Time is nigh
for Nigerians to take a bipartisan stand and make bold to express their profound dismay with this crass and impolitic
posturing, and all the annoying moral superiority bandied around by some eminent persons on the whys and wherefores
of Obasanjo's National Political Reform Conference. The inalienable
right of Nigerians to freely assemble and express contrary opinions during periods of great national debates is
not served when carried too far to the point of filibustering a critical moment in the country's search for solutions.
In pluralist and free polities like ours with a reputation for vibrant national debates, opinions can sometimes
range from the very absurd and bizarre to the very politically sensible. It is more like a political prize fight
without the violence and blood letting, but with plenty of the laxity of rules. A largely harmless national pastime
which comes with such spirited exhibition of political machismo that at the end, leaves Nigerians spent and feeling
better about letting it all out. Prize fight or not does not however excuse our very eminent persons whose opinions
count for much to bare their knuckles and engage a sitting President in a take-no-prisoners contest over peripheral
matters of procedure and settled issues of Nigerian political customs and traditions.
A plain reading of the hard line stance taken by PRONACO and its ilk suggests a
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surprising lack of awareness of the settled rules of engagement when a national conference is convened during a
democracy by a competent President. It is a universal rule of the thumb that you cannot force your own brand of
a conference or a particular set of nominees on a de jure President.
You can only recommend and lobby but the President is free to embrace or ignore your recommendations. The suggestion
that Obasanjo must accede to the conference agenda canvassed by
groups like PRONACO is tantamount to asking the President to cede control
of the NPRC and Nigeria's political future to a hardly organized
political opposition, the ranks of which are probably infiltrated by those the President believes to be harboring
separatist and predatory designs on the federation of Nigeria as we know it. The President's ramrod maneuvers to
stick to his own guns can find support not only in Nigeria but in other societies that have matured in their practice
of the system of representative government as we presently have in Nigeria. Outside of the United States Congress,
no other assemblage of unelected persons or groups in America, however morally superior, can gather and overawe
the President of the United States to convene a "sovereign conference" of racial nationalities - Blacks,
Caucasians, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders, Eskimos, Braves, Indians, and perhaps, even their multiracial subgroups.
For what purpose? Is it to decide the future of America or some ambiguous
notions of ethnic/racial autonomy or redistribution of resources and political office along those lines? It is
just not right, and if you dare suggest such, you may be branded the quintessential wacko and mercilessly caricatured
on the circuits of America's late night television comedy shows.
Instead, America uses her constituted legislative and
judicial organs and sometimes through sheer executive actions, to make political concessions to minorities on a
scale that can hardly pass muster in a politically less conversant court of law. And outside of the constituted
political organs, the President of the United States can see fit to appoint a political or economic reform committees
(read: conferences) to brainstorm an issue and produce a blueprint that will only become public policy when passed
into law by an act of United States Congress. The distinguishing feature of this method, which Nigerians can emulate,
is the orderly and phased-in environment it brings to bear on America's bonafide struggles to tackle its own political and social injustices. One of such is redistricting and gerrymandering
through which Blacks have gained more seats in Congress than the natural political
equation would have allowed. Nigeria can borrow a leaf by looking to our representative process epitomized by the
National Assembly and its state and local counterparts, as well as to the courts and executive branches, howesover presently underdeveloped and hardly adequate to dispense
with similar political, social and economic injustices. Failing this, the President of Nigeria, not PRONACO or even the National Assembly, has the exclusive constitutional
right to call a national conference on any issue the President determines to be germane to federal policy making,
including the political restructuring of Nigeria.
The number of seats reserved to the Boers in the South
African national legislature is greater than the proportion of their population to that of Blacks. But that was
done on the good graces of a majority population that knew that such "undemocratic" and unique measures
are necessary for the survival of the whole. In our Nigeria, it is a truism as well as politically correct to assert
that no ethnic group is greater than the other, but if you were to excise the Niger Delta and parts of South East
from the rest of the federation, what is left of Nigeria might begin to queue up alongside Somalia for food rations
and charity to keep body and soul together. In other words, our GDP will plummet dangerously to the extent of threatening
national security for what remains of Nigeria. Therefore, if Niger Delta or the South East is demanding some special
concessions, we need to take a serious view of it and consider whether there is a unique fiscal or political status
that can be arranged without endangering our collective security as a federation. Obasanjo's brand of a conference may as yet prove to be the answer, but a "sovereign" conference
is hardly necessary in dealing with a matter that Nigerian superior courts have held to be actionable; and failing
that, through an orderly process of political horse trading. To be sure, endlessly pillorying Obasanjo in the hope that he will turn chicken and permit some
unreasonable demands to hold sway won't cut it. Even in Britain with its famously wheeling-dealing parliamentary
system, you cannot even contemplate a situation where a liberal Tony Blair suddenly turns partisan turncoat by
acceding to a conservative manifesto forced on him by estranged Tories wallowing for years in political wilderness.
