Certificate of Residence?
Ref.
“Vice-president Osinbajo Proposes
Replacing Certificate of Origin with Certificate of Residence”
On the 18th of April 2023, I read in the news that
“Vice-president Yemi Osinbajo Proposes Replacing Certificate of Origin with
Certificate of Residence” I hope this is not a fake news, however, genuine or
not it surely attracted my interest and I therefore wish to pen my view on the
matter.
Though I disagree with this proposition but what outrightly pop up
in my mind is that WHY IS IT THAT NIGERIAN PRESENT, VICE PRESIDENT AND PAST
LEADERS ONLY BEGIN TO KNOW HOW TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS AFTER THEY ARE OUT OF ASO
ROCK OR ABOUT TO BE?
Remember that since OBJ, GEJ, and the likes left office they have suddenly
come to their senses and are now good and wise men, having the solutions to our
problems, they are now even able to be anointing supposed good presidential
candidate or would-be leaders for us, who they are recommending in their almighty
wisdom to have possesses the prerequisite skill-set to solve our numerous
problems.
Also, I have started to notice same scenario in President Muhammadu Buhari.
The man who used to Belong To Everybody yet Belong To Nobody, the man who is
less concerned that his appointments defiled the National Character is now remorseful
and asking to be forgiven by anyone he had offended.
Few days to the end of Buhari's tenor, the president have suddenly
woken up and perfected the act of good governance, he now knows what must be
done to fight corruption and insurgence, he is now quick to sign good Acts into
law, he is gushing out good policies, upgrading the status some deserving Departments
of government, increasing workers’ salaries, etc. We needed a Naira redesigning,
it will reduce corruption, it will limit kidnapping, it will make the financial
operations of Boko-haram, Fulani bandit herdsmen, iswap, etc to be vulnerable
since the New Notes will contain security markers traceable by agency of
government, the government is just realizing this after eight years.
Oh no! we have not conducted census for a while, let’s do it now,
Electricity Bill needs fixing so also is that of Rail, how about the almighty
subsidy removal. So many wonderful ideas on how to move the Nigerian Nation
forward is suddenly being discovered by Mr. President just few days to Tinubu’s
Inauguration ceremony. Na wa o!!!
So, when I read the Vice President Osinbajo’s proposal for a
replacement of Certificate of State of Origin with that of “Residence” forgive
me if you heard me muttering, “Why be say na now you just de remember? when
your terms don finish?” Though the above proposal is coming too late in the
regime and at first glance one is tempted to think that it is a good one.
However on a second and deeper thought, certain questions starts to
pop up which in my view were not being addressed by the proposal and to which I
hope we must provide answers, one of
which I have previously mentioned above.
Which is; why is it that when government officials have finished or
about to complete their terms in office, they suddenly began to have wonderful
solutions to Nigeria problems which they strongly suggest that the next government
must implement, thereby setting up the masses for a higher expectation from the
incumbent than was expected of during their government, and by the same token
sets up the incumbent administration for perceived failure in the mind of the
people and succeeded in creating problems for the in coming?
This is in a way setting a higher goal for the incoming government above
their own such that when this goals are not being met the masses will be
disappointed and thereby creating a feeling that the previous government is way
better than the present, this is probably while since 1960 till date we have
had sixteen (16) successive governments up to Buhari, both Autocratic and
Democratic and in all cases our past government has always been perceived as a better
government than the present because every past leader suddenly knows what the
present leader must do to fix Nigeria though they were clue less in their time and
we have to pray them out.
Having ended your term (s) without
the ability to fix the problems you are now pontificating, pretending that you
are a solution provider and an ordinary innocent member of our society, oga you
are still and will ever be a big part of our problem so long as those problems remains.
My advice to all past Vice-presidents and President, leaders and so
on is that after your service at the first and second highest office in land,
please any opinion, policy ideas and solutions you have should be channeled
through the backdoor to the incumbent president or soon to be present and not through
the public (at least not at first instance). Allow the incumbent to choose to
accept or reject your ideas, otherwise you can lobby him or her for adoption,
if it is that important to you, but don’t present it as though you are doing if
for us because you love us , you have all your years in office to demonstrate
your love for the people and we have seen it all. So, stop pretending.
Nigerians should always see these so
call past leaders for what they are “power mongers” whatever they are saying
or doing now which they have not done in their administration is just to get
enough attentions of the incumbent so as not to be excluded from the National Cake
of Corruption limited.
Your knowledge and status are a highly classified one and your
thoughts should be classified also any thought you put out in the public domain
can become a problem for the succeeding government. Try harder to relate with
the incumbent, at least you know how hard it was to reach you when you were in
power, during your tenure, get your ideas through to the next government
otherwise it should be in your memoirs and books but be humble enough to also let
your readers in on why you were unable to implement it in your time. You Sir
are part of Nigerian governing elitist class and will for ever remain so, let
us not pretend that you guys are now a common citizen. I beg!
Second, if the VP's proposal where to be adopted:
1.
What happens to the “State of
Origin” status of the holder, is the state of origin status rendered null and
void by the newly acquired “Residence” status?
If so, can the certificate of residency holder
lay claim to his inheritance (land, Chieftaincy title) from his or her state of
origin / birth?
If not (meaning, he or she can still lay a
valid claim to those entitlement from place of origin) then both certificates
will have to be somehow relevant, which will make me conclude that the
suggested certification is just a matter of semantic, a duplication, more of a
problem than solution given our bureaucratic bottleneck / Red-Tape, problem of
getting things done in our government offices, it is therefore unnecessary.
