Federalism of Nigeria vs The Federalism of The United States

Our short survey of the African federal experience in the 1960s
suggests that, by and large, federalism has failed in
African states. The early appeal of the federal idea among several
groups and communities in some newly
independent states quickly faded and had all but disappeared by the
early 1970s. The Congolese (Zaire) federation
(1960-65) was abrogated in 1965, Uganda's federal system (1962-66),
originally designed to accommodate the
Kingdom of Buganda, went the same way in 1966 and the Anglo-French
project of the Cameroonian federation
(1962-72) was abolished in 1972. Federal experiments were similarly
undermined in Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia
leaving only Nigeria and Tanzania – itself only a borderline federacy
with the Islands of Zanzibar and Pemba
(having only 5% of the total population) – as the sole remaining
federal survivors in the 1970s.
Given such a seemingly poor record of early
success, what are the grounds for optimism
about the federal idea in Africa today? What
sorts of problems does it manage or
resolve? The longest standing federal
experiment remains that of Nigeria but it
has recently been joined in 1995 by
Ethiopia as formally a multinational (or
multiethnic) federation and in 1996 by
South Africa, which while not formerly
federal nonetheless has powerful
federal elements in its Constitution.
In this section we will focus upon the
most successful of these federal
experiments, Nigeria, in order to try
to understand first what 'success'
means and, secondly, why it has
been so successful.
Named after the river Niger and located on the
southern coast of West Africa, Nigeria shares its
borders with Cameroon and Chad in the east, Niger to the north and
Benin to the west. Sometimes called the
"Giant of Africa", Nigeria has a huge land area that makes it slightly
more than twice the size of California and the
largest population of any African state at 120-130 million people (the
last census in 2005 remains hotly disputed).
It is understandably the dominant regional economic and military power
in the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) and it has been a federal polity in many
different incarnations since its formal
independence from the British Empire in 1960.
Currently, the most recent federal incarnation is enshrined in the
Constitution of May 1999, which was endorsed
and presented to the people by the military after its last period of
authoritarian government (1983-99). This latest
constitution has its roots in the 1979 constitution which had been
tried and tested and provided the best point of
departure in the quest to re-establish constitutionalism in Nigeria.
The major institutional characteristic of the
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is that it retains
presidential government and a federal system with
4
NIgERIA:
ThE CAUSES OF SUCCESS
NIGERIA
Borno
Yobe Jigawa Katsina
Bauchi
Sokoto
Zamfara
Plateau
Niger
Kano
Taraba
Kaduna
Kebbi
Oyo
Kwara
Benue
Kogi
Ogun
Nassarawa
Erugu
Ondo
Delta
Cross
River
Adamawa
Gombe
Ebonyi
Lagos
Osun Ekiti
Edo
Bayelsa Rivers
Imo Abia
Akwa
Ibom
Anambra
Abuja
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
CAMEROON
NIGER14
three orders of government: a strong federal government; 36
constituent state governments and 774 local
government councils. Constitutional power in the federation is heavily
skewed toward the federal government in
Abuja whose primary task is seen by political and military elites to
hold the country together.
With six written constitutions since 1960, Nigeria has recently
celebrated its half-century as a liberal democratic
polity having had one of the most turbulent of democratic experiences
in Africa. The high water mark of
governmental stability was achieved as recently as 2007 when Nigerians
experienced their first presidential
changeover from one political authority to another after elections
without any military intervention. Apart from
being the largest African state, it is also a highly diversified
pluralistic nation with three strong, largely territorially
concentrated, ethnic identities – the Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani and Igbo –
together with some 250 sub-ethnic tribal,
religious and linguistic minorities scattered across the country. Add
to this basic social division, the powerful social
cleavages of religion, territorial identity and wide socio-economic
differences with poor resource distribution
together with oil dependency, pervasive corruption throughout society
and the ubiquitous presence of the military,
and it becomes clear why there has always been more than one major
fault-line in this fractured civil society.
Indeed, its early history was characterised by a series of regular
secessionist threats across the country and just
seven years after its independence, the south-east sought to detach
itself from Nigeria. This led during 1967-70 to
a federation that was ruptured by its first and so far only civil war
as the Igbo-led Biafra plunged Nigeria into a
protracted bloody war of violence, torture and starvation as the
country was torn apart, eventually to defeat the
separatists and to learn the lesson that Nigeria's future as a
multi-nation could only be as a federal unity.
