President Bola Tinubu will, on Friday, receive a draft bill seeking Nigeria’s return to a regional system of government.
The proposed bill, authored by a chieftain of the Yoruba socio-cultural association, Afenifere, Akin Fapohunda, and titled “A Bill for an Act to substitute the annexure to Decree 24 of 1999 with New Governance Model for the Federal Republic of Nigeria’, seeks, among others, new extant laws to be cited as “The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria New Governance Model for Nigeria Act 2024.”
It was gathered last week that the said bill was disowned by the House of Representatives, whose spokesman, Akin Rotimi, and the Chairman, Committee on Rules and Business, said it had not been listed for deliberation in the ongoing moves to review the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
However, Fapohunda informed our correspondent on Thursday that the bill would be delivered to the President on Friday.
“I’m submitting my letter (the draft bill) today, but I will wait for seven days before releasing it to the public,” he told newsmen.
Meanwhile, Fapohunda, who also represents the Coalition of Indigenous Ethnic Nationalities, told reporters that the organisation is proposing the division of the country into eight geo-political regions with approximate interim boundaries.
The proposed regions, according to Fapohunda, include the southern region comprising Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, and Cross Rivers States and “optional inclusions of the Annang, Effik, Ekoi, Ibibio, Oro Ohaji/Egbema in Southern Imo, the Adonia, Efemia, Ijaw, Ogoni, Bini, Ishan, Isoko, Urhobo, and the Ijaw-speaking people in Northern Ondo State with land contiguity.”
He continued, “The south-eastern region consists of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States. The Western region comprises Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, and Ekiti States, incorporating the Yoruba-speaking people in Kogi and the Igbomina people in Kwara State. Additional options would be for the Itsekiri people of Delta State and the Akoko-Edo people of Edo State to make their respective choices.”
Others include the Mid-Western Region, “made up of Edo and Delta States, possibly incorporating the Anioma people, and the Eastern Middle Belt Region, comprising the Northern Cross River, Southern Kaduna, Southern Borno, Adamawa, Benue, Kogi, Plateau, Nasarawa, and Taraba States.”
The Western Middle Belt Region includes Southern Kebbi, sections of Kwara, and Niger States, while the North Eastern Region will include Borno, Gombe, Bauchi, Jigawa, and Yobe States.
The Afenifere chieftain defines the North Western Region as Kaduna and parts of Kebbi, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara states.
Fapohunda said the alliance envisaged a two-tier government, federal and regional, adding that the latter would be free to run their own issues, “including the creation of sub-entities based on the stipulations that are agreed upon and embedded in their respective constitutions.”
In its proposed governance stipulations, CIEN mentioned that “in the quest for re-configuration and downsizing, an option to consider might be to retain the present boundaries of the 36 states, as would have been adjusted, but to creatively downgrade the paraphernalia of political administration as follows:
“To introduce a new regional government framework with executive and legislative functions and bodies with the headship title of Premier.
“In the new dispensation, the present states (for example, the six in the Western region) would be converted to provinces. Governance at this level shall be done by provincial councils that integrate executive and legislative functions with the chairman and support specialist administrative officers. The regions shall be at liberty to create provinces, subject to viability and self-sustainability.
“The present local government areas are to be transformed into divisions, with divisional managers and specialist administrative officers, to operate as socio-economic development institutions. The new provinces shall also be at liberty to create divisions, subject to viability and self-sustainability.”
The coalition also proposed a new constitution to embody novelties, including the freedom of the regions to “create, merge, or re-configure their sub-political units and may adopt provinces, divisions, or districts as may suit their circumstances without interference from any other authority.
“Regions and sub-regional entities are to be reconfigured in such a way a way as to reduce the cost of public and civil service administration to less than 20 to 30 percent of generated revenue.
“In drafting their constitutions, the peoples of the respective regional territories will take a cue and also dismantle any arrangement or configuration that will favour the politicians and the political class, with a focus on freeing resources for true development.
“A uni-camera federal legislature comprises members that are elected at the discretion of the regions for which they would be representatives in Abuja.
“Decentralisation of federal power in favour of not more than 10 regions on which there is a general national consensus, rather than the presently unwieldy number of 36 states. These old states are indeed inconsequential in being a viable unit of a truly federal system of government.”
