By Chukwunwike Enekwechi
Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Fearing national disintegration and continuation in the current poverty, some Nigerians are flirting with this historical condemnation again based on a dogmatic obsession with regional restructuring. Nigeria has been restructured 7 times, and all of them failed to liberate and prosper Nigerians as promised, because the foundational elements of growth, which are common national ideology and private property rights have never been treated. Without private property rights [full land ownership, not the current revocable tenancy and squattership] starting at the family and community level, and without an objective, widely accepted and uniting ideology, the new regions will become bigger, better-armed versions of the 1946 mistake.
The 1946 Richards Constitution and 1951 Macpherson Constitution created 3 giant regions. They gave regions power, but not the people. What followed was ethnic fortresses, AG vs NCNC vs NPC, and minorities trapped inside hostile majorities. The fight shifted from nation-building to regional domination.
Yes, devolution of the centralized and neocolonial power is crucial. But it must start with private property rights for the individuals, families and communities to own and use their lands and resources to prosper like in America and other developed nations, not seized by some arbitrary postcolonial regions.
Today’s proposals risk repeating that error. Nigeria has over 380 ethnic groups violently joined together by the Berlin Conference and British amalgamation for perpetual exploitation. Now some people want to re-lump them into 12 to 15 mega-regions by elite-fiat, without enabling the people to redefine the purpose of their national union and to secure who owns the land, the home, or the business.
If the regional governments claim and control the lands and resources [that are postcolonially vested in state/federal governments], and the people become their new tenants, then you get a new Berlin Conference in a new name. Indigene certificates will harden into regional citizenship. "Settlers" will be expelled by policy. Land disputes within the regions will become regional wars because title is political, not legal.
Why It Could Be Worse Now Than 1946
1. Scale: Nigeria is 200M+, not 30M. Now, the stakes and population are 6x higher.
2. Resources: if regional elites control them all, the fight becomes existential, not political.
3. Indigeneity: The 1999 Constitution's "indigeneity" rules already fuel violence. Regional blocs would harden "who belongs" vs "who doesn't" into law.
4. No Referee: in 1953-54, London forced Lyttleton to keep the federation talking. Today, there is no external umpire to stop a breakdown.
5. Current federal/state government will not give up control without either a military or moral battle.
6. The regional elites have zero moral authority or cause to mobilize the people against the current land-expropriating federal system, only for them to take over the expropriation powers.
Moreso, any socioeconomic reformation that begins with boundaries of division, instead of redefining the purpose or ideology of unity, gears toward implosion, not growth. Regional restructuring without first settling private property and liberty starts from the wrong side of the equation.
So, the sequence must be to agree on the ideology of intercultural liberty via a Private Property Charter first, before administrative reforms, just as Americans defined their uniting ideology of individual liberty before creating 50 states. This would become a template for other Africans. When intercultural Liberty through Private Property Rights is defined as the primary purpose of the reform, then the regional or state restructuring becomes a necessary vehicle to it.
Without an objective and uniting ideology, and without property rights rooted in family and community, restructuring is not true devolution. It is centralization in smaller borders, localization of tyranny, and a roadmap to disintegration. That is how you guarantee more secessionist agitation, more fear of domination, and ultimately, more civil war.
We must begin with a Charter for private property rights and liberty, or history will start with us again.
Abuja Network News
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