In the last three decades or so Nigerians have seen a lot but learnt very little. The last three years have been particularly trying as the political, social and economic turmoil have driven the country to the brink and it has since been living on the threshold. Worst still no solution seems to be in sight. Indeed, these days, the Newspapers and Magazines carry adverts, daily, titled 'the way forward', but daily the country is receding backwards. The only thing moving forward in the country is corruption, it is growing and thriving and becoming the biggest industry. Many have been wandering how the country has been surviving. To be sure Nigeria is not surviving, it is suffocating. Its economy as well as its educational, social, political and even military institutions have collapsed in all but name. This has consequently generated anger and frustration and rather predictably, eroded the last traces of confidence that the public have in the leadership. Rather than admit it and begin to address it, the Nigerian leadership has been busy sweeping uncomfortable truth under the carpet and rehearsing the same old rhetoric on the need for peace and unity. This has never taken us anywhere and the leadership, more than anybody, ought to know better. That they still engage in this futility suggests that the leadership is either missing the whole point or being dishonest. For it does not take a genius to see that the basis for unity has broken down and the this aura of sacredness that is evoked around national unity is not only misplaced but shows that the leadership is mistaking the symptom for the disease. This disease, which has become both acute and chronic, is actually congenital. For we must remember that Nigeria is the creation of British imperialism. The boundaries do not represent the wish of the people who found themselves trapped, as it were, but the wish and conveniences of European Imperialism. Thus the Nigerian state came to made up of variety of groups of various ethnicities and religions and consequently a plurality of world-views and value systems. Perhaps the only thing they have in common is the misfortune of falling prey to British Imperialism. These varying and often conflicting world-views can only co-exist under a system where each is recognized for what it is and respected, and this is precisely what a federal arrangement is meant to do. The architects of Nigeria's independence had the sagacity and foresight to realise that, and hence opted for a Federal Republic with the unambiguous motto of 'unity in diversity'. Heterogeneity, to be sure, is not the problem, indeed these differences are both natural and beneficial, for even in agriculture monocultures are neither the norm nor the best. Nigeria's problems started when we refused to recognized them as such. We compounded the problems by pretending that despite these differences in history, culture and world-view, we must be uniform in almost every respect in order to be deemed united. We confused unity with uniformity and insist that Muslims must throw away their culture, value and laws, spanning back nearly a millennium and embrace Western values that imperialism imposed on us less than a century ago. A national service scheme, the NYSC, was created ostensibly to cultivate an understanding among the various cultures in the country, but it only ended up in regimenting these youth to western values. The NYSC, it is pertinent to note, is a microcosm of Nigeria's attempts at unity, in its philosophy, its methods, and rather naturally enough, in its failure. First the assumptions are wrong, the foundations superficial, the methods unnatural and the results, a fiasco. Given our cultural diversity we can only coexist in an arrangement that recognizes and respects this diversity. This is what a federal arrangement is precisely meant to do. But for some curious reasons this federal arrangement was supplanted in all but name and herein lies Nigeria's problem. The deterioration of the federalism into a unitary system with its regimented secularism, brought the constituent and conflicting cultures and world-views in to a kind of collision. The Muslims, who form the majority and are concentrated in the north, feel most cheated: for one, they are made to live under a secular system that denies them the Sharia and enforces a British based legal system which is out of harmony with their belief and socio-cultural environment; for another their cultural values are constantly assaulted in schools, the mass media and official pronouncements; for yet another, the erosion of the social morality and the growth of corruption is given full reins with heavy tolls among the Muslim leadership and society. Over and above all these, the material progress, peace and unity, in whose names all these tragedies are condoned, are becoming ever elusive. Muslims are entitled to ask if what they are getting is worth the heavy price they are paying? The non-Muslims, largely Christians and concentrated in the southern parts of the country, also have their complaints. In their hurry to catch up with their models in the West, they feel the Muslims are slowing them down. They also feel they are not getting fair share of the oil revenue. But their real grudge for which the afore mentioned only provide an excuse is the presence of Muslims in both the political and military leadership of the country. They ought to know that with a Muslim majority in the country there is not much they can do about this, especially in a democracy. But they seem to be saying that the decay and destitution that the country had seen was largely the fault of the leadership many of whom have been Muslims. What they wouldn't know is that many of these Muslim leadership are Muslims only in name and their basic frame of reference is Western rather than Islamic. In other words they were acting in spite of and not on behalf of Islam. These arguments could be contested, but what is not contestable is the fact that no one is happy