During its 50-year history of independence however Nigeria has had 28
years of military government, the last
period ending in 1999 since when it has struggled to maintain its
hard-fought democratic stability as the longstanding regional and
ethnic cleavages have recently mutated into an increasingly dangerous
polarised religious
form: Muslims versus Christians. From its very beginning in 1960, the
precise ratio of Muslims to Christians in
Nigeria has been unknown although it is widely thought that Muslims
account for 48-50% and Christians 34-36%
of the total population. Their territorial distribution is also highly
significant with virtually all of the former
concentrated in the states of the North and the latter mainly but not
exclusively in the states of the South and
South-West of the country. Concerted attempts to dampen down and
defuse this major religious cleavage as a
political threat to national unity culminated, as we mentioned above,
in the constitutional design of 1999 which
introduced the large-scale territorial reorganisation of the
federation. This increased the number of constituent
units to 36 and sought to prevent the domination of any constituent
state by a single religion. We return to this
major challenge to the federal polity further below.
As a multinational, multi-religious and multi-cultural federation with
an enormously complex and troubled history,
Nigeria has in recent times also had to confront the divisive question
of oil dependency in its national political
economy. This has become a multi-faceted challenge to the federation.
The oil-rich Niger Delta region in southern
Nigeria has since the 1970s become the focus for political violence,
corruption and criminality. It has become a unfriendly of the
Publicist.
magnet for hostage taking, attacks on oil company personnel, the
destruction of government-owned oil pipelines,
the sabotage of oil company installations and intergroup conflicts for
oil-related resources have become common
occurrences in the Niger Delta. But the overwhelming socio-political
problem has been the deep disillusionment of
people from the minority ethnic groups of the oil producing areas who,
living in the midst of this colossal wealth
resource, have themselves remained impoverished while the whole region
itself remains poorer than the national
average. This lamentable state of affairs of course is aggravated by
the environmental and ecological damage
caused by irresponsible oil exploration and production by the
multinational oil corporations (specifically Shell Oil
Company). It has also raised serious questions about human rights
violations in Nigeria. To the Market of Federalism of The United
States of America in difference of the Poor as seen in Nigeria but the
Market into Flour is the richer to the Poor of The United States of
America makes Nigeria more in line of Communist as seen in contest of
the following The Federal Convention sent the proposed Constitution to
the Confederation Congress, which in turn submitted it to the states
for ratification at the end of September 1787. On 27 September 1787,
"Cato" first appeared in the New York press criticising the
proposition, "Brutus" followed on 18 October 1787. These and other
articles and public letters critical of the new Constitution would
eventually become known as the "Anti-Federalist Papers". In response,
Hamilton decided to launch a measured defense and extensive
explanation of the proposed Constitution to the people of the state of
New York. He wrote in Federalist No. 1 that the series would "endeavor
to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have
made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your
attention."
Hamilton recruited collaborators for the project. He enlisted John
Jay, who after four strong essays, fell ill and contributed only one
more essay, Federalist No. 64, to the series. He also distilled his
case for into a pamphlet in the spring of 1788, An Address to the
People of the State of New-York; Hamilton cited it approvingly in
Federalist No. 85. James Madison, present in New York as a Virginia
delegate to the Confederation Congress, was recruited by Hamilton and
Jay, and became Hamilton's major collaborator. Gouverneur Morris and
William Duer were also apparently considered; Morris turned down the
invitation, and Hamilton rejected three essays written by Duer. Duer
later wrote in support of the three Federalist authors under the name
"Philo-Publius", or "Friend of Publius".
Hamilton chose "Publius" as the pseudonym under which the series would
be written. While many other pieces representing both sides of the
constitutional debate were written under Roman names, Albert
Furtwangler contends that "'Publius' was a cut above 'Caesar' or
'Brutus' or even 'Cato.' Publius Valerius was not a late defender of
the republic but one of its founders. His more famous name, Publicola,
meant 'friend of the people.'" It was not the first time Hamilton had
used this pseudonym: in 1778, he had applied it to three letters
attacking fellow Federalist Samuel Chase. Chase's patriotism was
questioned when Hamilton revealed that Chase had taken advantage of
knowledge gained in Congress to try to dominate the flour market.

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