It was further balkanized to nineteen states by 1976. Further states creation exercises have ensured that today the nation is a federation of thirty-six atomized states, most of them insolvent.
If the first wave of state's creation in 1967 can be justified as a strategic response to stave off the Biafran secession, the several other states creation exercises turned out to be mere schemes to aggrandize a motley of interests, some of them base and even spousal, but most of them hegemonic!
The desire to atomize the nation and carve out spheres of influence was fed by the fallacy that oil was an inexhaustible resource, and therefore its proceeds would always be available to service the national architecture, no matter how flawed or unwieldy. That has now proved to be a costly mistake.
Today, as a result of this gigantic error, the nation is saddled with thirty-six administrative and bureaucratic units, thirty -six idle and comatose states houses of assembly, and a bicameral National Assembly that has turned out to be the dumping ground of all those who had foisted upon the nation a gruesome poverty of thought.
The result is that a disproportionate share of the national income is deployed to recurrent expenditure, with nothing left to service and implement infrastructural development, and demonstrate progress to the average citizen. There is a demonstrable connection between the nation's fundamental structural defects and rampant corruption.
For one, in place of four centres of tolerable corruption which had existed before 1967 when we were just a federation of four regions, we today have thirty-six centres of roaring graft and debilitating corruption.
Proliferation hurts quality, and the atomization of the nation quickly took its toll on the quality of governance. Because of it, persons, including petty thieves, who could never have dreamt of becoming local government councillors, suddenly found themselves as state governors.
These predatory and desultory characters then proceeded to wreak great violence on our national ethos, and turned corruption into a national culture!
If my thesis is correct, it stands to reason that the task of national rebirth must start from a drastic restructuring of the federation. Cankerworms like corruption merely underscore a deeper malaise, and can never be eradicated by pep talks or a few melodramatic arrests.
The oil bubble has now burst for Nigeria, and critical thought is now required to reset the nation and set it on a fresh path.
While it might be unrealistic to expect that a mono product economy can exponentially and dramatically increase national incomes in the very short term, it is realistic, and attainable, to drastically reduce national expenditure by restructuring to merge states, streamline the National Assembly, and make the bureaucracy leaner and frugal.
I must confess however that the task is huge and obviously beyond the capacity of the present political class to accomplish, unless they are willing to commit class suicide. That truth foists upon the nation a precarious paradox, as well as a disconcerting dilemma!
It was the military that disfigured Nigeria and made it unworkable. And now, it's beginning to appear clear that the task of remoulding the nation is a task that can only be accomplished by force of arms!
- Kenneth Ikonne SAN
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