AGF Malami’s verdict: No to restructuring

The Federal Government, on Wednesday, told those agitating for restructuring of the polity to apply the brake.
To the Attorney-General of the Federation and  Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), the way the federation is structured now, restructuring, such as reforms and modifications of institutional arrangements, systems and processes, “cannot be achieved in a single swoop as being advocated in Nigeria”.
Declaring open a Think-Tank Conference on ‘Federalism and the Challenges of Dynamic Equilibrium in Nigeria: Towards a National Strategy’, organised by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru , Jos, Plateau State, the AGF emphasized that change is a gradual process that must be democratic and subjected to legislative and administrative processes as provided by law and indeed the constitution.
“We must use democratic means to reform our federal system. We need to recognise that both federalism and democracy are mechanisms for managing diversity. Indeed , while federalism provides the institutional framework for managing diversity, democracy makes possible the negotiation of diverse identity claims by providing them with representation, voice and political mechanisms by which their competing claims are balanced and reconciled”, he stated.
Malami also pointed out that there is no true or false federalism but each federation, reflects essentially, the particular conditions and circumstances that produced it.
“We cannot wish away the particular conditions and circumstances that had produced the challenges in our federal system. We must use democratic means to find solutions to these numerous challenges”.
The AGF, unequivocally, maintained that democracy articulates citizens’ preferences and place limits on arbitrariness, adding that it is not out of place to state that as far as constitutional democracy is concerned, the idea of restructuring is not a function of advocacy or agitation but about constitutional accommodation.
He said: “As things stand, restricting requires amending the constitution to accommodate referendum or in the alternative an amendment to the 1999 Constitution which must be supported by majority of legislators, 24 states of the federation as enshrined in Section 9 of the constitution”.
“Whether that process is going to be an easy sell is a conjecture that should be left for deliberation of this forum, but one thing that is certain is the inevitable implication that abolishing states through restructuring process will certainly translate to the eventual multiplier effect of abolishing House of Assembly and, perhaps, downsizing the National Assembly”.
He urged the think-tank conference to make usable recommendations with clear implementation strategies to enable the country move forward.