Professor Edoba Omoregie, SAN, is a lecturer at the University of Benin, UNIBEN, Benin, Edo State. He is also a Visiting Scholar and Resource Person to the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, NILDS. In this interview, he speaks on worsening security challenges in the country, restructuring, zoning of presidency, direct primaries, selective obedience of court orders by the Federal Government and other sundry issues.

Excerpt :

What is your position on the calls for the return of Nigeria to the 1960 Constitution?

I don’t know exactly what the proponents are saying. If they say we should return wholly to the 1960 Constitution, then we need to do a lot of thinking around what they are proposing. Don’t forget that in 1960, ours was not a republican government; the Queen of England was the Head of State. So are they saying that we should go back to that arrangement? I think they should be more specific on what they desire. There is no doubt from the point of view of empirical findings that parliamentary system is far less expensive than the presidential system.

So if that is their argument, then there is some merit in it but we need to be very careful because the parliamentary system has its own challenges; even in the United Kingdom, between 1960 and now, there have been a lot of reforms of the parliamentary system. If we are saying go back to the 1960 arrangement, then there will be need for modification as well.

For instance, in the parliamentary system, there is the principle of collective responsibility like the no confidence vote which when it happens, election is called immediately even before the end of the tenure of that government. In the United Kingdom, that has since changed. Right now, they have what we call fixed term parliament so there will be need for some reform of the 1960 arrangement if we are to go back there.

How do you think the recurring issues of banditry, kidnapping, farmers/herders clashes can be tackled?

I have always said that the problem we are facing in the area of insecurity is actually the combination of a very unfortunate situation dating back to so many years. It is an accumulated problem which has come to full light as it were. We have stayed with it for so many years, now it has become very clear that we cannot handle ourselves anymore. I believe that the problem is first and foremost a constabulary problem. The problem is a policing problem. We have open spaces everywhere in Nigeria unpoliced and the reason why we have the police problem is because we have continued to have a centralised policing system. We cannot continue to rigmarole around it. I understand that even as recently as 2020, there is a reform brought about by the new Nigerian Police Act which talks about community policing. The attempt is to try to galvanise the communities into being part and parcel of the police system.

With all due respect to those who conceived that reform, I believe it wasn’t far reaching enough because it is still within the framework of the centralised command system of the police. I think there is need for constitutional amendment to allow the state and the local governments to be able to set up their police systems side by side with the federal police system so that we can have multiple level of policing and then the open spaces that we are having in Nigeria can be dealt with.

That is the first way to go about it. The problem is more of failure of intelligence, failure of police presence; you cannot use kinetic measures alone to deal with it. Those who are proposing that the army is around are all kinetic approaches and they can never solve the problem. We need to close the open spaces and the only way we can do that is by having multiple levels of policing.

Do you think the Service Chiefs are doing enough to secure the country?

It is unfair to single out any particular officer and heap the blame on him or her. No amount of changing or appointment of service chiefs will solve the problem. The problem is far deeply rooted than just narrowing down to blaming particular individuals. It is a systemic crisis. The army has been brought into the picture too deeply and they cannot deal with constabulary problems that we are facing.

The provision of the constitution that allows the army to be co-opted into civil roles does not envisage a situation where you virtually now turn the army into a police organisation all in the name of aiding civil authority. I think what the constitution drafters intended when they talked about using the army to aid civil authority is actually for the purpose of emergencies and then return to the barracks. The core duty of the army is to protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria and not more than that. The main problem of internal security is something that should be dealt with using the police and that is where I feel the multiple policing systems will work.

It is a collective problem and we have not been able to muster the collective political will to effect structural changes in our constitutional arrangement as far as internal security is concerned. In addition, we should increase the sophistication of the mobile police at the federal level so that they can become like the strike force and play the role that the army has been playing for the past number of years when the security problem escalated.

Some stakeholders believe that restructuring will solve the problem of secessionist agitations. Do you agree?