with the union! Perhaps the only way out is to recognize these differences for what they are and group people of similar history, culture and values and give them ample autonomy in a proper Federation or better still confederation. The federating units must be autonomous in matters of Education, from primary to the highest level, Law and police as well as culture, systems that are compatible with their beliefs and world-view and in harmony with their socio-cultural environment. Beside the autonomy it will confer on the units a federal or confederal set up will weaken the powers of the center making it less glamorous for politicians and the lurking army generals. The option must be left for any party or unit that doesn't feel satisfied to opt out. There is nothing sacred about these man made boundaries. This false aura of sanctity conferred on our unity by some ignorant or frivolous minds has neither historical nor factual basis. This is just one of those curtains of sentiments that had clouded our vision, delayed the resolution of the national question and stunted the nation's growth and development. The constitutional conference which took off in July offered us the best opportunity so far, if inadvertently, to address this issue. The conference itself came amidst hues and cries over the union. There were many pre-constitutional seminars by interest groups to articulate their positions. Many including the Muslims came out with communiqués emphasizing the need to allow local autonomy either in a federation or confederation. But traditionally these constitutional conferences have been the forum where new political parties are formed, so every politician tried to find his way there by what ever means possible. The election to the constitutional conference was generally seen as fair but the government reserved for itself a sizable part of the seats for what it called nominated candidates. Many of these nominated candidates, some of whom have actually contested and lost, were people brought in to do governments biding, either as informants or counter weights to some delegates who the government was not happy to have in the conference or even as trouble shooters who could cause confusion at any stage the government deems fit. So we ended up with an assorted group each pursuing a personal agenda leaving only a few worried about the future. But given the antipathy which people had expressed with the present unitary system with its strong center and regimentation, many of us thought the committee handling the structure of government will have no difficulty agreeing with a federal arrangement with strong regions. We were wrong. Though the committee agreed to transfer certain responsibilities of the central government like higher education and health it refused to concede the formations of regions which would have weakened the central governments and reduced the present states to the status of the provinces. In all probability the incoming politicians are not prepared to inherit a week central government and many of them are eyeing the posts of the governor ship of the states which regionalization would render insignificant at the very least. Typical of politicians they preferred their personal agenda to the common good of all. But where will this leave the country? It is clear that a proper federation or confederation with ample autonomy to the constituent units is the only way we can maintain the union. In their characteristic greed, politicians are prepared to risk the only hope for the country to remain together, just to get to power, absolute power. They can't see that this way they may have no country to rule at all. And as usual Nigerians are watching with hands folded. Even more frightening is the prospects of additional states and local governments. With the present thirty states structure and over four hundred local governments about 65% of total revenue goes to recurrent expenditure. With 30% used to service debt, only 5% of state revenue is available for development. Creating more states and local governments will more governors, director generals, chairmen ,et cetera, from where will the money come to support this bureaucratic burden with their glutinous and absurd consumption habit? Yet the politicians at the constitutional conference are going ahead and the rest of the country is allowing them to indulge into this senseless and certainly destructive venture. The real worry is that while everybody agrees that the country is sick, no one seem to care to establish the real and correct diagnosis much less prepare a lasting cure. Instead everybody is busy pressing for the treatment of the symptom that will give him immediate relief. Nigerians ought to know that symptomatic treatment is very dangerous not only because symptoms will continue to relapse but more because the disease will eat on un checked. Muslims in particular need to be worried, for they more than any group need a final resolution of this seemingly intractable crisis. Regionalization, even if not the whole solution, is a vital part of it, for not only will it remedy the marginalization and regimentation of the central government but perhaps more important it will give them ample opportunity to put Islam into their lives. This will enable the Muslims to apply the Sharia on themselves without having to seek the leaf of any other party, enhance their development as a people and give the doubting non-Muslims a chance, for once, to see what Islam is like in practice. One would have expected the Muslims to protest and insist that the regional option must be considered. Alas this protest came from unexpected quarters. It was Dr. Alex Ikueme, the spokesman of the Igbo people of the infamous Biafran secession of the 60s, who protested and even prepared and later presented a minority report when the conference convened early this October. If there will be any regionalization at all, it seems, for now, we have rely on Alex Ekueme. What an irony! Usman Bugaje 14/10/94