•MPs tell Enahoro, Patriots, others
As the pro-Sovereign National Conference (SNC) group - Nigerians United for Democracy (NUD) - led by elder statesman, Chief Anthony Enahoro, launched a fresh lobby last week to bring more prominent groups into its fold, some members of the National Assembly feared that the agitators may be pushing the country towards disintegration if their quest for the conference continued.
Consequently, the lawmakers warned the agitators to stop the plan.
Enahoro and other chieftains of NUD, including Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Chief Chekwas Okorie and Mr. Maxi Okwu were in Lagos last Thursday and Friday to flag off what was described as a high level nationwide contact and mobilization for a summit of pro-SNC groups scheduled for October, with visits to prominent groups like The Patriots headed by the legal icon, Chief FRA Williams, Afenifere, Yoruba Council of Elders, Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and Ndigbo in Lagos.
The convocation of the SNC, according to Enahoro and his group, is the only solution to perceived structural imbalances in the polity, a position rejected by the Obasanjo administration on the grounds that such a conference cannot hold when a legitimate government (another sovereignty) is in office.
The outcome of the consultations of NUD with the groups in Lagos were still being awaited Friday evening as the consultations, according to sources, were yet to be concluded.
But some members of the National Assembly said at the weekend that the pro-SNC agitators may be pushing the country towards breaking up if their quest for the conference went on.
Although the lawmakers - Senators Ken Nnamani (PDP, Enugu), Abu Ibrahim (ANPP, Katsina), Chris Adighije (PDP, Abia Central) and Ibupuye Martyns-Yellowe (PDP, Rivers East) - conceded there was the need for a round table conference to discuss issues aggravating the polity, they said that any move to turn such talkshop into a Sovereign National Conference as canvassed by NUD was dangerous.
Another lawmaker, Senator Emmanuel Azu Agboti (PDP, Ebonyi), who is mobilizing for a motion to compel President Olusegun Obasanjo to summon a national conference, described the plan by Enahoro and his allies as mischievous.
According to him, any plan to turn such a roundtable into a sovereign entity could lead the country into the type of chaos that preceded the implosion of the defunct Soviet Union.
Agboti said: ”I think it is a good thing, that is if they know how to do it and I insist that a sovereign national conference should be out of it.Sovereignty resides with the people and they have currently delegated same to their elected representatives and there is nowhere a delegate has the power to delegate his mandate.”
“Therefore, the only available thing to these people is to convene a national conference and talk but for a sovereign national conference, I can only say that they are being mischievous,” he said as he noted that such sovereign national conferences has led to the collapse of the defunct Soviet Union.
Supporting him, Senator Nnamani said:
“There may be a need to talk and review certain issues that have not been adequately handled by the National Assembly. But for individuals to say that they are holding a sovereign national conference, I don’’t know how they will get the legitimacy of sovereignty.”
Senator Ibrahim on his part observed that the plans for the conference, sovereign or not, was the legitimate aspiration of the conveners to do as they thought under the country’’s democratic system. He, however, said that any such plans or documents arrived at by the conference must be submitted to the National Assembly to get legitimacy.
“What they decide is just going to be a document, it is not going to be a legal document. It is only when they bring it to National Assembly and National Assembly passes it into law that it becomes law, so it may be a good way, let them make an input to how Nigeria should be organized.”
“But they know that if they finish, nothing happens there unless they bring it to where it should be promulgated into law,” he asserted.
Welcoming the planned conference, Senator Adighije said that the ideas generated at the conference could well contribute to national growth. He, nevertheless disagreed with the insinuation that plans for the conference meant that the present National Assembly has failed in its functions.
“I repeat the National Assembly has not failed. I do admit that the National Assembly is not a reservoir of all knowledge, therefore, there must be some kind of participatory discussion which will of course be put into law by the National Assembly. I don’’t see any problem there.”“There is no question in my mind that Nigeria is a growing democracy, it is and we are not yet there, so we need all hands on deck,” Adighije said.
Senator Martyns-Yellowe, while agreeing that there was a need to resolve contentious issues in the polity, however, carpeted the idea of the national conference, alleging that the concept of a national conference was inherently bent towards anarchy. He quarreled with the procedural arrangements for electing delegates to any such conference. “On what basis of representation, have we agreed on the number of ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, should it be equal representation or otherwise? There are a lot of issues involved.
Who will preside over it, who will appoint him, how will he be elected?”, Martyns-Yellowe asked repeatedly. “There are several issues to be discussed, well, there is a need for conference, but there are certain things you want to do, when you see the enormity of the task of the preparations to do, you might shelve it. Anything worth doing at all, is worth doing. If we must do it with success, we must plan it well,” Martyns-Yellowe pointed out.
