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Bowing to people’s wish
The decision of the federal government to set
up an eight-man committee to prepare the framework for a national dialogue
gives an indication that the government has finally resolved to do the
people’s bidding. However,
SAKIBU OLOKOJOBI writes that some members of the civil society group still do
not believe it is time to rejoice.
Although the agitation for a national conference, whether sovereign or not, has
assumed a great dimension in recent times, the decision of the Federal
Government on the issue last Tuesday must have shocked many Nigerians,
particularly, ardent political observers. Reason: Many pro-democracy and human
rights activists across the nation, who have led the battle for a convocation
of a national conference, in the past six years or more have given up hope of
being able to appeal to the sensibility of the Federal Government, to hearken
to their call.
Dubbed as a deaf government on the issue of national
conference, perhaps, the groups had, under the aegis of Nigerians United for
Democracy (NUD) led by Chief Anthony Enahoro, decided that Nigerians should
take their fate in their own hands and convoke a national conference even
without the government.
But with an action smacking of an end of the year
surprise to the nation, the Federal Government appears to have finally bowed to
the wishes of Nigerians and set up an eight-man-committee and saddled it with
the work of formulating a framework and schedule for the much sought for
national conference, which President Olusegun Obasanjo simply chose to describe
as a national dialogue.
“The committee is expected to produce a
background paper that will form the basis for dialogue by a broadly composed
national body soon to be constituted to produce a sound political reform agenda
for Nigeria. To ensure public of
the ensvisaged reform process, the proposed national committee will reflect the
varioius social forces and interests, community interests and political
tendencies within the nation,” said the president.
Headed by the Governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Ahmed
Makarfi (North West), the membership of the committee is made up of Ondo State
Governor, Chief Olusegun Agagu (South West), Senate Chief Whip, Chief Udoma Udo
Udoma (South South), Presidential Political Adviser, Professor Jerry Gana
(North Central) and the Vice Presidential Political Adviser, Aliyu Yahaya
(North East). Also in the panel
are the Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Intgernational Affairs
(NIIA), Joy Ogwu, political scientist, Okwudibia Nnoli (South East) and the
Minister of Communications, Chief Cornelius Adebayo.
If nothing gave an indication of the intention for
the setting up the committee, the term of reference given by the governemnt for
the exercise is explicit enough and capable of calming some frayed nerves if
carried out with all honesty. Among other things, the government said it would
promote democracy, facilitate good governance and ensure human rights within
the rule of law with citizens obligations. These are expected to be carried out through the review of
the constitution. Also expected are
the review of the electoral system to ensure the conduct of free, fair and
credible election and to build a highly principled, sharply focussed and
improved political parties; the need to provide a harmonious system of checks
and balances based on the separation of powers; need to transform civil society
into viable organisations relevant and responsive to the needs of the nation
within Nigeria’s cultural milieu and to effect serioius reformsof the
structure of governance relationships between the various organs and tier sof
government to aid rapid development and service delivery with a reasonable
amount of efficiency.
Although the findings of our correspondent has shown
that the intention of the federal government may be, among other things, to
reduce the level of attraction generated by the post of the president or
government at the centre, a cross section of Nigerians believe that the final
change of stance could have resulted from the growing pressure that have
continued to mount on the need to have a national dialogue.
Worried by the long years of military rule in the
country and the multifarious problems threatening to tear the country apart in
recent times, pro-democracy and human rights groups have since the
emergence of the nation’s
renascent democracy begun a campaign for a national conference, describing it
as the best solution. The campaign
which is today achieving result has been championed by the different
pro-democracy groups in the country like the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, the pan-Igbo group, Ohanaeze
Ndigbo, the
coalition of pro-democracy groups, convened by Mr. Bamidele Aturu, the United
Action for Democracy (UAD), the Alhaji Balarabe Musa-led Conference of Nigerian
Political Parties (CNPP)and the Wole Soyinka-led Citizens Forum (CF) among
others.
“He either convokes a conference and pulls
Nigeria from the brink or he remains adamant and become Nigeria’s
Gorbachev,” said the administrative secretary of Afenifere, Mr. Yinka
Odumakin, recently on the need for a conference.
Individuals were not left out in their personal
campaigns for a national conference.
In a statement he issued recently,
Dr. Kabiru Chafe, Head, Department of History and Dean, Faculty of Arts,
Ahmeadu Bello University, Zaria, recently, was also very critical of the
federal government in its nonchallance on the issue of a Sovereign National
Conference saying some of the problems the nation had been facing could be
avoided if the government had heeded the call.
Delving into the issues that need attention in a
conference such as the one he advocated, Chafe said all issues dealing with the
national life of the country should be considered. And breaking it down, he said, they would include democracy,
federalism and relations between tiers of government; production of wealth,
control and distribution of resources; religion, the state; ethnicity; gender
equality and democracy; the economy and poverty, civil-military relations;
educatioin and environment among others.
The seriousness with which Nigerians hold the need
for a national conference could not have been more emphasised than the resolve
of elder statesman, Chief Anthony Enahoro led lead others to take up the
challenge and plan to convene a national dialogue with or without the federal
government. Operating under the
aegis of the NUD, a body which is at present co-ordinating pro-Sovereign
National Conference groups in the country, Enahoro and others set the machinery
for the SNC in motion. Already the
group have met with several groups including Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Yoruba Council of Elders, Oodua
Peoples Congress among others.
Perhaps more convincing of the need for a national
conference to the federal government is the ceaseless agitation by groups from
the different ethnic nationalities in the country. Hinging their action on the
need for a sovereign national conference, the groups have alleged that their
people suffer from different problems ranging from marginalisation to plots to
wipe them away from the surface of the earth, so to say.