And despite the relative level of
political maturity and tolerance in that country, Blair will
be crazy to kowtow to the separatist demands of the Irish Republican Army just for the asking, talk less of permitting
them and their Gerry Adams the leave and space to dictate national public policy. But he still manages to make
concessions to Sein Fenn without
compromising national security.
Cooperating with Obasanjo does not necessarily mean that bonafide
but unelected citizens cannot raise a contrary voice on matters fundamental to our national governance or reformation.
They must be assured the unfettered political space to freely enunciate any new ideas that may redefine the coexistence
of our varying nationalities within a pluralist, strong and secure Nigeria. It is good for Nigeria that lively
opposition is thriving, but while we at it, we must remember that aside from political conferences, there are myriad
orderly and procedurally compliant ways of forcing changes from the outside, and one of such is to get your federal
legislator to introduce a bill for a constitutional amendment or other form of vital legislation before the National
Assembly; or even look to the judicial branch. A case in point is the judicial and legislative means deployed to
resolve the "derivation" set asides and its close relative, the onshore/offshore dichotomy. It did not
require a "sovereign" conference that would have been hamstrung by the vast majorities from the North
which have gone on record to note their vigorous objections and discomfort with the Southern position on resource
control. On the contrary, it took the right mix of covert political maneuverings among the executive branches,
an activist Supreme Court, and a surprisingly conversant National Assembly to arrive at a solution that even found
grudging support in the restive far North. Conversely, it is a generally accepted strategy that you can jettison
decorum, settled procedures, and political customs and take extreme measures to overawe a dictator without a National
Assembly, and whose reign is tottering on the slippery slopes of the unconstitutionality of his coming. "Radio
Kudirat" was the height of this, all to the admiration
and support of Nigerians and the international community. But even at that, it would have been politically dumb
and illogical to boycott a conference merely because it was convened by an illegal government such as the Abacha regime of the days gone. Why? Because participation
is your best legal opportunity yet of engaging the dictator on his own turf with any fighting chance of presenting
ideas that might force some concessions from him.
Did we not gratefully,
even if grudgingly cooperate and participate in all the
conferences convened by all the "illegal" regimes that have been our lot since amalgamation, beginning
with the many by the colonial masters and culminating in the most recent by Abacha's regime, arguably the "mother" of all illegal administrations. Had we boycotted Britain's
invitations to the conferences that saw to our independence, they might have as well relinquished reigns of government
to the Martians in frustration and left us to own devices to deal with the anarchy that was sure to follow. Ditto for apartheid-era South Africa
if ANC and Mandela had rebuffed De Klerk's overtures,
or attempted to impose their will, Marxist manifesto or ideologues on a politically insecure De Klerk. Yet, we would as soon scoff at a conference convened at the sufferance of a President with a democratic
mandate to govern. It rankles as much as it frays raw nerves that men of renown who should know better have banded
together to deny Mr. President his rare moment of history, and our well earned quietude in democratizing a complex
country like Nigeria after all the traumas perpetrated by our reluctant dalliance with military regimes. It is
good enough to debate issues of material fact but bad to throw up a national ruckus and a frivolous case and controversy
on collateral matters with such reckless abandon that can potentially portend some unintended peril for the entire
polity. It is asking too much to expect Obasanjo
to sideline himself in a process that may well engender a new era of a serious and sustainable political realignment
of Nigeria. And that he even appointed some of his avowed political opponents, who are intent on embarrassing the
President by refusing to serve, is pressing their luck too far, and smacks of an inept attempt to court a national
gridlock simply because of a conference the President is not even constitutionally mandated to convene. Any rookie
pundit barely familiar with the history of the beginnings of organized governments of our generation is wont to
agree that no sane chief executive, whether de facto or de jure, will
stand by and permit a few unelected citizens, some with fine ideas but a load of animus to exclude him, his favorite
conferees or his agenda from a conference primarily convened to decide the future of his country.
Some have even cited the less than free and fair election
that saw Mr. President to power to press their hackneyed case that Obasanjo
lacks the requisite legitimacy or clear mandate to convene the conference. Who then possesses that authority? Is
it the hastily formed but largely mainstream PRONACO,
or the numerous off the wall fringe groups? It is writ large from their serious mien and self-righteous inflections
that they really believe that the President's purportedly questionable electoral victory can easily justify a position
that practically amounts to convening a constituent assembly or a parallel national assembly that can go over the
heads of all constituted organs of government including the present National Assembly. Quite frankly, this is troubling.
