Legal luminary and former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), has raised concerns over what he described as Nigeria’s continuous drift towards a unitary system of government.
He noted that the centralisation cuts across virtually all sectors of the nation’s economy, adding that the country must decentralise for effectiveness.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria spoke during The PUNCH Forum, themed “The Imperatives of Restructuring Nigeria” held at The PUNCH Place, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
Olanipekun said the centralised governance structure had eroded the spirit of federalism and deepened inefficiencies in sectors such as security, education, and the judiciary.
He said, “We live in a country where we are going unitary by the day. We are moving towards unitarism by the day.
“Everybody wants to move to the centre — Abuja. How do we halt the drift towards unitarism?”
Speaking specifically, Olanipekun questioned how security could be effective with a sole, centralised police, operating from Abuja, covering the wide, dispersed nation’s land mass.
He lamented the security structure in Nigeria, faulting the constitutional prohibition of any other policing body apart from the Nigeria Police Force.
“On security, Nigeria is one of the largest countries in the world. Then you are talking of a sole police formation and you have a constitution that forbids any other association of similarity to the police.
“It is not practicable for the Inspector General of Police to stay in Abuja and know what is happening in Lagos or Ikere-Ekiti,” he said.
Citing geographical spread and diversity, Olanipekun said, “If you take a flight from Heathrow to Paris, it will take you 30 minutes. From Heathrow to Rome, it will take about 30 minutes. If you take a flight from Lagos to Sokoto, it will take one hour and 30 minutes.
“By road from Lagos to Maiduguri, it will take you two nights. Yet, for this diverse country land-wise, there is only one police force. And we are forgetting that the local people should have a say in the way they are governed.”
Giving examples of developed countries and their policing system, he said state police was more imperative than ever as he quashed arguments on abuse of sub-national security setup.
“People are saying state police will be abused. Why don’t you abolish the system of obaship because they will misuse it? Do you abolish everything traditional and then we now evolve from the sky?
“We call the governors the Chief Security Officers of their states — emperor without an empire, army general without a toy gun. Look at the problem of security we are facing. Let us restructure. There is an Igbo proverb that nobody knows a man more than his co-villager,” he said.
He noted that the only way to redress the current unitary structure was restructuring, true federalism hinged on having an autochthonous Constitution.
Olanipekun further took a swipe at what he described as creeping unitarism in the education and trade sectors, arguing that the constitutional imbalance benefits neither the federal nor state governments.
“In terms of education and trade, we are going unitary, and it is not to the advantage of either the federal or state governments. It is the states that create the centre, but unfortunately, in Nigeria, it is the centre that creates the states, starting from the time of Yakubu Gowon.
“You don’t give birth to your parents; your parents give birth to you. The states are the parents of the centre. The centre evolved from the womb of the states. It would appear that everybody goes to Abuja as if Abuja gave birth to the states,” he said.
Turning to the judiciary, the former NBA President argued that the judiciary is the most centralised institution in Nigeria, blaming the 1999 Constitution for stripping state high courts of their robust powers.
He said state high courts had been largely handling what he described as agrarian and subsidiary matters, with the Federal High Court empowered to supplant functions of the State High Court with the promulgation of Decree 107 of 1993 by the late Gen Sani Abacha.
“In the 1999 Constitution, word for word, comma for comma, the provisions of Decree 107 have been supplanted in Section 251 of the Constitution.
“Today, we have state high courts exercising jurisdiction on what I call agrarian matters, subsidiary matters. Not done yet, there is the National Industrial Court.
“We have a lot of problems on our hands. By the provisions of the Act creating the National Industrial Court, if Lagos has problems with any of its employees, they cannot go to their high court, they will have to go to the federal high court. Under what federalism does that work?
“The 1999 Constitution has virtually unitarised the judicial architecture in Nigeria by the expansion of the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court and the creation of the National Industrial Court,” Olanipekun said.
“If there is any institution that suffers from unitarism, it is the legal profession, particularly the judiciary. When you look at the 1979 Constitution, the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court was made subject to the jurisdiction of the State High Court.
“The State High Court had unlimited jurisdiction; the Federal High Court had limited jurisdiction,” he said.
He recalled the landmark Supreme Court decision in Bronik Motors v Wema Bank (1983), which reaffirmed that the Federal High Court was principally a revenue court.
On the erosion of state judicial powers, Olanipekun blamed former military ruler, Gen Abacha, for undermining state courts following the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election.
He said, “Abiola challenged the constitution of the Interim National Government and, as then, the State High Court had jurisdiction.
“Lagos State High Court made a judgment nullifying the ING. Two days thereafter, Abacha pounced on that decision and took charge. The first thing Abacha did was to promulgate Decree 107 of 1993, which removed all the powers of the State High Court and transferred them to the Federal High Court.”
According to Olanipekun, Decree 107 lives on in Section 251 of the 1999 Constitution.
He also criticised the structure of the National Industrial Court, arguing that it further undermines state autonomy.
Olanipekun stressed that constitutional amendments were overdue, urging stakeholders not to shy away from restructuring.
“We have a lot of problems on our hands and nobody wants us to address or redress them, or how we are going to navigate out of the problems the military created for us,” he added.
