Second, we must also stop the intellectual violence we have inflicted on our society in the name of a quota system.  The destruction of the idea of merit at all levels of our society must end.  I have spoken to young men who in despair at the life they face since they come from so called over-represented groups, chose to try to cross the Sahara desert in order to get to Europe.  The death of merit has logically led to the death of effort and innovation, since why try if you can achieve the same outcome via government fiat or influence networks?  The time has come to confront the issue structurally.  It is a false republic that believes her citizens cannot by dint of intellect, hard work and imagination build its place in world, and instead must rely on exclusion, set asides and special favors.  We can achieve the same policy objective by creating funds to support specific excluded populations’ rather than penalizing everyone in order to favor a few.  Reviving the idea and substance of merit will be a critical element in preparing Nigeria for a world in which foreign earnings from crude oil will decline.

Tied to the issue of merit is enterprise.  The retreat of the state from economic activity is the right step but a proper balance has to be struck.  The state should focus on creating a fair regulatory regime in order to protect consumers from the human instinct for excess.  While most businesses are honest, a few bad eggs will crop up periodically, hence requiring active regulation against these.  In order not to penalize all to catch a few, the regulatory focus should be activist and designed to head off problems before they grow into a real crisis.  The second layer of balance is around favoritism.  For example, the recent push to spark investment activity in 1999 – 2003 created certain policy excesses e.g. granting of pioneer licenses as well as excessive tax breaks. 

Due to a seemingly poor negotiating position on the Nigerian side, Nigerians have come to believe the conjecture that Nigerian is an extremely high risk destination.  That is simply not true compared to say Russia during the Yeltsin transition for example.  Nigeria has not had gang land mafias running corporations or the Nigerian government by fiat making its bonds useless overnight.  As a result, provisions that should not be granted were offered both Nigerian and foreign companies.  The goal now should be to create a real level playing field, with the leadership of all sizes of companies getting the same targeted, efficient and cost effective support from the government.  Under such a regime, the policy approach once summarized as aiming to “create 50 Dangotes” must cease.  The focus should shift to creating clear, competition friendly rules such as lifting the restrictions on designating Nigerian owned airlines on the US-UK routes.  Clear rules become the basis for preparing business plans and entering into credit agreements or issuing bonds.  That should be the real focus of government: preparing clear and fair rules that promote competition for how best to create value to consumers and investors. 

How we resolve these economic issues and a host of other policy and political questions matter and set a critical context for how well the country functions going forward.  Since the first military regimes, Nigeria has crept to a model in which “extrajudicial” agencies are increasingly the exception rather than the norm in terms of solving public policy problems.  That would be fine if the quality of the main civil service remained intact.  That has not been the case.  We have succeeded in creating incompetent new agencies such as the NDDC and its predecessors while simultaneously undermining the federal civil service.  Economics 101 teaches us that if you create room for discretionary behavior, corruption will follow like flies to a pot of honey.  The madness of course is that every major regime in the past 15 years has made the exact same mistake. 

As a result, today, we approach problem solving as a chance to create a new special commission, panel, agency etc instead of using the statutory ministry whom we then publicly snob and humiliate.  We then commit a greater error by describing the problem we seek to solve as an exception that deserves special treatment.  Ending the regime and mindset of exceptionalism is critical as it helps us avoid certain issues.  Treating the Niger Delta or any of our multiple problems as exceptions simply enables the country to pretend the problems do not exist, until those whom the shoe pinches chose to respond in the national language we are most comfortable with: violence. 

The solution would be to develop a plan for execution over 5 years for folding these agencies back into a revitalized federal and state bureaucracy.  I say revitalized not reformed because it is important to mean what we say.  Revitalization means introducing new leadership, rewarding achievement and loyalty to the enterprise of the republic, creating opportunities for career path advancement and additional training, in addition to paying competitive wages and benefits. 

Serving the republic should be a privilege that is well rewarded.  The love of country, while a reward in itself, is an insufficient driver of performance.  Such love should be supported with excellent and on-going training programs, as well as opportunities for new challenges across bureaucracies e.g. secondment to state ministries or other African states.  Folding these extraordinary agencies into a revitalized federal bureaucracy is one of many steps towards normalization of our how perceive ourselves as a society.  Normalization will not be easy as it strips the society of its excuse for being willfully ignorant about its own tragedies and horror stories.

