\/p>\n
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Again, Nigerians produced recommendations.<\/p>\n
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And again, the country failed to achieve the kind of fundamental political settlement that could have addressed the problem at its roots.<\/p>\n
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That history should make us cautious about simply producing another set of recommendations and calling it restructuring.<\/p>\n
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There is also the political legacy of the Buhari years that Nigerians should not forget.<\/p>\n
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One of the major criticisms of the Buhari administration was the pattern of federal appointments, which many Nigerians regarded as heavily tilted toward the North and particularly toward Buhari\u2019s political and ethnic base.<\/p>\n
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Whether one agrees with every aspect of that criticism is another matter. What cannot be denied is that the perception damaged confidence in the federal government.<\/p>\n
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My concern is that instead of correcting that problem, the Tinubu administration risks creating its own version of the same legacy.<\/p>\n
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If one government establishes a questionable precedent and the next government adopts it, the problem becomes bigger than the individuals involved. It becomes a political culture.<\/p>\n
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The same thing applies to the National Assembly.<\/p>\n
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A democracy is in trouble when its legislature begins to look like an extension of the executive.<\/p>\n
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The phrase \u201crubber-stamp legislature\u201d may sound harsh, but it captures a fear that many Nigerians have about the present political arrangement: that the National Assembly may be too willing to approve what the executive wants and too reluctant to challenge it when necessary.<\/p>\n
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That is not what a parliament is supposed to do.<\/p>\n
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The legislature should not exist to make the president comfortable. It should make the government accountable.<\/p>\n
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Members of the National Assembly are not there simply to applaud government policies. They are supposed to ask difficult questions, examine government spending, protect the interests of their constituents and, when necessary, tell the president that he is wrong.<\/p>\n
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If Buhari\u2019s administration leaves behind the legacy of controversial regional appointments, we should not allow the Tinubu administration to add another dangerous legacy – that of an excessively compliant legislature.<\/p>\n
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These things matter because governments come and go.<\/p>\n
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Tinubu will eventually leave office. So will every other president.<\/p>\n
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But the habits they establish can remain.<\/p>\n
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A weak legislature today can become a dangerous instrument in the hands of a worse president tomorrow. A culture of ethnic appointments can become normalised. Once these practices become accepted, reversing them becomes much more difficult.<\/p>\n
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This is why I believe the Nigerian reform debate must go deeper than constitutional amendments.<\/p>\n
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Yes, we need constitutional reform.<\/p>\n
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Yes, we need restructuring.<\/p>\n
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But we also need to restructure the way Nigerians think about power.<\/p>\n
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We need to get rid of the idea that some parts of Nigeria are entitled to rule while others are expected to wait.<\/p>\n
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We need to stop treating political appointments as opportunities to reward ethnic and political loyalists.<\/p>\n
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We need institutions that are strong enough to tell a president \u201cno\u201d when the circumstances demand it.<\/p>\n
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And we need to create a Nigeria where the identity of the person occupying the presidency is no longer a source of anxiety simply because he comes from a particular ethnic group.<\/p>\n
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That is where Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso become relevant in the current conversation.<\/p>\n
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I am not suggesting that either man is Nigeria\u2019s Messiah. Nigerians have made that mistake before – placing too much hope in individuals and too little emphasis on institutions.<\/p>\n
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Their emergence, however, is important because it challenges some of the assumptions that have governed Nigerian politics for decades.<\/p>\n
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The real victory would be to reach a point where an Obi, a Kwankwaso, a Tinubu, an Atiku or anybody else can win a presidential election because Nigerians believe that person is competent and trustworthy – not because his ethnic group has been allocated its turn.<\/p>\n
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The real issue, therefore, is not whether Nigeria should reform. It clearly should.<\/p>\n
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The issue is whether we are finally prepared to undertake reforms for the right reasons, through the right process, and with enough national consensus to make them survive successive administrations.<\/p>\n
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If the reforms are genuine, let them be debated openly. Let Nigerians examine them. Let civil society, opposition parties, traditional institutions, professional bodies and ordinary citizens have their say. Let the National Assembly scrutinise them properly rather than rushing them through simply because an election is approaching.<\/p>\n
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And let the government answer the most uncomfortable question of all:<\/p>\n
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Why now?<\/p>\n
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If the answer is genuinely about Nigeria and not about the next election, then the government should have nothing to hide.<\/p>\n
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Nigeria cannot heal by pretending that these questions do not exist.<\/p>\n
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Reform should not simply be about changing the Constitution. It should be about changing the conditions that make Nigerians distrust one another.<\/p>\n
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It should be about creating a political system where nobody is a permanent outsider and nobody is a permanent owner.<\/p>\n
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And perhaps that is the most important question we should ask about every reform proposal placed before Nigerians:<\/p>\n
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Will this reform still protect the ordinary Nigerian when the president who introduced it is no longer in office?<\/p>\n
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If the answer is no, then we have not solved the Nigerian problem.<\/p>\n
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We have only written another chapter of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria Needs More Than Another Reform Package By Fidelis Uchechukwu Abara(USA) There is nothing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-columnist"],"yoast_head":"\n