AN ASSESSMENT OF THE PAN NIGER DELTA FORUM (PANDEF): ARGUMENTS FOR RESTRUCTURING THE NIGERIAN FEDERATION

Abstract

Federalism is a political system by which two or additional governments have mutual power over the same geographical territory have been in practice around the world for years. Good numbers of democratic states in the globe are governed by a federal system and these countries include: Germany, Brazil, the U.S., Canada, Australia, India and Argentina. Still the EU has a federal structure, in spite of the fact that one of the very few instances where the members of the “upper chambers” in the federal system are not chosen or elected, but are delegates of the particular governments. Federalism in Nigeria since existence is structured alongside with the nation constitution but copied from the US pattern of federation. The study looked at the role played by Pan Niger Delta Forum towards a restructured Nigeria for even development. Because restructuring is the process of having independent, self-sustaining units in a federation which helps to provide development at all levels of government. The paper frames it argument from the structural-functionalism theory. The study adopted the secondary means of data collection while the descriptive analysis was utilized and the purposive technique was adopted for effective and efficient research findings. Findings shows that restructuring Nigeria's political system has not been fully acknowledged and followed up by the current
government for its implementation and it has continue to creates the long agitation of marginalization of some parts of the country. Also, it has shown perceived hatred between the south-south region and Nigerian government in many fora. The study
revealed that a restructured Nigeria will give autonomy to each region and this will help to survive and bring sustainable development. The study recommends the following measures for a restructured Nigeria political system: there should be immediate implementation of the 2014 national conference and the APC committee on restructuring and the true federalism reports; federal government should urgently consider the key points recommended by the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) on the South-South position on the restructuring of Nigeria.