NIGERIA NEEDS A NEW CONSTITUTION

Nigeria is made up of roughly six or seven regions that can be clearly identified as potential nation states. Nigeria has forced them into the tiny shoes of ethnic groups and is grinding them into atomic units under a unitary constitution. I no longer entertain any doubt that it cannot work. It shouldn't work.
The founders of Nigeria who negotiated independence in 1957 understood the relationship very well and choose a ln arrangement that made the Nigerian federation loose enough to allow these nation states to freely express themselves as nations within the Nigerian union. They controlled their natural resources and maintained their embassies abroad.
Those who ruined the original Nigeria are the dictators who seized power by force of arms and changed that constitution to this unitary arrangement that has not only constantly left us heated up, but has also meant a consistently declining productivity and decaying standards of living. This is the question Nigeria has to address today.
I have a savvy elderly friend, a Yoruba like me who I respect a lot and whom could be reading this. His reaction, each time we talk about it, he will say something to the effect that "How is the Southwest going to cope? We depend more or less on oil from the Niger Delta and we have fallen behind so steeply in trade. Our human resources have also lost muscle tone".
Yes, that argument exists but I am still firmly persuaded that we should face it, however pressing our need for dependence might seem. Nobody should rely on freebies long-term especially at the expense of peace and development. The Nigeria of today spends possibly 70% of its resources servicing invisible structures and arrangements that helps to keep the nation under this unitary arrangement. The result is very clear and it isn't acceptable either. We need far-reaching constitutional reforms that allows each region to police itself and express itself more fully and thereby realize its potential and power its own development.