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 Daily
Independent Online.
* Monday,June 14, 2004.
For a genuine dialogue
By Dan Amor
Since the return
of democratic civil governance in Nigeria, there is every reason to
believe that the country has known everything but peace. It is now as though the nation is
still under colonial bondage whereby, almost all the ethnic nationalities
are agitating for political autonomy and liberation. With what we have been
witnessing, it is evident that the communal bond that once held the
various component parts together has gone taut and things have fallen
apart. The obvious is that
in today’s Nigeria, there is enormous bad blood amongst the various
brother nationals making up the union and the most embarrassing situation
is the concomitant feud amongst the so-called three major tribal groups - the Igbo, Yoruba and the Hausa-Fulani.
This ugly development has vindicated the recent call by the
President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, in his last independence anniversary
message, for the three major tribes to dialogue amongst themselves. This, indeed, is tactical
approval by the Federal Government of the much talked about and yet much
dodged issue of Sovereign National Conference (SNC). It will therefore be sheer
pretence and active game of the ostrich to behave as if nothing is wrong
with the soul of the nation.
Isn’t it imperative that after several years of trying to paper
over serious cracks on the nation’s body politic, the present
administration has recognised the need to heal old national wounds as a
prerequisite for the much needed national reconciliation?
As a community of men and women with
differing interests, backgrounds, world views and idiosyncrasies, it is
natural that Nigerians should see national issues from varied and at
times contradicting perspectives.
There is nothing strange in the seemingly endless disagreement by
nationals on many themes.
These are the necessary fallout’s of a gregarious reality; even brothers
or sisters do have cause to disagree. Same with husbands and wives. What is really important is the
ability to realise the mutual indispensability of one another and then
the courage to promptly proceed to reconcile or mend fences for healthier
future relationship. In any
federation, the paramount task of those at the helms is the preservation
of a healthy and co-operative political entity.
This is because all units within the
federation respectively, have certain local interests and values which
they hold dear to themselves and for which they will not tolerate any
infraction. Equally,
national resources are allocated in such a way that no segment is made to
feel alienated against.
These are tendencies that are basic to all political unions. What has made Nigeria’s case
different is the seeming stubbornness by those who continue to run the
national affairs as though it is their private estate and who have failed
to make some concessions to others in terms of opportunities,
appointments and privileges.
It is the failure of those who are entrusted with the national
responsibilities of husbanding a truly cooperative federalism that has
led to the prevailing perception that some are using the federal
arrangement to unfairly lord it over others.
There can be no better evidence that all
is not well with the Nigerian union than the fact that only six years
into an independent and federated nationhood that we witnessed a bloody
military coup d’etat, followed almost immediately by an equally bloody
civil war. In addition,
there had been several clashes, overt and covert, that have brought the nation
into a state of political anaemia.
Several feeble attempts were made to eliminate the problem of
domination of one group over the others. Phenomena like state and local government creations
were thought of being capable of assuaging these negative anxieties. Rather than abate, these feelings
became aggravated. It is no
use recounting here the numerous crises: political, economic, religious,
ethnic and social, that have erupted in this country. The aggregate effect of these
developments is to weaken the cohesion of the Nigerian union. Very recent
development that seems to have elevated these problems into bold relief
is the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election by people
hell-bent on denying other people outside of themselves their constitutional
right of ascending to political power. As if that was not enough, the winner of that fairly
conducted election was detained and allowed to die in prison.
Another equally destructive factor is the
lopsided way certain people have been treated even in the pretext of law
enforcement. The testimonies
of recently released detainees including the incumbent president, do not
help maters. The picture
being painted is that certain people have been marked down for
humiliation if not elimination.
Rather than proceed to some penitence, some of these people who
are openly associated with this orchestrated process of domination are
still making provocative statements on the state of the nation.
We must note that casting general and
special innuendoes about the people of other nationalities as second
class citizens and boasting that without people of a particular section
others could not have become political leaders, are veritable obstacles
on the path of national reconciliation. The real test as to how determined we are in this
process of national reconstruction is the way people treat the well
demonstrated case for a shift of political power. Why are some people still
thinking that political leadership is their birth right? Why are the
geo-political regions of the country not evenly developed? As long as
political power at the federal level is made to look like the private
right of a few people from certain parts of the country, for so long
national reconciliation and mutual co-existence will become a receding
mirage.
The foregoing, I must confess, is not a
peculiar Nigerian problem.
All federal nations have the same problems. The only difference is that each
country tries to preserve its federation by recognising and enforcing
basic federal characters in all her official operations. That is to say that every truly
federal system tries as much as possible to contain and carry along all
its federating units, thus making the system to serve as a compromise between
the centrifugal and the centri-petal forces. The reason why some federations such as those of the
United States of America and Germany are doing well is the willingness of
these nations to recognise the paramount need to maintain a healthy
cooperative federalism.
Also, the reason why other federations such as the now defunct
Soviet Federation and the embattled Yugoslavia went separate ways is
their unwillingness to recognise the need to maintain a balanced
co-operative federalism based on justice, equity and fairness.
Truly, the Nigerian federation is in dare need of a genuine
national dialogue as the leeway to comprehensive national
reconciliation. It is funny
and hypocritical to hear those who keep inundating our ears that they are
for dialogue, also opposing the idea of a Sovereign National
Conference. Isn’t it in a
conference that we must talk? Or do they want the conference to be tribal
or religious rather than national? Those who cannot tolerate one another
should go their separate ways, otherwise we must come together and
discuss the terms of this partnership for Nigeria to move forward.
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