The issue of restructuring has been over-flogged for many years. I believe that what those who are proposing restructuring truly mean is that there should be a reform of our federal system and there is nothing wrong in reforming our system. Nobody should be afraid to reform the system that is challenged because our federal system is challenged. It is broken as a matter of fact and the reason is because the country is over-centralised.

There are principles that must be adopted to decentralise and one of those principles is the principle of subsidiarity. That principle prescribes that the power of government should be exercised at the lowest level. So there is need to reform our federal system so as to bring in the principle of subsidiarity by which the states will play more roles in the day-to-day running of government far more than the Federal Government while the Federal Government will deal with issues that are complex in scope, that are beyond the capacity of states.

I tell, if you have that, many of these people who are agitating for secession, will be in a position to appreciate the country more. We are better off together as a people. We cannot have a better opportunity to have a fantastic and wonderful nation than now. I don’t think our fathers made any mistake by bringing us together to form one country. For those who are calling for a break-up, if they understand the breaking up of a country, which I doubt, I think they will have a rethink even though I don’t also blame them because they are speaking from the depth of their frustrations. The system appears not to be working for us. The leaders should muster the political will to take these decisions.

Do you agree with the agitation to zone the presidency to the South in 2023?

We cannot run away from the idea of diversity in management. There are mechanisms for managing diversity. All over the world, countries that are diverse like us do not rely solely on democratic principles alone to be able to marshal government. We must involve other things that are not majoritarian. Democracy presupposes government by the majority but there are situations we call non- majoritarian mechanism for diversity management and one of such mechanism is zoning.

It is part of a bigger concept known as consociationalism, which was propagated by a Dutch Professor, Arend Lijphart which is that when you have a large country like ours with so much diversity, you must adopt some more majoritarian approaches towards managing diversity so there will be no conflict and the country can survive. I believe that zoning is not a bad thing at all. It was part of the decision of politicians in 1999 when they decided under the PDP at that time to adopt zoning as part of its constitution.

What is your position on the issue of compulsory direct primaries for political parties?

I must say that there is need for caution in that when you begin to try to micro-manage political parties, you have to be very careful because the consequences can be very grave. Political parties are not the creation of government; they are only recognised for the purpose of taking power. Under Section 40 of the Constitution, no political party can exist pursuant to the right to freedom of association except those that are recognised by INEC.

There is an extent to which you can micro-manage a political party. Even the present situation in the parties where candidates emerge either by direct or indirect primaries is even going too far. I think they should adopt the approach of the Second Republic by which the leaders of the political parties will determine who the candidates of the political parties are. The parties are to present themselves to the electorate to vote for because the primaries are not an end in themselves. I am skeptical whether we have got it right by getting involved in the internal affairs of political parties.

Do you think this administration has performed well in the area of obedience to court orders?

It is a major problem but I am not sure there is high prevalence of this. Let us be very fair, any attempt to disobey court orders ultimately will consume all those involved in it because power is transient. If they create a system whereby court orders are disobeyed, they themselves will become victims one day. It is in the interest of everybody that the rule of law must be accorded its highest level of respect.

How would you rate the FG on the fight against corruption?

That will be a matter that will require some empirical evaluation whether the government of the moment has done enough or not. What I noticed over the years, as a Nigerian, is that we chose to be too excited about the notion of somebody being corrupt or not being corrupt. We have to be more scientific about the issue of corruption. What I mean is that we must deploy technology maximally to check corruption.

What I see today is that there is little or no improvement in the technology for tackling corruption. For instance, for many years, until now, you go through the nation’s airports and you find that people are still collecting fees by hand. That doesn’t make any sense. There is nowhere in the world now where tolls are collected by hand, in cash. When that happens, some persons might be tempted so we need to prevent corruption more than fighting corruption not that when corruption has occurred you will start chasing after it, it is very costly.

It is far more costly to be chasing after the corrupt when you could have prevented it in the first place. So we should focus on preventive measures to check corruption.