IN his broadcast two Mondays ago, President Muhammadu Buhari suggested to self-determination agitators that both the National Assembly and National Council of State were the “legitimate and appropriate bodies for national discourse”. He was careful not to commit the two bodies to the task of restructuring, having limited them to a one-stop roundtable for apparently palliative discourses. Restructuring would presumably be among the topics for that discourse, not the only or major one. Said the president: “The National Assembly and the National Council of State are the legitimate and appropriate bodies for national discourse.” In the preceding paragraph, however, the president had given a small concession to the nation, to wit, “This is not to deny that there are legitimate concerns. Every group has a grievance. But the beauty and attraction of a federation is that it allows different groups to air their grievances and work out a mode of co-existence.”

If the president truly believes that legitimate concerns exist, and every group has a grievance, it is striking that he still takes a rather detached view of the anomalies that buffet the republic. Given the severity of the concerns and grievances, which neither he nor his advisers, nor yet any Nigerian, no matter how conservative, can pretend to be unaware of, it is doubtful that redressing those problems could be done satisfactorily and expertly within a consistent, coherent and expansive visional framework of the two bodies he referenced. Over the years, the National Council of State, apart from being simply and often ineffectually advisory, has no backward or forward linkage with Nigerians. Yes, the constitution provides for it; but it is in fact absolutely nugatory in the face of Nigeria’s imperial presidency that has rendered virtually all institutions, if not every official, both elected and appointed, impotent.

But, as the president puts it, there is appropriately the more legitimate and active National Assembly to moderate discourses and sometimes, too, mediate political disagreements through consensus building and puzzling compromises. The parliament may be a great forum to ventilate opinions and dissect issues, and has sometimes produced political palliatives of exemplary strength and finesse, but the president may have been hyperbolic to argue that it enables the country to work out a mode of co-existence. Beyond helping to display and direct his fierce but misplaced and misdirected anger, the broadcast incorrectly assumes that Nigeria operates a federation, which he theoretically describes as a beauty.

Last week, this column dismissed the speech as full of bombast and rage. There is nothing to suggest that an even more careful reading would not lead a cautious reader and writer to come to the same, if not worse, conclusion. What is, however, more troubling is the fact that the president obviously assumes in his broadcast that the agitation for restructuring is at bottom needless rabble-rousing that really does not require his involvement and leadership. He further assumes that the legislature could produce the searing vision, and the altruism and breathtaking ideals necessary to rework the Nigerian system to make it an enduring one. He is terribly mistaken. Few parliaments anywhere in the world are capable of undertaking that kind of ennobling assignment. So far, the Nigerian legislature has proved absolutely and spectacularly incompetent to do such a job. Perhaps on a fortuitous tomorrow, they might acquire the capacity.

President Buhari, it seems, knows quite clearly that neither the somnolent Council of State nor the constantly scheming and complacent legislature is up to the task. What is even clearer is that, from the broadcast, the president snickered at the concept of restructuring. He thinks, as indeed many others do, particularly across the Niger River, that what is required is slow and long-term tinkering. If that were to be the case, the president is right to insinuate that the legislature could carry out that responsibility, for that slothful pace is suited to their inexpert and off-putting style. Overall, the president’s speech has given the country a final indication of his unusual preferences. He is not interested in restructuring, and he sees everyone who agitates for it with a gravity and urgency that discomfit the polity to be a rabble-rouser deserving of the government’s strong-arm response.

If the country would downplay the confusion over the definition of restructuring, as they really should, the question will boil down to who between the legislature or executive can best champion the great task. Since it is indisputable that the question of restructuring involves the country’s superstructure, the foundation upon which the country must be built so that no political or economic tremor, no matter how high on the Richter scale, could bring it down, it seems also settled that the Nigerian legislature cannot perform that task. Consequently, the country needs a visionary with a depth enriched by history to find the right tectonic plates and soil structure upon which to build a vibrant Nigeria. The visionary can of course not do it alone; but he must produce the skeleton, drive the debate and find the right compromises.