A resent instance is Your Excellency VP Osinbajos's
decision to shift his APC party membership to Ogun State from Lagos, so as to
be able to participate (unhindered) in the party’s Presidential primary having
been appointed as Commissioner in Lagos State and elected VP of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria all on APC Lagos Membership tickets, would this have been possible with
your proposal sir? If “No”, is it a good thing or a bad thing? if “yes” then why
this proposition?
2.
What happens where one’s State
or Local Government of residence decided not to approve ones residency
application and or delay it’s approval due to either red tape and bureaucratic
bottleneck, inefficiency in the civil service operations or even deliberately
for whatever motive. Is it not possible that a State will want to control her citizens
for good or for bad? Is it not probable that the Certification will be highly
monetized. Even the so call state of origin certificate is monetized but for
the fact that it is the citizen’s natural birth right, the Local Government are
obligated to issue it to their citizens with minimal charges presently. In my view,
where our natural entitlement is jettisoned for an artificial certification Nigerians
will surely be at the mercy of the local government of our residence … and thus”
double wahala for dead body” will ensue as prophesied by Fela Anikulapo Kuti,
the Abami ẹda of blessed memory.
3.
Can the proposed certificate of
residency be inherited by the holder’s children? Where “yes”, if the citizen
who had inherited the parent’s residency now decided to reside in another state
due to say, job location, marriage etc, will such person not needed to obtain
another residency or will he / she retain the inherited residency… to prevent
multiple certification? If the certificate is not transferable by inheritance what
happens when several siblings of one parent, for some reason resides in
different states from each other and also away from their parent’s state of
residency, how will the parents’ estate be administered, who administered the
estate among the siblings and what is the position of the proposed residency
law to such scenarios? I am happy, the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is a legal
luminary cum juggernaut and he is being quoted to have made this proposition.
Third, from where I stand, this proposed certification seeks to over
empowered the relevant arm of government to be able to manipulate the
population for the state's selfish gain beyond what is currently going on, be
it for disenfranchisement and disempowerment, etc. The history of our voter’s
registration and population census mutilations is a reference point.
Fourth, Sir I know you to be a man of God and that your intentions
are pure, I know you seek to provide solution to the tribalism problem in our
nation. But in my view, to legislate away our Nigerianess is a recipe for war. Africa
is not Europe or America nor even Asia, these continents are largely mono
cultural with little or no tribal diversities. But Africa especially Nigeria is
unusually multi cultural with very high ethnic diversities even within a small
geographical space which gives credence to Eve Edna Ogholi’s song “every
kilometer is another language” in Nigeria.
What I think we need is to embrace who we are and inculcate such in
our governance and administrative processes. Certificate of residency or not Nigerian’s
sentimental attachment to their home land and ethnic sub-group can never be
legislated away and whenever a supposed visitors or migrants decided to usurp or
erode the power or influence of the supposedly indigenous people of a locality
in Nigeria by hostile takeover or subtle / indirect political infusion, war
will most assuredly ensue unless we are not ready to accept the reality of our
situation in which case, we should keep kidding ourselves.
The above scenario will play out almost all the time even between
the ethnic nations in same region (SW, NW, NC, NE, SS or SE) unless the victims
are unaware of such move or are defeated in the resultant battle. Any student
of our Nigeria political history would remember the Awolowo (AG) and Azikiwe
(NCNC) imbroglio in the Western House, Lagos of 1951 which was reenacted in
February 25, 2023 about 72years later, and which will yet be repeated if all we
do is providing cosmetics solutions to our deep routed problems.
Other closet cases in point are the Ife, Modakeke war or Ikale, Ondo
war in the modern era, also the Kiriji war of July 30, 1877– March 14, 1893 between
the Oyo’s and the Ekiti Parapọ̀'s all in the south west, or are these no longer
documented in our history books for references after all una get mind to remove
History from our Second School Curriculum.
Most of our problem today as a nation would not be there if not for the
overbearing power at the center, if we therefore devolve power to the regions
in a true federalism system, Nigeria will do better and most of these problem's
will only be domiciled and manifest at the regions and thereby easier to be resolve.
There will be healthy competition and rivalry among regions and State,
after all we have the pre 1966 Nigeria Governance system to reference.
In that true federalism system, each region will be autonomous to a
large extent.
i.
Nigerian residence of those
regions should be free first-class citizens of Nigeria irrespective of region
of residency.
ii.
They are free to maintain their
link to their state or region of origin to any level without restrictions.
iii.
They do not need any
certificate of residency to relocate or reside in any part of Nigeria
iv.
They can aspire to any
political office in any region they choose to reside so long as they are not
being imposed from other region.
v.
Every resident must abide by
the laws, rules and regulations of the region of his residence irrespective of
his or her ethnic nationality.
vi.
No region, no matter how rich
or powerful should be allowed to influence or interfere in the politics of
neighboring region.
vii.
No region should treat any
Nigeria as a second class or be discriminated against, residency certificate or
not.
viii.
Standard and prescribed
relationship agreement / arrangements and or Treaty between regions and multi regional citizenship
and the Nigerian State should be legislated, highlighting the responsibilities
of all citizens, Kingdoms / Chiefdoms, local government, state government,
Regional Government and the Nigerian State to one another. This should be
previewed annually for any breach by the parties and subject to review as
occasion demand overtime for improvement as agreed by all parties.
But for now, we do not need citizenship, residency certificate or any
national certificate for that matter, all we need is good and credible
leadership and governance. With better management and effective legal framework
our present system can be 50% improved.
If we need anything it will be “Restructuring” along a true
federalism, fiscal federation and a return to an improved Regional Autonomy,
with full citizen protection, guaranteed right and privileges for all Nigerians
irrespective of state and region of residence and or origin, as afore mentioned.
This is as I view the matter,
God bless Nigeria
Oluwatoyin A. Enisan
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