The recent growing agitation by the Movement for the
Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) is one case in
point. The group which has claimed
that the people of the South-East were yet to be accepted back into the
Nigerian nation many years after the nation’s civil war said there was no
point being part of Nigeria. As a part of its action to realise its goal, the
group called all Igbo people across the nation to stay at home in protest on
August 26.
If the government had thought MASSOB was only a group
of noisemakers whose opinion did not matter, it was proved wrong. On August 26, most Igbo people,
especially, traders in major cities across the nation heeded the call and
closed shop. In its decision,
therefore, to pay more attention to the group, the government soon entered into
a confrontation with former Biafran war lord, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu
who expressed support for the activities of MASSOB. Invited by the State Security Service (SSS) for a chat in
Abuja though, Odumegwu-Ojukwu turned down the invitation alleging threat to his
life.. With the SSS insistence on the need for him to honour the invitation,
the former war lord ran to the court for protection.
The spate of violence some couple of months back in
Rivers State also highlights the need for an SNC. The violence which was unleashed by different cult groups,
one of which was the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF) of which Alhaji Mujahid
Asari-Dokubo is the leader is believed to have been fuelled by the alleged
lopsidedness in the running of the affairs of the nation. Asari-Dokubo who is from the Ijaw
nation has often based his actions on the need to free his people. Although the government initially
decided to ignore the fact that the action of the NDVF was a threat to the nation’s
security, it was forced to respond when it became obvious that a dangerous
trend was, afterall, emerging.
Soon, a meeting was called and an agreement was reached for peace to
reign. The two warring factions
were encouraged to turn in their arms.
Of course, the secession threat was not an exclusive
of both MASSOB and the NDVF. The
people of Bakassi in Cross River State, who are at present confronted with the
problem of their land and perhaps citizenship being taken over by Cameroun
following the judgement of the International Court of Justice on the tussle
between Nigeria and Cameroun for Bakassi are also in the same struggle. So is the Yoruba nation of which, even
the president, is a member. At a
conference held in Lagos recently, different groups from Yoruba groups came
together and declared that it was time for the emergence of Oodua nation.
Advocates of the conference have also argued that the
ethno-religious crisis in the different parts of the nation would no longer
exist if the different nationalities are able to sit at a round table to
discuss issues that concern them with a view to solving whatever problem
existed in it.
And at the political level, the recent agitation by
the various geo-political zones in the country for the presidency come 2007 is,
according to many, still symptomatic of a nation that has not actually found a
common voice. This position was
further strengthened by the different conferences held by the zones in obvious
bid to strategise for the immediate political future which borders on which
zone produces the next president.
While the people of the South-South held a conference recently and
decided that their zone must produce the next president, the North has not been
shaken in its resolve too. Infact,
the Unity Conference held last week was believed to be a way of uniting the
people of the North for the future political roles the zone would play.
Indications that the federal government was not
comfortable with the different zonal meetings emerged when a controversy was
sparked off on the absence of
Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and other top government officials of
northern extraction at the all-important conference. Although the government has denied preventing any of the
northerners serving on his cabinet from attending the conference, sources said
the president saddled most of them with enough work to prevent them from
showing up in Kaduna, venue of the conference.
Although so many reasons have been adduced for the
prevailing problems in the country, very many of those canvassing for a
national conference have found fault with the constitution, saying that if it
was reviewed, it would solve the nation’s problems. According to social critic and former
Chief of Defence, Training Operation and Planning, Nigerian Army, Gen. Ishola
Williams, so much power has been concentrated in the centre to the detriment of
the states. He said if autonomy
was given to the states, they would generate adequate fund to take care of
themselves and still provide the people with all the required infrastructure
needed for a good life. And this,
he said, could best be done through a review of the constitution.
His words:
“First and foremost, you need to have a constitution that
everybody accepts. That
constitution should be based on the 1963 constitution. It is because it recongnises the
autonomy of the state and the state recongnises the autonmy of the city and
town councils. ...
“The federal government does not need to
control the federation. It needs
only to look at the common services of the federation. .
For example, all the things that the federal government is doing now,
power, is not their business; the university is not their business; primary
school board is not heir business they can have education trust fund to be able
to help as a part of the equalisation fund,” he said.
Excited as anyone may be over the decision of the
government to organise a national dialogue, Williams was not enthused. Reacting recently to the plan by the
Enahoro led group to conduct an national conference, he said, “If they
can do it independent of the federal government that will be good. If they can do it independent of the
federal government and produce a constitution that meets all the aspirations of
Nigerians, that will be very good.
But to ask the federal government to convoke a national conference, I do
not support that because the government will manipulate the conference in terms
of delegate and other things.
“We know what the gaps are in the
constitution. We know what we
ought to do, what has been happening is that we have not been able to make our
state governors and the president to do what is right for this country.”
Williams is not alone in his condemnation of any
plans by the government to carry out a national conference. In an interview with our correspondent,
the convener of the UAD, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, said the plans of the government
would fall far short of the civil society’s expectation. According to him, the
government’s dialogue would only be a caricature of what the civil
society was planning.
He said the government was only trying to hijack the
plans by the civil society and that it would not work. He said what they requested was a
situation where people would be elected as delegates and not handpicked as the
government, he said, would do.
He however said the bid of the government would not
stop the plans of the civil society to convoke a national conference.
However, much as the step by the government will for
some time generae controversy, to some extent, it would be right to say that
the people are, at last, winning.
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