The whole shenanigan as well as the spirited battle over semantics and nuances like "sovereign" and "conference
of nationalities" tempts the very sad conclusion that rather than contribute meaningfully to the political
process, the postulates coming from some our leaders have this peevish tendency of "dumbing" down the intellectual content of the ongoing national debate. What nationalities; how many
nationalities, nobody even really knows for sure. Or is it that a small tribe numbering in handfuls like the one
recently discovered in the remote reaches of northern Nigeria is less of a nationality than any of the Big Three,
or better still, equal to them in terms of sovereignty?
From what I hear, I doubt that anybody who dares to
forage into their reclusive kingdom to lobby their participation will come out with his vital members still intact
unless the President's policemen were handy to save the day. The case for the conference to be sovereign pointedly
ignores the stark constitutional reality that Obasanjo
alone is the President of Nigeria as a matter of law and fact. This fact, without more, is leverage enough to make
sham of any opposite confab and render its deliberations nugatory from the get go, if it is not considered by many
as a threat to national security. It is therefore a no contest that compared to PRONACO and its genre, Obasanjo
has the exclusive constitutional prerogative to call a conference that will have any hope of passing legal or legislative
muster within the laws and political conventions of Nigeria. It is pertinent to note that the international community
has collectively deadpanned on the call for the conference to be "sovereign", and unlike the Abacha era, rebuffed all indirect pleas for even a tacit
approbation or goading of that view. This reticence may have more to do with their anxiety over whether this whole
debate may be carried too far to the detriment of Sub-Saharan regional stability than with any sense that the present
system in Nigeria is fair and just.
For good measure and I suspect, sheer political theater,
others have continued to rail against the process of nomination of the conferees, and will rather the whole thing
be disbanded instead of weighing in with their strong personalities to see whether they can make the list and deal
with the President from the inside. Some who made the list despite the darts they threw at the President are still
sitting on the fence and threatening a boycott, the certain effect of which is that the Conference will proceed
without the benefit of their personage and the gamut of the alternative ideas they fancied to carry superior moral
force. Why is it so hard to come to grips with the cold fact that since the conference is a political battle for
the future of Nigeria, the President as a citizen in good standing has a concurrent right to project his own views
as vigorously as he sees fit. Others can do likewise but everyone else needs to permit the President some space
and wiggle room to set the ball rolling. You never know, but the whole thing might blossom and slide out of his
enormous capacity for micro management but still produce a popular result that roughly agrees with his political
philosophy and agenda in its impact, if not in semantic uniformity. Bill Clinton would have been nuts to invite
the extreme right wing and neoconservatives to his "conference" on health care reforms, which he called
a "committee" because that is the word Americans love to use to categorize their political or public
policy dialogues. The man even waxed unashamedly nepotistic by appointing his own spouse, the indefatigable and
much despised Hilary as the chairperson for what was then known as the Health Care Reform Committee.
The subsequent political storm over the Committee was
not over the nominations of the ranks of its membership or nuances but with the substance and reach of its recommendations.
In other words, nobody, including the ultra-right wing opposition disputed Clinton's legal or constitutional right
to convene the committee and nominate members to it. And you can bet your Naira on it that he seemingly rubbed
in his prerogatives by stacking the ranks with card-carrying members of America's ultra-left liberal establishment.
The absence of too much storm over the political leanings of the nominees was primarily due to the fact that the
opposition understood that the committee was Clinton's temporal means of delivering his campaign promise of assuring
some form of universal health care system for the American people. They instead waited to unsheathe their political
sword at the right place, and that place is the United States Congress. That the recommendations ultimately failed
to pass is one of the fallouts and beauties of the presidential system of government which requires a federal legislation
before such recommendations become state policy. Therefore, despite the shortcomings of our own, we must play by
the rules of the game by looking to our National Assembly, howsoever docile, as the proper venue and battle ground
for testing the acceptability of any new ideas coming from Obasanjo's
conference. We elected the National Assembly to make laws for us, and in the absence of any superior tier, we must
learn to accept the reality that it is the sole national legislative body for now.
