Restructuring and foot voting
Restructuring is the new buzzword in the Nigerian political arena, a lot have been written about it and we can also conclude that it means different things to different people. For me, restructuring is all about decentralization and the devolution of powers away from the Unitary government we currently have. The advantage of this proposition is lost in between the age long battle for Nigeria’s resources, some people see it as a way for some regions of the country to claim the “National resources”
I want to introduce a new angle into this debate, one that is hardly talked about when we discuss devolution, the relationship between (true) federalism and voting with your feet. This is something we don’t pay enough attention to. Paying proper attention to this connection strengthens the case for de-centralizing political power to lower levels of government. It should also affect our attitude toward judicial enforcement of federalism-based limits on the power of the central government.
Foot voting is the ability to express political freedom by leaving situations that are not favourable for more beneficial situations. It denotes situations where we can choose what sort of government or policy we want to live under by deciding where we want to live, and, for example, we can do so by choosing among different states. We already do a lot of foot voting in Nigeria, mostly by migrating abroad in search of greener pastures for reasons that are usually economic. Even within Nigeria, some foot voting is happening with the increase in rural-urban migration.
Foot voting is different from ballot-box voting because it is an individual choice as opposed to a joint decision that you make with thousands or millions of other people where your vote is just one of a great many other. In a Nigerian Presidential election, the chance that your vote will have a decisive effect is about one in 30 million. Voting with your feet greatly diminishes this problem. When you decide whether you want to live in Lagos or some other state, or whether you want to live in this city or one of the other cities within the same state, that is a decisive individual choice.
Currently, the inter-state migration that we have going on are for economic reasons as I pointed out earlier, this makes the poorer states in all the regions tribal enclaves as people tend not to migrate to them. One way that restructuring/true federalism can solve this problem is Judicial autonomy for states which will make states grow more organically with their own laws as it corresponds with local customs and their vision as a society or make new ones to attract investment and labour.
With greater devolution of powers to states or Federating units, there will be a “Race to the bottom” between states where they start competing for outside investment. Different governments will deregulate the business environment to attract or retain economic activities in their regions and these decisions will affect the kind of laws they will make both socially and economically. Some states might favour more Private property rights and lower taxes while others will prefer a fixed land tax, the competition will involve states trying to underbid the others in lowering taxes, spending and regulation. This will greatly influence the kind of social laws and regulations that these states will make.
Granted that most of our decisions are economic, the social reasons for foot voting or migration cannot be dismissed, this is why most of the migration from (Southern) Nigeria is to Western countries that we share the same social ideals while our Northern counterparts might prefer middle east countries as the case may be, but burden of having to leave the country entirely is vastly greater than the burden of leaving a state or a locality and this is why the focus is on inter-state or city migration.
Granting state autonomy in making laws subject to a Judicial review (The American standard) will enhance foot voting that is influenced by social reasons as well as economic reasons as different states will look to several social options that might bring in investment and help with unemployment, a state might decide to legalize Marijuana and then tax farmers and users while other states might look to issues like gambling and gaming licenses (Like Las Vegas and Macau), homosexuality laws and even more conservative laws like Sharia and Tobacco control.
The difference that foot voting will in a truly federal context is that inter state or city migration will be done for reasons that are not only economic but social, for instance, one of the main reasons for the success of the movement for gay and lesbian rights over the last twenty to thirty years in America is that policy on most of the issues of concern to them was de-centralized. They could first make gains in those state and localities that were relatively more favourable to them, and then those gains spread elsewhere. If they had had a unitary national policy on same-sex marriage, they would not today have numerous states that have adopted it which eventually culminated in the Supreme court approval.
We can see how this might help with the tribal problem as more people move to a certain place and with more integration and contact with different people from different places, the area becomes less tribalized. A good example is the entertainment hub that is Hollywood. Hollywood could attract movie producers that were moving away from the Atlantic coast because of a new regulation that denied independent movie producers from using movie picture machines. These independent producers were granted licenses in California and today it is one of the most diverse states in America. Restructuring the country might actually help in this case.
The same can be said about cities like Las Vegas, in the Nigerian context, a state like Ebonyi or Osun, lacking the natural resources and a lot of outside investment might decide to open itself up to business by granting waivers or subsidies to gaming and gambling companies with the recent surge of lottery and gambling in the country. It will lead to an influx of tourists and business that will not only improve their economy but make them even more diverse than the tribal enclaves that people currently perceive them to be. Macau successfully built an economy with more GDP Per capita by Purchasing Power parity than any country in the world based on gaming and tourism.
States with a large Agrarian base like Benue will also have to review their land distribution policies and private property rights or risk losing investment and labour(Farmers) via foot voting to other states, this competition will be healthy for ballot box voters and foot voters that are willing to either move into a state because of its laws or leave their current state. There will be trade-offs as some states will prefer to lose some of their tribal identity for Economic growth and it might result in local opposition which will only make political debate and discuss better and richer.
There are some important limitations to be considered and the most obvious one is the moving cost. It is costly to move to a different state and not only monetarily, you might You might have to give up your job. You might lose ties to family or friends. That is a genuine cost, and a real problem that might limit your ability to vote with your feet or may even make it impossible even though moving from one state to another is cheaper than leaving the nation entirely.
Another possible limitation is that the race to the bottom might make states more responsible to the businesses and new tax payers that they are trying to attract to the detriment of the society or the masses especially in cases of environmental pollution. Businesses want to be able to pollute as much as they want. To attract them in, state and local governments will reduce or eliminate environmental regulations. Businesses want to be able to pollute as much as they want. In order to attract them in, state and local governments will reduce or eliminate environmental regulations. This may be good for businesses but it will be detrimental for everyone else, we can readily see how this might play out in the oil producing states without a unitary pollution regulation.
This argument does apply in certain circumstances as state and local governments do not just want to attract businesses. They want to attract individual taxpayers as well. And taxpayers care about things like environmental quality. They are less likely to want to move to an area where the air is difficult to breathe or the water is undrinkable or the environment is generally terrible. Even Businesses may want good environmental conditions as they are more likely to invest in places where the sort of people they wish to hire want to live.
Foot voting in a system of de-centralized federalism can enhance our political freedom by enabling us to make decisive choices about what laws we wish to live under. It can also help ensure that we make those decisions in a better-informed way. if we want to enhance people’s ability to vote with their feet, so as to increase their political freedom and diminish the problem of political ignorance, we should de-centralize political power to lower levels of government. That way, more issues can be decided through foot voting as opposed to ballot-box voting.
Ayobami can be found on twitter @dondekojo
