Quota System And Federal Character, Again!

By Muiz-Banire SAN

Last Sunday, on my Twitter page, I engaged my readers on the incubus and succubus of quota system and federal character rearing their ugly heads into our polity again. I consider it worth the time and effort to agitate the issue here again as it is central to our development as a people and as a nation. The discussion originated from a recent statement credited to my friend, Saliu Lukmon, on the determination or election of the principal officers of the National Assembly.

The spirit behind the said intervention triggered my previous publications on the policies of federal character and quota system in the country. In the said intervention by Lukmon, he contended that the offices of the National Assembly should be zoned by the All Progressives Congress leadership while denouncing the use of money in the process, and the need to avoid the contravention of federal character in the emergence of the leadership of the National Assembly.

Let me confess that this is one of the interventions of the commentator that I couldn’t reconcile with his personality. His antecedent as an activist and a nationalist does not concur with the current position he is advancing. The first area of my disagreement with him is the quarrel with the use of money by the aspirants to the various principal offices. In as much as that act is condemnable and I do condemn it, my reservation lies in the saintly presumption of the presentation by the author, suggestive of the fact that such a nefarious act is novel. I am sure that the writer knows that all the electoral steps have been tainted so far with the use of money.

The introduction of the cashless policy restrained the use a little bit but did not succeed in totally curtailing it. There is certainly no basis to now be quarrelling with the same or be pretensive about it. Virtually all the Assembly products, including those vying for the positions, are products of the same financially contaminated electoral process. Why suddenly now that the author is condemning the act that has been entrenched in the system? It is too late to ignite such condemnation.

My further disapproval of his thesis is in terms of the quota system. To his mind, the positions need to be zoned to reflect the various regions of the country and possibly the multiple religions. I certainly disagree with this postulation as it is a defeat of the nationalistic tendencies of the people. The advocacy for the continuous adoption of the federal character and quota system has been antithetical to the interest of the country. It has succeeded in eroding the spirit of nationalism in us.

That is why today our people see themselves foremost from where they come from rather than the country. This is quite saddening. For this country to progress, we need to gradually relegate this parochial consideration to the background and promote patriotism. We must allow the best man to always emerge from our processes. If everything works well in the country, nobody remembers where the leader is from. It is only when there is a dysfunction that we start agitating the personality of the leader. In all progressive societies of the world, the state or country of origin is being gradually displaced.

The Obamas of this world, the Sunaks, the Yousefs and so many others have been placed in places of trust without anyone considering their origin or background save for what their credentials and achievements show that they can do. I know that the Governor of the Bank of England for about twelve years Mark Carney, between 2013 – 2020, was head-haunted from Canada. Another example is the election of the Congress leadership in America which took days with intensive lobbying of candidates. Nobody said it must be black or white or come from a particular area or region of the country.

The election of the leadership of the National Assembly is not the appointment of Ministers or Special Advisers in which we may say that no part of the country should be marginalized. My view, therefore, is that we should stop placing an undue premium on primordial factors, otherwise, if we do not believe in the unity of the country, let the various regions and ethnic groups go their various ways. It is imperative we jettison wrong policies that are capable of making us a lost nation. It is deceitful to be advocating nationalism on one hand and promoting regionalism on the other hand. It is a contradiction in terms. Beyond this, the National Assembly is supposed to be an independent organ with the mandate to choose its leadership. Why intervene?

Did they intervene in the choice of party leaders or members of the executive except for confirmation purposes? The cited constitutional provisions of the country are only exhortative and the APC constitutional provision referred to by him is inapt. It is limited to Party offices. My take, therefore, is to allow them to play their politics and let the best men succeed. This is the only way we can have an independent legislature that can engender good governance for the country. The adoption and promotion of the quota system and federal character are destroying all facets of our country, football for example. To compose a national team, we believe it is a matter of geographical representation and not individual talent and competence.

No wonder the country is failing in competitions. In addition to that is the corruption in the football administration in the country by which players have to bribe in order to be allowed to don the jersey of the nation. Our competent youths now prefer to play for foreign countries at the expense of their country of origin. The judiciary has taken a baleful bite of the corrupting and growth-inhibiting tendencies of the quota system and federal character. No appointment is made in the appellate courts again without considering the twin evils of the quota system and federal character.

All states or regions must be represented as if the judiciary was another branch of the National Assembly. The military is no exception. We, therefore, sacrifice merit at the altar of mediocrity in order to pacify a people who have reduced competence in their own book to mere indolence or mediocrity. Even where it is adopted, I would have thought that it should be contextual with a terminal period. The Constitution that introduced it ought to have been amended by now to do away with this scrap of a policy. It is destroying the nationalism in us.

It is crucial for the improvement of our democracy to allow merit and competence to take priority in our affairs rather than relegating them. I am therefore of the view that the best person be allowed to emerge in order to pilot the affairs of the National Assembly where our laws are to be made. This will in turn reflect on the spate of development we can record as a people. The oath of office already warns of partisanship and other parochial considerations in the discharge of the functions of the office. People assume such an oath is inconsequential, forgetting that it is a matter of time before they are caught with one infraction or another. I note the potency of the oath if they don’t believe it. The earlier we start doing away with the retrogressive policies, the better for the nation’s growth. Allow the best man to emerge. If he fumbles, he can be removed by way of impeachment as it occurs in the parliament.

In addition to the above and to show how we are deliberately inflicting backwardness on ourselves, we have seen how we carried out the primary elections of the various political parties. It is a demonstration of how things should be. During the primaries won by Asiwaju Tinubu of APC and even President Muhammadu Buhari, nobody prevented aspirants from other parts of the country from contesting. They only lost to the superior mobilization power of the eventual candidates.

Why should the system start gagging others now? Candidates of political parties emerged not on the basis of the quota system but on what the political parties believed represented the candidatures that can give them victory. We must allow the National Assembly to emerge with leadership that the members would believe in as capable of adequately steering the ship of the nation from the legislative angle. No such intervention is necessary in order to make a full representation of certain people in the leadership of the two Houses.

Let people use their influence, pedigree and profile to win and emerge as the leaders of the parliament that will be capable of sustaining the confidence of their members. I am even happy that among the current contenders right now at the level of the House of Representatives, there are women. The basis of the campaign should be competence and what an average candidate has to offer to better a lot of Nigerians. Where we select an incompetent fellow into the position of leadership simply to reflect the federal character and allocate quota to all groups in Nigeria, all we have done is say we are best represented by an incompetent person who is a mirror of all of us. No nation operates like that and expects progress.

We must be ready to change our orientation and chart a new way forward. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu should insist on competence, merit and ability rather than the campaign of quota system being urged elsewhere. Let the National Assembly emerge the best of them to lead the legislature. We need good laws and policies to advance beyond our current challenges.

Source:tnl