Dr Olisa Agbakoba is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA). In this interview monitored on Arise Television, he speaks on President Bola Tinubu’s second year in office and challenges facing the country, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU writes

You recently released your midterm assessment of President Bola Tinubu’s administration. Can you take us through the central argument of your thesis?

The central argument is based on what is called root cause analysis. The root cause analysis principle looks at the underlying reason for success or failure. At Tinubu’s midterm, I noticed everyone was concentrating on economic issues, but I thought that we needed to go deeper.

And there’s a principle around the root cause analysis process. It’s called when the cause ceases to have effect, the effect ceases. So, what’s the cause of Nigeria’s economic dilemma? If you discover and pinpoint what the cause is and you remove it, then you solve a problem. That’s the basics.

So, I didn’t ask. Tinubu as president has obviously taken two absolutely courageous decisions that no other president was able to confront, so he’s got full marks for that. But how far can he go after that on the basis of what I describe as absolutely cracked foundation? The foundational existence of Nigeria is very questionable.

So, I then say in my analysis that we must look at the political structures of this country, where we have a centripetal, overburdened, centralized, planned economy, where Abuja is all that happens. 774 local governments, 36 state governments don’t play a role in the governance structure, so the federal government is overburdened. And if the Federal Government is overburdened, it will not able to deliver on all what it wants to do. Remember under President Muhammadu Buhari, you had two very capable ministers.

One was Rotimi Amaechi, running all over the country to fix railways. The other was Babatunde Fashola, running all over the country to fix roads. But how far did they go? And you know there was a very interesting advertorial run by television stations few days ago, so, we had Captain Tinubu steering a vessel, and there were sharks all over the vessel, and he was having trouble navigating. I think the point was to show how difficult it is to navigate the economic terrain of Nigeria.

So, you had many sharks, some you had inflation, cost of living, unemployment, among others. But the advert also said, this is important, the advert also said that Tinubu was steering 200 million Nigerians who were aboard the vessel out of danger.

So, the reverse question is, what exactly were those 200 million people doing on the vessel? Would Mr. Tinubu not feel obliged to ask them to assist him in the governance process? In that way, you distribute responsibility. So, my thesis is simple, too much power at the centre. And my recommendation is also simple, devolve power at three levels, federal, state, and local governments.

That’s it. And we’ll see development. You can’t cut out the local government. It’s also important that we all realise that we belong to a local government. I live in Lagos, but I belong to Etiosa Local Government that should supply me essential services. Refuse collection, signage and the basic things. But they don’t, because they are disempowered.

We really need to have a conversation. But the only man, who can lead the conversation is the President

The Lagos State government enacted a law removing all the powers allocated to the local government under the constitution by schedule four, and assigned it to themselves.

You have 20 local governments doing absolutely nothing, and a state government overburdened. So, it’s about distribution. The central issue in my analysis was distribute power.

The knob of your argument is that without functional government at all levels, economic interventions will continue to produce disappointing results, to use your term, regardless of their technical merit…

Absolutely. So, we see the government trying to do a lot of things at the same time. But they simply don’t. Lt’s first understand that there’s a constitution of Nigeria, which is completely flawed because it assigns power to three levels of government.

The Federal government exercises power under what is called the Exclusive List, and the Exclusive List contains 68 items of power. Then the state and the federal exercise power under what is called the Concurrent List, and that list contains 30 items of power.

But there’s also a clause that says that if the Federal Government exercises power under the concurrent list, then the state government will step aside. Then whatever is not described in the 68 items of power for the exclusive to the Federal Government, and the 33 in the concurrent for the federal and the state will be reserved for the local governments.

But the point is that under what is called the doctrine of covering the field, the Federal Government does everything. That’s the problem. So, it’s not rocket science.

Everywhere in the world, power is local. All politics is local. All business is local. So, if you follow this principle, say for instance in the United Kingdom, I’m under the borough of Harrow.

The borough does all the basic things I need around my borough, not the central government of Sir Keir Starmer. So, why is it here that the Federal Government appropriates the subsidiary power of the local governments onto its table, and that it lacks the capacity, what I refer to as the capacity trap. It lacks the capacity to deliver. So, we go around in a circle. We’ve been going around for the last 60 years, and there’s no advancement.

