“What we mean by restructuring is going back to the Independence Constitution which our leaders negotiated with the British between 1957 and 1959. It was on that basis that the three regions agreed to go to Independence as one united country. When the military came in 1966 and threw away the constitution, they did not only throw away the constitution but a political consensus negotiated and agreed by our leaders of the three regions. The regions used to be federating units, but in today’s Nigeria, they would now be called federal regions because states have been created in the regions. So, we are saying let us go back to that arrangement which all of us agreed at independence and not what Abacha imposed on us, which is very partial, unfair and one-sided. That is the meaning of restructuring; it is to restructure unfairness and give semi-autonomy to the federating units.”

That was Chief Olu Falae, a former Secretary to Babangida’s military government, giving historical context to our current crisis of nation building during a last week Arise TV programme in order to educate our uninformed youths and elders described by Senator Adams Oshiomhole as “mischief makers who are trying to twist, manipulate and politicize a patriotic request borne out of altruistic motivation” by pretending not to know the meaning of restructuring.

But Chief Olu Falae is not alone. For his fellow crusading patriots, the answer to our unresolved national question is a return to our 1954 structure, negotiated by our founding fathers ‘to promote the unity of Nigeria and protect the interest of diverse elements that make up the country’. Some of these credible voices include former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who has called for ‘less centralized, less suffocating and less dictatorial’ central government; the late Alhaji Balarabe Musa, former governor of Kaduna State who had called for ‘a return to regional arrangement, where each region can create states they can cater for, which would certainly reduce injustice and inequality among the people;’ and Emeka Anyaoku, the former Commonwealth Secretary-General who has also renewed his call for ‘a return to the regional structure practiced in the First Republic, with the country’s six regions forming the federating units.’ And for Gen. Alani Akinrinade, “anyone that wishes Nigeria well and wants our states to develop will join in the growing agitation to restructure the country;” while for Wole Soyinka, regarded by many as the conscience of the nation, “the basis of our association needed to be renegotiated if we are to prevent a disastrous disintegration.”

Our founding fathers, confronted with the challenges of a multinational Nigeria state, described by Obafemi Awolowo in 1947 as ‘a geographical expression’ and as ‘a British intension’ by Tafawa Balewa in 1948, resolved to make Nigeria home to every nationality within the greater Nigerian nation. Thus, when Action Group was formed in Owo April 25, 1951, the party’s motto was “United through federation, freedom for all, and life more abundant;” while the manifesto of NPC, inaugurated in Kaduna by Balewa, Ahmadu Bello and others in September 1951, focused on “regional autonomy within a united Nigeria ‘with “one north, one people, irrespective of region ethnic and religion”, as its slogan. Each dominant ethnic group managed its own affairs

They knew they didn’t have to invent the wheel since it had long been established that crisis of nation building in most multi-ethnic nations of the world is best addressed through a federal arrangement. Europe itself had after two devastating world wars resolved their crisis of nationhood by embracing federalism. And working in our founding fathers’ favour was the fact that despite the 1914 amalgamation designed for ease of administration, the long-term policy thrust of Britain was a Nigerian nation with a federal system where every group can develop at its own pace without interference from others.

The colonial powers challenged those who live in denial, claiming that “our cultural differences had been exaggerated by accident of colonial rule,” to look at themselves in the mirror to confirm if there were parallels “between the Hausa of Zaria and the Bantus people of the Benue Valley,’ the 200,000 Ogonis who escaped the tyranny of South African Chaka the Zulu, ‘the cannibals of the mama hill, the unsocial Mumuyes of Muri Province and of naked warriors of the inner eastern tropics,” all of who were at different levels of cultural development.

To underscore Britain’s commitment to her policy thrust, Hugh Clifford, the then Governor General of Nigeria in an address to the Nigerian Council on December 29 1920, asserted that the British policy was to support ‘the local tribal institutions and the indigenous forms of government based on the ‘social institutions which have been evolved for it by wisdom and by the accumulated experiences of generations of its forbearers,’ adding that “if suddenly the impossible were feasible’, that those separated by difference of history, traditions, social, political and religious barriers were indeed capable of being welded into a single homogenous nation’, it would be a disservice to the concept of national government which secures to each separate people the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality.”

But rather than prove Oliver Stanley  who  while speaking before foreign policy association in New York City on January 19, 1945 had said that “it is the British presence alone which prevents a disastrous disintegration and British withdrawal today would mean for millions a descent from nascent nationhood into the turmoil of warring sects” wrong,  the new inheritors of power confirmed his fears when they threw the West into a political turmoil with its attendant violence, deaths and loss of properties” following their imposition of  a leader on the west in breach of the constitution in 1962.  And ‘to cut Awolowo to size’, according to Trevor Richard, they created Mid-west out of West while suppressing the self-actualization quest of 11 national groups made up of 3.2 million Efik/Ibibio/Annang, 700,000 strong Ijaws, 220,000 Ogonis and 8.000 Ngenis and others totaling 5.3 million (1963 census) in the COR areas of the Eastern Region.

Ironically, Nigerians got better deal from the colonial masters than the successive military regimes who have since 1966 done everything including plunging the nation into an avoidable civil war except addressing the core issue of crisis of nationhood- which is about how our multiethnic, multi-cultural and multi religious society can live together in harmony. Their efforts like those of their ‘new breed’ politicians to resolve the national question through constitutional negotiations like statesmen turned out to have been driven by greed and intrigue.

General Ironsi’s 21st Feb 1966 Study Group on Constitutional Review was sabotaged by his own unitary Decree 34 of 24th May 1966, just as Gowon’s Ad-hoc Group to work on Constitutional Proposal was overtaken by outbreak of riot in the north. Murtala Muhammed’s Constitution Drafting Committee’s report (CDC) of 18th October, 1975 into which Obasanjo added 17 different items, was according to Rotimi Williams and Nwabueze, who regretted their role in building a federal “leviathan” inferred they merely did the bidding of the military.

The 1999 constitution known as Abdulsalami Abubakar’s ‘Decree 24’, never debated by anyone was the sum total of Babangida’s 1989 and the largely boycotted Abacha’s 1995 constitutional conference. While Obasanjo’s own National Political Reform Conference (NPRC) of February 2005 was marred ‘tenure-elongation’ concerns, Jonathan’s 2014 CONFAB was thought to be an after-thought to seek support of Southwest, the region that was in the forefront of the struggle for restructuring.

For Olu Falae and other concerned Nigerian stakeholders, our journey to nationhood must start with enthronement of justice, which is best assured with restructuring of the country in line with the dreams of our founding fathers and the 1920 British stated policy thrust.