Two-time Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Kanu Agabi (SAN), has voiced concerns over the persistent lack of national unity in Nigeria, attributing it to deep-rooted divisive tendencies and leadership failures. Speaking on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande during the Sunday edition on Channels Television, Agabi reflected on the structural and governance issues that have hindered Nigeria’s development.
The former Attorney-General lamented that Nigeria’s adoption of the presidential system of government has failed to achieve its primary goal of uniting the nation. He emphasized that the presidential system was initially chosen with the intent of centralizing power to create cohesion in a country riddled with divisions.
“We chose the [Presidential] system because that is the system a nation chooses when vesting all powers in one person, so that he can use all that power to bind the nation together,” Agabi explained. He elaborated that the system, intended to act as a “dictatorship under the Constitution,” was meant to allow the president to use his wide-reaching powers to forge unity. “But this has largely not been the case since the nation reverted to the presidential system in 1979,” Agabi observed.
Agabi traced Nigeria’s disunity to the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War and the subsequent creation of 12 states in 1967, which dramatically increased the demand for competent administrators. According to him, the rush to fill these new positions was met by appointing unqualified people, a practice that became more entrenched over time.
“The creation of 12 states [in 1967] gave rise to tremendous manpower needs. These needs were met by the appointment of unqualified people. This practice came with the war and with the creation of new states,” Agabi said, emphasizing how these challenges compounded the country’s political experiments. He noted that from independence in 1960, Nigeria has swung from parliamentary democracy to military rule and then to the current presidential system, all of which have been hampered by poor leadership.
“At the time of the outbreak of the war, the nation was already having manpower problems. The war compounded those problems,” Agabi noted, adding that the expansion to 36 states and 774 local government areas multiplied the need for governance capacity. “Each time we multiplied the manpower needs of the nation, we met those needs by appointing unqualified people to high offices.”
According to Agabi, the appointment of unqualified individuals has led to widespread inefficiency across all levels of government, deepening Nigeria’s leadership crisis. “The appointment of unqualified people has made us inefficient. This has given rise to the leadership problems we see today,” he remarked. He explained that while many call for legal reforms to address the country’s governance woes, the real issue lies with the individuals tasked with implementing these laws.
“The problem is not with the laws. We are constantly making new laws and amending existing ones. But laws, however good, don’t enforce themselves. We need good people to enforce them,” Agabi stressed. He called for reforms that focus on self-correction and personal accountability, noting, “We should correct ourselves. We should try to do the correct things. We shouldn’t be waiting to be corrected.”
Agabi also expressed concern over Nigeria’s fundamental misunderstanding of democracy. He criticized the nation for moving from dictatorship to an extreme form of liberalism, where many citizens mistakenly believe that democracy means the absence of rules. “We moved from dictatorship to the extreme of liberalism. People felt that we were now free, and this is where we misunderstood democracy,” Agabi said.
He pointed out the dangerous misconception that “good and bad are equal” in political practice, which has led to a culture where political parties disregard internal democratic processes. “The political parties are not democratic institutions. They don’t comply with their own rules. Primaries are rigged at the party level,” Agabi lamented, calling attention to how this undermines the foundation of the country’s democratic system.