So, my simple thesis is it’s time for President Tinubu to want to leave a legacy. I mean, he’s done an incredibly difficult job of removing the fuel subsidy. It’s very tough, and allowing the Naira to float. So, what he needs to do is consequentially follow up on these two great corrections by aligned participation of the state and the local government actors.

That will open up the space. It will create jobs. It will empower the local governments in Nigeria. It will empower the state governments in Nigeria, and then you will have activity. And then that in turn will have an impact on whatever economic programme the Federal Government will have.

How endangered is Nigeria’s future if it doesn’t hearken to this message or this assessment that’s contained in your document?

We’ll limp along. Look, 80 per cent of Nigerians live in the informal economy anyway. I always laugh when the Central Bank announces its new monetary policy rates. What monetary policy rates is it measuring? Less than 10 per cent of the circulated income in Nigeria is captured by the CBN.

So, whatever they announce has no impact. The real truth about Nigeria’s continued survival was identified by General Ibrahim Babangida because he questioned himself: Why aren’t we going down? And the answer why we’re not going down is that we live in the informal economy.

So, it’s the informal economy that is keeping Nigeria going. Ask people on the streets about governance; it doesn’t concern them because they have their little daily trades, which they do to return little money to their households and feed their households. I mean, this is the paradox that they manage somehow to just make a living.

That is what is keeping Nigeria going. So, Nigeria is not about to fall because of the informal sector. My theory of re-basing of Nigeria’s governance structure, if not done, will not be an existential threat, but it will make us stay where we are. I mean, from 1960 till to date, I’m not sure that we’ve seen much development. I was just looking at Vietnam, a country in war the other day.

Its economy has overtaken that of Nigeria. And I said, but this is a country that was in great war. India is now the fourth largest economy in the world. The Arabian Peninsula is awash and booming. So, what is it that we can do? That’s the question. What is it that we can do that will change the paradigm? And that’s what I have offered in my assessment.

Beyond the economic arguments that you make, because the political dovetails into the economic, would it be fair to say that you are taking a fresh look at the issue of restructuring and making a more accessible argument for it?

Absolutely. You see, the proponents of restructuring, we have to admit, put it in a rather aggressive, non-diplomatic way. We need to carry all Nigerians, all ethnic and religious along. The entire multi-diversity of Nigeria needs to be on board the restructuring argument. And therefore, I like to use very neutral statements like rebasing, rebalancing, redistribution of power, so that nobody feels threatened.

There are some parts of Nigeria that feel that this thing about restructuring is to break up the country. But it’s not. And I’m even happy that the All Progressives Congress (APC), the ruling party, adopts restructuring as part of its manifesto. But the problem, I think, and this is where President Tinubu should come in as the leader of the nation.

We should engage in a debate that allows every Nigerian, particularly the governing class, to see that to empower state governments and the local government will make Nigeria a greater country. Not less, but to make it greater. So, my appeal on the June 12 celebration is let us take a fresh appraisal. Let us revisit this process. Let us really sit down and have a good conversation and to see what the problem is. And the problem is: Nigeria is not developing.

So, what can be done to develop Nigeria? It’s to look at the structure of the country and to say that we can’t have a politically over-centralized capital in Abuja. And that’s where you find politicians. I mean, I don’t blame the APC. It’s the PDP that I would say: Why do you allow your guys to jump into the APC? The APC will be very happy. But the danger is if we end up with a one-party state, that’s not good for democracy.

What we need is a multi-party process. So, all of us are in this dilemma because it’s a big dilemma. Politicians, policy people, all of us, we really need to have a conversation. But the only man who can lead the conversation is the President, and I really would urge him to use the opportunity of June 12 celebration as an opportunity to revisit where we are going.

What’s Nigeria’s future? The future cannot be in a constitution that is not autochthonous. It’s not owned by us. People must feel that they own the process. And that is the constitution, which is so inlaid to Nigeria. So, I want President Tinubu to really take a very deep and introspective look at where Nigeria should be going and the legacy will be his. Babangida had the chance, he didn’t take it. Today he’s launching a book about his regrets.

I don’t want President Tinubu to regret down the line that, oh, I had the opportunity and didn’t do it. Now is the time to engage Nigerians in a forward-looking programme that will lift us so that we truly will be the largest and most important country in Africa. That’s the plea I would make to the President.

Don’t you see it as a difficult judgement to make in terms of how you approach the government, how much you push them, and how much you potentially even embarrass them into action because clearly the risk is if you push and embarrass them too much, then the reaction you seek might not be forthcoming?