A mechanism for pulling together these proposed changes and many others is a constitutional conference after the 2007 elections.  All who offer themselves as presidential candidates in 2006 – 2007 must agree to call the conference as a matter of law and honor.  A clear lesson has emerged repeatedly in Nigerian history.  The center must not be too powerful.  Short of creating the equivalent of an Oyo Mesi – a body which exerted a special life and death authority over an unjust Alaafin of Oyo – we can deploy institutional mechanisms to curb the excessive powers that we have since 1966 placed in the federal center.  Given that we as humans cannot read the minds of men, nor necessarily control them, the logical step to take is to avoid tempting them with imperial powers and authority as a succession of former Nigerian army generals and civilians seem to have been tempted since 1966. 

An effective solution to our challenge lies in the logical framework of the independence and 1963 constitution.  We need to return to a parliamentary system into which effective checks and balances are built.  In order to become the prime minister, a candidate will need to negotiate with 36 entities or regions, and when he or she loses the confidence of the majority will simply cease to be the leader of government.  While that may appear to suggest periodic instability in government, the system can be designed to manage effectively as the history of Israel, Italy, and the United Kingdom indicate.  The 2007 conference can be organized along the model used by post-apartheid South Africa and chaired by Cyril Ramaphosa who did an outstanding job.  While our collective national ego may prevent us from asking Mr. Ramaphosa to help chair such a conference, I know there are hundreds of equally qualified Nigerians who will bring great intellect and management skills to the project.

Once Nigeria has put in place the mechanism for its own internal rejuvenation, we should then turn our attention to a critical issue: the expansion of our borders.  The prosperity of West Africa requires that Nigeria devise a mechanism for other African states to be able to conduct a referendum to join a Nigerian union.  Each new member will be joining as a federating entity with the same rights and privileges as the entities emerging from the 2007 - 2008 conference.  Why expand our borders?  Nigeria’s ability to enjoy her future prosperity is a function of the peace around her.  Nigeria lives in an unstable region.  Until the neighborhood effect is addressed, the problems of Chad, Liberia and Sierra Leone will remain ours.  Therefore, rather than periodically spend billions in peace making, I would rather solve the problem differently. 

Logically, an alternate solution is to more aggressively push the expansion of the African Union.  That solution, though potentially effective has an important failing: the desire to affiliate.  Free will as expressed in a referendum rather than treaty signings between members of the bureaucratic elite is important in decisions such as surrendering sovereignty.  Proximity is also important in order to capture the full effects of labor, technology and capital mobility within the borders of an expanded Nigerian state.  Progress in constructing an expanded Nigerian union should not detract from a future African Union; it may well speed up a merger of sub-Saharan Africa’s states, assuming their moral compass is in the same direction as ours.  Nigeria should not co-habit the same political space as repressive African states.  That only serves to weaken our moral clarity in addressing the shortcomings of repressive states from Zimbabwe to Sudan to Equatorial Guinea. 

Nigeria in 2007 will have the freedom to choose what type of society and republic it wants to be.  The wrong set of choices will lead to a very tragic place.  The right set of choices can create the transformative platform for our citizens and those across the African continent who may want to voluntarily join our union and the system of values it represents.  That union will be unique in our modern consciousness for a simple reason: her strength lies in the freedom its citizens have chosen, and not the coercive powers of the state and her agents to compel forced co-habitation.

Robot  Villager

# 1 Nigerian society has...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 05.05.2006 00:28

Nnodi

# 2 I wonder if the writer of the article has ever lived in Nigeria. Probably not. How anyone can write an article with such a promising title, without any mention of the internal contradictions caused by self-seeking ethnic polarities in Nigeria beats me. The writer seems to view Nigeria as some sort of characterless corporate body that should be governed literally by the book, as shown by his sweeping generalisations which take no note of the political/ethnic situation on the ground. Any transformation of Nigeria has to start by addressing the ethnic question. Posted by Nnodi| 05.05.2006 07:45