Alternatively, if you are credible and sufficiently
persuasive to get the President to see your point outside of the conference halls, you might as well consider it
passed because, as every one agrees, the man enjoys enormous powers and clout with all organs and tiers of government
which has enabled him to accomplish some fundamental restructurings that Nigerians never even contemplated possible
a few years ago. And Obasanjo is not even the originator of some of the agenda he
has so far implemented to date. And the list is legion. Restructuring of the Nigerian armed forces to reduce the
capacity of a single region or ethnic block to politically disadvantage others was first muted by Ojukwu in relatively
good times before Gowon's flip flop emboldened a politically courageous Ojukwu
to demand more at Aburi. Our present experiment with privatization and direct
foreign investment was initially articulated by IBB's assemblage
of the eminent economists and industrialists who labored to write new economic blueprints for Nigeria. Derivation
set asides and limited resource control in their present form for the Niger Delta are the main reasons Adaka Boro rose
up in arms against the federal government; and more than three decades later, his dreams, though watered down,
came to pass. And the idea of due process is a political mantra of informed Nigerians in Diaspora, especially those
in the United States, who have seen its many budgetary advantages and the sanity it brought to American public
spending. It was Ralph Uwazuruike, the MASSOB maestro
and Nigeria's poster child for separatism who presented the best case yet for restoration of some of the military
benefits denied to Nigerian soldiers who fought for Biafra, and then some, including the impressive statistical
means he deployed to prove a pattern of redlining Ibos from certain federal high offices. Yet Obasanjo, in a benign plagiarism of high ideals propagated
by others, has implemented them all, lock, stock, and barrel without minding that a great deal of these concepts
originated from some elements of the extreme wings of the opposition that he detests. Looking at the foregoing
trend, one can hazard a guess that this conference might be Obasanjo's
own unique way of sounding out Nigerians of grand ideas for new programs to implement before he becomes a lame
duck.
Whether you agree or disagree with his overbearing
ways of going about it is a matter
for an academic argument over personal styles of deploying presidential powers to get things done. Bill Clinton
and JFK used their charm, oratorical skills, and animal appeal
to women to overwhelm a conservative America and paved the way for the success of their liberal presidential agenda.
Reagan and W. Bush, despite their lack of familiarity with public policy and the name of the Premier of China are
generally believed to be effective in the use of simple Texan or Yankee swash and swagger to have their way not
only with their fellow Americans, but also with the erstwhile "evil empire" and the present "axis
of evil." Our own Obasanjo may not be hip and "cool" but he has this
patriarchal bent of an old warrior who goes about the business of government with a combative style that leaves
his critics panting and ducking for cover. Even outside our shores, he has used this with resounding success when
he so intimidated some military officers of a small coastal West Africa nation to the point that they ran from
their new found power with their tails in between their legs. Well, a presidential system of government is like
a box of chocolates. And as the Americans say: "You never know what you are gonna get." We chose it. So we must live it. I believe that the generality of Nigerians were conscious
of this when they chose this system over all others because they wanted their chief executive to have the enormous
powers that ruling a complex and diverse society like our requires.
Analyzed further, this conference is, in some less
obvious ways an attempt by Mr. President to leave a legacy of sorts or to put it more bluntly, to restructure Nigeria
"after his own image." And what is wrong with that? After all, this has been the case from the beginning
of constitutional democracy as we know it - right from the original concepts espoused by the founding fathers of
United States to the present day attempt by George W. Bush to not only restructure America, but the whole world
order to boot. The ranks of the first Continental Congress of the United States were a mixture of state delegates
nominated by the governors of the constituent states and a federal delegation with "federalist" credentials
handpicked on the political whims and instincts of America's federal leaders of the time. They were serious men
with a keen sense of history who made no bones about their common intention to create a strong and indivisible
United States amid their sharp and differing notions on state rights. And all other ensuing national dialogues
by whatever name called that were convened at various epochs in that checkered era, up until the Emancipation and
beyond were controlled by the very bold federalists who dominated the national governments of the day, and not
by those ardent critics of the federal experiment whose true intentions became clearer when they called to arms
and levied war against the United States. Back in motherland Nigeria, the ideological structuring of the West by
the visionary and bullheaded Awolowo left
a fine political template that continues to power the policies of succeeding governments in that region to this
day. The Asian Tigers, such as Korea and Taiwan prospered under similar national restructuring plans emanating
from conferences guided by the firm hand of leaders like Obasanjo
with seemingly unyielding views on nation building and impatience for the niceties and fine points of political
manners. And such leaders seem to have other traits in common: They were policy wonks through and through, and
overly vigilant on matters of national security and cohesion. As an incumbent, Obasanjo is the sole gatekeeper to the hallowed halls of the Conference, and if you want to get in there
to bring your views to bear, you have got to get him to let you by. It is so sad and sometimes depressing to some,
but that is just the way it is.