BUHARI AND HIS MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENTS: RETHINKING SECTION 147(3) OF THE NIGERIAN CONSTITUTION- VITUS OZOKE

   

National character is good. It's a great idea. For a country conceived in colonial rape and forged in intra-national suspicion, national character was a master stroke genius designed to create and foster a sense of belonging and fraternal solidarity among incestuous cousins.

National character made sense 55 years ago, when Mother Nigeria, viciously, callously, and deceptively raped by Sir Fredrick Lord Lugard, with the orgiastic oversight of Queen Elizabeth, gave birth to three freaks, each loathing the others, inventing its own language at birth, and vowing the undoing of his strange brethren. To achieve a semblance of kinship, national character was tattooed in their groins.

At that time, Nigeria was a nation of few regions - North, East, West, and Midwest. Over the years, however, Nigeria has grown to a nation of 36 states and Abuja. And there is serious work in progress for many more states. Yet, the constitutional provision of national character has survived years of periodic constitutional engineering. Why hasn't anybody paid attention to the growing impossibility of national character provision, especially as it relates to the appointment and national distribution of ministers?

Here is Section 147(3) and its proviso:

"147. (3) Any appointment under subsection (2) of this section by the President shall be in conformity with the provisions of section 14(3) of this Constitution: -provided that in giving effect to the provisions aforesaid the President shall appoint at least one Minister from each State, who shall be an indigene of such State."

I have always suspected a conspiratorial cahoot between new state creationists and national characteristics. The former are encouraged in part by the latter. I say in part because the primary unwritten motivation of new creationist politicians is to carve out new political territories that reduce political competition and increase their own odds of electoral success. These new political territories are essentially new collection centers for the reception of monthly subventions and security votes that end up in the private pockets and accounts of the new state creationists.

So, a new state is created; it is ridiculously, but predictably, unviable; yet, the governors and political elites in that new state become billionaires overnight. Today, many of the new states owe workers' salary arrears running into several months and years. But the governors and other political elites from the new states own huge bank accounts and real estates across Europe, America, and the Caribbean.

Politicians from new states who are not governors go for ministerial appointments, their major argument being that the national character provision of the Nigerian Constitution guarantees at least one ministerial position from every state, including, of course, the new state. The problem with that is that requiring that in the appointment of ministers, the president must ensure national character by appointing at least one minister from each state who shall be an indigene of that state is no longer sustainable.

Let's do the economic math here: (1). Ministries for which ministers are appointed have since been maxed out in Nigeria. Truth be told, Nigeria is running a ridiculously super-bloated bureaucracy; (2). New states are continually created in Nigeria; (3). The proviso to Section 147(3) of the Constitution mandates that at least one minister be appointed from each state, including, of course, new states. So, even though Nigeria has since maxed out on ministries, It has continued to crank out more unviable states, and the Constitution mandates that at least one ministry be given to each state, including, of course, new states. Questions is where will those ministries come from?

In this era of smarter and leaner government, great cost savings are achieved by fewer political personnel. Therefore, for a country like Nigeria, where new state creations have become a yearly political ritual, the proviso to Section 147(3) has become an unsustainable anachronism that needs urgent repeal.

Compare the United States. America has 50 states, a population of close to 320 million, the biggest economy in the world, the most extensive engagement around the world of any other nation; yet, the United States has only 15 secretaries, the Nigerian equivalent of ministers. Hello!

For a president that has come in with his pruning shears, to cut down on governmental waste and bureaucratic pork, Buhari's hands are tied by Section 147(3) proviso. That proviso needs to go. Nigeria does not need 36 plus ministers. What for? Those who have criticized the president for taking too long to empanel his ministers are invited to this perspective. I'm sure that left to the president, half than 36 ministers would have been just fine and efficient.

Let me be clear. I'm not advocating for the constitutional scrapping of national character. No, we need it. We need it in other areas of national appointments. But insisting on national character in ministerial appointments in a country that is politically obsessed with progressive atomization of its national gestalt is simply unsustainable.