emj  Villager

# 3 Quote Once Nigeria has put in place the mechanism for its own internal rejuvenation, we should then turn our attention to a critical issue: the expansion of our borders. The prosperity of West Africa requires that Nigeria devise a mechanism for other African states to be able to conduct a referendum to join a Nigerian union. Each new member will be joining as a federating entity with the same rights and privileges as the entities emerging from the 2007 - 2008 conference. Why expand our borders? Nigeria’s ability to enjoy her future prosperity is a function of the peace around her. Nigeria lives in an unstable region. Until the neighborhood effect is addressed, the problems of Chad, Liberia and Sierra Leone will remain ours. Therefore, rather than periodically spend billions in peace making, I would rather solve the problem differently. Ogbeni jude, uhun do----kabo, hen welcome----u dey covet other west african wahala when u never resolve ur own outstanding issues eh:eek: Logically, an alternate solution is to more aggressively push the expansion of the African Union. That solution, though potentially effective has an important failing: the desire to affiliate. Free will as expressed in a referendum rather than treaty signings between members of the bureaucratic elite is important in decisions such as surrendering sovereignty. Proximity is also important in order to capture the full effects of labor, technology and capital mobility within the borders of an expanded Nigerian state. Progress in constructing an expanded Nigerian union should not detract from a future African Union; it may well speed up a merger of sub-Saharan Africa’s states, assuming their moral compass is in the same direction as ours. Nigeria should not co-habit the same political space as repressive African states. That only serves to weaken our moral clarity in addressing the shortcomings of repressive states from Zimbabwe to Sudan to Equatorial Guinea. U urself don defeat the above postulations/musings, and believe u me it is not amusing----:lol: like u rightly said, pushing 4 the expansion of the African Union will fail woefully---becos nobody go gree surrender him sovereignty-----except we capture everybody with the intention to enslave them:idea: Pray that Nigeria does not become a repressive African states like the ones u referred to:p Posted by emj| 05.05.2006 15:17

busanga  Villager

# 4 The writer does have some very good ideas among which are 1. The complete removal of the state from the business of running business , The state should concern herself with regulating and providing the right environment to run business. 2. A return to a cheaper and effective system of government. Westminister style federalism. i.e. parliamentary. Of all his ideas the most brillant is the call to go back to the 1963 constitution; for one, it was a negotiated piece of document negotiated in the series of London conferences by our own freely elected political leaders not jamborees that rigged election or militricians,; we cannot build something on nothing and amending the dead 99 constitution is exactly trying to do so. It beats me that none of the critics see the merit in this great work. Apparently my people lack vision, and the writer has a vision. A vision that even sees the integration of Africa. Villagers, it is okay to dream. The day we stop dreaming is the day we stop growing. Posted by busanga| 05.05.2006 22:27

okonokonkwo  JJC

# 5 I like dreams but more so putting good dreams to work. How does the writer think that these dreams will even start ?Is there any interplay of factors that suggest this after more than 45 years of Independence?Any ideas?If not I think we are flogging a dead horse. Posted by okonokonkwo| 07.05.2006 15:17

Prophet  Villager

# 6 Let us assume our brother Jude has written out of pure love for NIGERIA that we all lay claims to; Whether we're stealing money with the pen, brain, armed etc.; whether we believe we're born to rule (in or out of khaki/babanriga etc.); whether we're killing soldiers, students and or policemen; whether we're in or out of government and wanting to leave or not; whether we're ethnic/religious/sessessionist and other bigots or not ... just a taste of our diverse ailments or not ... we all claim at one time or other or in one way or another ... we all claim to love Nigeria. How can anyone love Nigeria when we don't love our neighbours ... not even do we love members of our own families???!!! We are so wise and intellectual that we become blinded with our knowledge. Jude is our true brother. We know too much and cannot work together for a common goal. I have hope for Nigeria though. I know that slowly but surely thins are changing. With God only can we change as we all resist change. Yet, some will say God has nothing to do with it in a country where a vast majority do nothing (good or evil) without mentioning God!!! May God Help us and save us in Nigeria. Jude and co should begin to think of practical ways of helping to rebuild Nigeria (not on paper alone ... it's more effective when you do something practical ... join forces with others ... that will be more effective in consolidating any theory. Theories have come and gone and will come and go ... as with practicalising such theories. Let's stop asking what Nigeria can do for us or should do for us ... let us begin to ask and look to act upon what we can DO for Nigeria. Nigerian being you and I. Peace. Prophet. Posted by Prophet| 08.05.2006 05:06