President Buhari seems inappropriate for the task, given his well-known limitations, but it does not diminish the task, nor does it rule him out as a man of noble conviction with the gift of seeing into the future. If he can manage to see into the future, and if he can finally be persuaded to accept that the present structure is inadequate for both the present and the future, he will appreciate the urgency and onerousness of the task. More, he will realize how inadequate the institutional bodies, which he thought could carry out the task, are. It is only then he would place in the proper perspective the agitations in the Southeast against which he is needlessly emotionally wrought-up, and the cries of restructuring in the Southwest against which he stands ungainly immovable.

But whether he agrees or not, and whether his aides and advisers coax him or not, the unshakable fact is that, at the moment, it is only the executive that can drive the restructuring effort. If the president fails to drive it peacefully, he must be prepared to stand against it militarily. The first option holds immense benefits for his image, legacy and the polity. Unfortunately, he cannot hope to win should he embrace the second option. The future is against both his perception of restructuring and any military effort should he try one. No one must fool himself to think that that Nigeria is a federation, let alone a workable one. It is not. Indeed, it runs an ugly and asphyxiating form of unitary government.

The problem with restructuring is not its definition. Definitional confusion is simply a ploy by political jesters to defeat the purpose of restructuring. The first step is to agree that the present structure is both inadequate and inoperable in Nigeria, given the country’s rich and variegated history. Should it then not worry the country’s leaders that the search for a fitting and workable structure has not abated since the First Republic? Has Nigeria not tried two systems of government and at least three constitutions, some of them so reworked that they became futile? Has the country not witnessed a civil war, sailed near the wind of many violent upheavals on countless occasions, one of which even metamorphosed into a full-scale Boko Haram rebellion? Just what total breakdown of law and order must it take for Nigerian leaders to reach deep into their spirits to find justification for a new structure?

Both France and Italy were, just before and after World War II, battling serious constitutional gridlocks. France produced the far-sighted Charles de Gaulle who recognised the weakness of the Fourth Republic constitution and fought tooth and nail to produce a new, workable one, even once relinquishing power to drive home the point that if France did not restructure and produce a new constitution, it could not hope to grow into a strong and confident nation in the future. Because of its success, France has remained a stable democracy; while Italy has continued to run a game of thrones. Admittedly, de Gaulle was a deep thinker, author and military theorist, and he could engender both the discipline and intellect needed to rework the French system and produce the Fifth Republic constitution. So far, President Buhari has been unable to find the patience and open-mindedness these times call for.

No Nigerian president at this historic juncture should fail to study other constitutions and acquaint himself with other nation-building efforts. The stability of a country and the progress it makes depend on its structure and grundnorm. President Buhari and his aides, apart from familiarising themselves with the French experience, must also find time to study the politics and efforts that underpinned Japan’s post-war constitution. The president would like to recall that just as Gen. de Gaulle virtually authored the French Fifth Republic constitution, another general, Douglas MacArthur, virtually drew up the skeletal framework of the Japanese post-war constitution, which, once fleshed out, has remained remarkably prescient. It takes brilliance, discipline, vision, altruism and far-sightedness to judge the moment, recognise the problem, and produce the confidence and boldness needed to redirect a country. If President Buhari declines the job, and equates the cult-like following he receives in some parts of the country with approval of his policies and methods, he will soon find that the country will move on without him. For the issues confronting the country are urgent and deep-seated.

In 2015, this column campaigned for the then candidate Buhari. It went on to foretell his victory, for it was inconceivable that the undisciplined Goodluck Jonathan should win a second term to pilot the affairs of Nigeria with the reckless abandon that became his trademark. This column will hazard another informed guess: If President Buhari should continue to set himself against the effort to remake the country, the country will move on without him, remake itself, and find a formula or formulae by which the peoples and religions of this country can co-exist. No one should indulge in the fantasy of thinking that Nigeria is a federation, or that the equally undisciplined National Assembly can inspire and author that noble future of the country’s dream. It won’t happen, despite the many constitutional amendments on stream.