Few years ago, in a discussion with someone, I mentioned that the vice president of Nigeria recently proposed the abolition of the quota system as a solution for the divisions festering up in the country. The response from my partner was that the vice president must be out of his mind to even think up some a “crazy” idea. He went on further to mention that the marginalisation of certain groups in the country would be evident to the point of extinction if such an idea were ever to be implemented. Towards the end of last year, Nasir Elrufa’i, during a panel discussion he participated in at the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, mentioned that quota system was introduced in order for some people to catch up to others. However, he continued, have we been able to catch up? The answer is either a Yes or a No, which in both cases should beg the question: why should we continue with the Quota system in this country.
When the current administration came into office in 2015, a committee was set up by the ruling party to do their findings and get back to the leadership on the issue of restructuring of the nation. This committee, called the APC committee on true federalism, had at the helm of its affairs the indefatigable Nasir elrufa’i with members made up of reputable people from different life endeavours. At the culmination of their findings, a report was produced in two volumes which can be obtained from the party’s website. Should the recommendations of the committee be implemented, a number of things will be set straight in the affairs of this nation. One issue I found very interesting as a solution to curbing the menace of tribalism and ethnic clashes is the recommendation on the issue of state of origin. A recommendation was made to adopt a more rational identity such as state of residency. Accordingly, if one should be a permanent resident in any state of the federation and is paying one’s taxes, then one can be able to enjoy all the privileges accorded to all others by the government of the state such as student scholarships and job opportunities and should be able to vote and be voted for without having to return to one’s own state of origin. This is currently been done in Kaduna, the state governed by the chairman of the committee that made such recommendation. Today in Kaduna, while applying for either a scholarship or Job opportunities provided by the government, one finds a space for state of residence which will be supported by evidence for taxes payment. This is one way through which we can have a reduction in the tension brewing every now and then between people.
Further, I’ve come across a number of places where people believed to be from certain regions of the country refer to people from other certain regions of this country as beneficiaries of the quota system. The Quota system is when every state of the federation is adequately represented in any federal government apparatus in order that there be national cohesion. Sometimes, a person from state A might score lower than the lowest score in state B, but will be taken in order to fulfil state A quota. People who have called for the abolition of this system explained that it has favoured mediocrity over merit while festering regional tensions across the country. This “lazy” approach at peacekeeping by ensuring that everyone has a piece of the cake, even though not all stomach sizes are equal is faulty, not sustainable and must be abolish in order for any meaningful progress to happen.
Conclusively, we have allowed this rot to get to a point whereby even the president of the nation is only allowed to come from certain region of the country at certain times according to an unwritten constitution. This is even as there are more qualified and better candidates with more antecedents are available in other regions of the country that are marked “ineligible” because of the unconstitutional zoning system. I strongly believe that until and unless we sit and have discussions about these divisions created by root issues such as zoning and quota system, we will only be taking Panadol for our headache that is almost leading to a whole organ-system failure that Tribalism and inter-ethnic clashes are.