Yes, but you see, it takes a great man of vision to understand that there is a problem. And I go back to the thing I saw on the advertorial about Captain Tinubu in the ship. There’s a problem, so Captain Tinubu realises there’s a problem. But the issue is: What’s the answer? I’m tired of us keep talking about problem, problem, problem.

My theory of re-basing of Nigeria’s governance structure, if not done, will not be an existential threat, but it will make us stay where we are

Let’s look for solutions because things are not working. So, it is for the President, and that’s why he’s the CommanderIn-Chief, that’s why he’s the Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria by virtue of Section 5 of the Constitution. It’s his responsibility to amalgamate the various opinions around what’s the trouble with Nigeria, as Chinua Achebe so eloquently said. And he, Chinua Achebe, answered the question.

He said the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a problem of leadership. So, President Tinubu as Nigeria’s leader, has the ultimate responsibility to amalgamate the different voices, the different opinions, the divergence of concepts into the question that Bola Ige of blessed memory asked:

Do we want wife? If yes, how? That’s it.to be Nigerians? If yes, how? It’s not rocket science and that discussion can only be driven by the man with the political power, that’s the president. Our role as policy people is to assist in shaping a new federal system that will fit our multilingual, multi-religious and multi-ethnic. I, of course, take the opportunity to remember Chief MKO Abiola, and you know, he was a man full of jokes.

So, he once told me how he ran his household. He said, oh, it’s not a problem for me because none of my wives will give me any wahala over whether one of my kids wants a egusi soup and the chief wife is providing gbegiri because all of them have the decentralized power to run their kitchens, not me or my first wife. In this little statement came a strong message of how to manage diversity.

Nigeria has to learn how to manage her diversity. If you bring diverse people together without boundaries, without space, there’s bound to be trouble. Do you know that for the sake of Quebec, as small as it is, French is an official language in Canada They understand the essence of inclusion. So, the policy of inclusion in a country as diverse as Nigeria is so important.

Do you know that Nigerians are so naive that when they look at a particular person, who has committed a heinous crime, simply because he’s from their place, they will say he didn’t do anything. It’s that bad. So, we must not underrate diversity and the need to create the relevant mechanisms to manage it. Managing diversity is crucial.

Is this a good time for the president to implement some of your solutions while he has growing support in the National Assembly and his party? If so, do you expect him to be pragmatic about the reforms that you recommend?

I hope so. And I’ll say this; you know that Nigerians are less concerned about the state of our political parties. All the problem they give us and which we see every day, doesn’t concern them, they are not interested. They’re interested in how to eat and how to look after themselves.

So, there are two ways to do this. Continue with your politics, no problem. President Tinubu obviously would like a second term. That’s understandable, so continue with the politics. Nyesom Wike is part of the issue; continue with all that. But turn attention to governance. So, politicking is on the left side.

Governance is on the right. Governance is about how Nigerians feel about themselves and how comfortable they feel about survival. That can easily go with politicking. So, when you’re politicking, dragging PDP people like the former vice-presidential candidate who, for reasons that are unclear, jumps from PDP into APC. But that’s his choice.

I respect that choice. So, leave all that alone and say, right, we’ll play that game at that level. But the governance issue is important to me as Nigerian president that I have a duty to ensure that Nigerians enjoy that liberty and prosperity promised by section 14 of the constitution. That is possible. It’s easy to handle both; politics on one hand and the governance on the other.

So, you look at the 200 million Nigerians and you give them what they want. And then when it comes to politicking, go ahead. Nobody says you shouldn’t do it. I’m pragmatic enough to understand that you cannot wish away politicking, particularly of the Nigerian brand. So, let them continue politicking. Let them carry away all the PDP people who want to join the APC.

That’s fine. That’s their problem. But could you please remember that there are 200 million Nigerians who need basic things. They don’t need billions. They just need food, education for their kids and medicare. That’s it. We had a governor of the Central Bank, who allegedly built about 800 houses. This can translate to one general hospital per local government in Nigeria.

That’s governance and we have the resources to do it. I might be wrong, but I can tell you that people are less concerned about who is president of Nigeria than what Ayo Fayose ably and aptly described as stomach infrastructure. That’s the most important thing for the Nigerian people. So, whatever the government can do for them is important.