By Tunde Abatan,08165660217,tunde2013abatan@gmail.con
In all civilized environment and polity,dialogue, consultation and concession has always been the surest way to resolve conflicts on salient issues that affect the state.
Even among families,private organisation,corporate entities resolution of deep seated crisis on the table have always proved to be the lasting solutions.
After all, the saying that it is better to jaw- jaw than to war has been proved over time to be the only sustainable alternative to resolving issues rather than spilling of blood.
All Wars fought by mankind have always end up been resolved at a round table and in most cases such wars ended without victor nor vanquished.
Except for the Nigerian Civil war that was fought and eventually won on the battle field, all issues regarding management of Nigeria’s inequality and injustice always ended up being resolved on the round table.
Even then,the end of the civil war and healing of the wounds inflicted on the nations psyche was carried out through eventual through the three Rs- reconciliation,rehabilitation and reconstruction.
One of the enduring mark of civilian government is its ability to mediate on issues and resolving deep- seated conflicts through instrument of state as different from military regimes which depend on coercion.
Over the years, one of the fundamental causes of unending mutual suspicion of the Nigerian state have been the absence of patriotic and nationalistic leaders to summon the courage to address the country’s national question which remains unresolved even with a 30 -month bloody civil war.
This centred around the issue of practicing Federalism which only appears in name and paper but in reality lacks in content as typified by both the 1979 and 1999 constitution which concentrated more than 65 percent of powers at the centre thereby making a mockery of federalism.
Instead both documents have ended up by entrenching Unitarism with the frequent and constant aching of the polity.
This brings into focus the recent declaration by Finance,Budget and National Planning Minister,Nnamdi Usman, on a national television programme that the vexed issue of collection of Value Added Tax on which a Federal High Court ruled in September in support of state government. Since then things have not been the same in the country body polity as the ruling pierced as the economic soul of most of our dependent states.
It will be recalled that Rivers state government has approached the Federal court on this vexed issue which hits at the underbelly of Nigeria’s fiscal Federalism- an issue which has previously led to agitation for Resource control by the Southern states.
Now, with the declaration of the Court of Appeal and decision of the seventeen southern states to be joined in the suit at the Court of Appeal,the signal that the rug is about to be pull- off the feet of indolent states especially in the North who contributed nothing to the federal VAT proceeds, implement ethno- religious laws in form of Sharia which forbade drinking of alcohol ,yet stretch hand every month to collect part of the proceeds from ‘dirty’ or unclean money.
That Kano,Zamfara and other Northern states could implement laws which reduce their capacity to generate revenue and at the same time benefit from proceeds of such ‘unclean’ money is both ridiculous and hypocritical.
The action of the Southern states spurred by the court judgement is an indication that all has not been well between and among the southern states of the country and the North especially as it concerns the issue of fiscal federalism which is an extension of agitation for the restructuring of the country.
Had agitation for restructuring been embraced by the North which from all indications is living off the seventeen southern states,the VAT issue might have been amicably addressed.
Thus,the southern states seek to derive from the VAT judgement what the other states through control of the federal government is denying them by having a legal control over proceeds of their sweat which some lazy states are living off.
Fiscal federalism entails that states enjoy their resources and only contribute a part of it in firm of agreeable tax to national upkeep.
That is how viable federations are run and why regions in the First republic could develop at a relative pace consistent with their abilities and financial capabilities.
It is quite apparent that the abdication of the principle of derivation and need which governs revenue allocation to states before military incursion in 1966 has done more harm than good to emerging states which have had themselves permanently tied to the apron string of the federal government.
The result of this is laziness and a parasitic attitude on the part of most states in the country who collect monthly allocations without contributing anything to the national purse.
This clamour for VAT control by states is also by inference as a result of attitude of the states especially the North who believes sweat of other states belong to them .
What is more, they also arrogantly belief that leadership belongs to them as of right.
Thus the VAT judgement is seen by the Southern states as an easy way to remove the economic solvency of states who live off the goose that lays the Golden egg and yet lord it over their political and social well being akin to a master slave relationship.
A master that depends on its subjects and slaves cannot hope to enjoy such inequity and social injustice for long.
The finance minister should also be bold enough to convince the federal government that refusing states to control their political and structural life in a multi lingual,multi ethnic and multi religious states under and still held in bondage under the whims and caprices of their sustainers cannot thrive for long.
The federal government should learn to restraint the Federal Internal Revenue Services,FIRS that their overlord ship on finances of the states where they want to collect revenue is tantamount to expecting what Lisabi,the great Egba warrior did in the early part of the 19th century to Oyo Empire.
The great Egba nation warrior miffed by years of economic overlordship of Oyo Alaafin rebelled when he organized the killing of Oyo kingdom Ajeles- Tax collector’s,stationed in Egba territory, which was one of the conquered states of Yoruba hinterland, to collect Tax for running of the Oyo kingdom. With that heroic action, when Lisabi and his army of valiant warriors struck thereby stopping collection of tax by the Alaafin and ultimately attain their independence from overlord ship of Oyo kingdom.
The action of Lisabi triggered off revolution among other vassal states of Oyo and the gradual dismantling of the Oyo empire.
Another historical lesson to learn by the Federal government could also be found in the Adubi war.
The Adubi War ,was a rebellion led by Adubi,a farmer and leader in the then Egba United Kingdom.
The war was triggered off when the Egba Native authority under the control of the Lagos colony imposed a tax on every adult and young men.
The same young men asked to pay Tax were made to work without pay on constructing roads and maintaining other social infrastructures mostly used by the British overlords.
While Adubi made representations to the Alake then the paramount ruler,the colonial masters and it’s district officers insisted on payment of Tax by the citizens who only manage to wake out a living from the little time left for them to practice their peasant farming.
Adubi organized his men throughout the territory, disrupting social services like telegrams,rail lines and boycott all markets. The result of his action which confounded the Lagos Colony was deployment of huge battalion of regiment to crush the mo the old rebellion. The end of the war resulted in the end of the Egba United Government which had obtained her self rule in 1893 but which it lost in 1914 by the decision of the Colonial government to place Egba ‘unreservedly under the Colonial Government.’ThecEgba lost her independence on October 1 1914 ten months after the amalgamation of Nigeria .
Today,with education, enlightenment and sophistication,the federal government should realize that increasing economic hardship occasioned by a lazy economic policy of funding unviable state could trigger a revolution which will ultimately dissolve the country. Those who think otherwise should go back to history.
The earlier the better those who are holding Nigeria down through injustice and economic brigandage appreciate and accept the need to seat at the round table and amicably devise political solution to the multi various problems of the country,the better .
Failure by the federal government to be bold enough to take these urgent political steps,which Zainab hinted , would encourage and embolden slaves who have been source of living of the masters who ruled and reigned over other people’s territory and sweat, to put a stop to this slave master relationship.
Southern states like Rivers , Lagos and others states who have asked to be joined in the suit have sent a strong signal through the VAT war that they are ready…
The VAT war it would appear, is just a spring board for bigger economic demands and instruments which the southern states may employ to assert their economic and indeed political freedom.
A nation is only measured by its economic muzzle not by deploying state resources to strengthen ethno -centric powers, which could only spill violence,bloodshed and imminent instability and eventual dissolution which Nigeria’s socio political inequality will bring about.
