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Home |   About Us |   Contact Us |   Members |   Search |   Subscribe |   Disclaimer |   THE GUARDIAN CONSCIENCE, NURTURED BY TRUTH LAGOS, NIGERIA.     Monday, June 14 2004   news   editorial/opinion   policy & politics   focus/record   business   metro   sports   homes/properties   media   capital market   arts     Guardian Chat Click to join the chatroom Double talk on national conference SPEAKING recently in Abuja at the Stakeholders Conference on Political Reforms organised by the Office of the Political Adviser to the President to mark the fifth anniversary of the current democratic regime, Vice President Atiku Abubakar assured the nation that the Federal Government would convene a national conference before 2007. In giving this commitment on behalf of the Federal Government, the Vice President said, among other things: "I am not against the convening of a national conference, and the President is not against it. I think we will have one before the end of this second tenure... The President will have one..." His speech was greeted with rapturous applause. However, President Olusegun Obasanjo was to shock the whole nation only a few days later, during his monthly media chat, when he obviously openly gave the lie to the Vice President's assurance that a national conference would be convoked before the 2007 generation elections. This attitude on the part of President Obasanjo is not new. He is on record as seriously supporting, in one breadth, and whimsically withdrawing his support from, the convocation of a national conference, in another breadth. Not a few Nigerians, however, saw the Vice President's firm and forceful confirmation that a national conference would be convened before 2007 as representing the latest and definitive Federal Government's position on the subject. The President's public rebuttal of Vice President Abubakar's affirmative statement has thrown up some grave questions: In giving his commitment for the national conference, did the Vice President speak for himself or on behalf of the Federal Government, or both Is there any unseen force behind the Presidency, compelling it to look at the national conference project by fits and starts In view of the Vice President's confirmation and the President's refutation thereof, what should Nigerians now believe is the Federal Government's stand on the issue of a national conference When will the Federal Government stop paying lip service to the fact that Nigeria is bigger than all of us " elected and unelected Over the years, highly knowledgeable, patriotic and experienced Nigerians, among them, the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, the former Governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Chief Anthony Enahoro, and a host of others, have been calling on the Federal Government to organise a sovereign national conference, where the federating ethnic nationalities would freely discuss the basis of their continued existence as a nation, correct gaping imbalances in the polity, discuss the diverse contradictions staring the nation hard in the face, the structure of the nation, the constitution, etc. In several editorial opinions in the past, this newspaper has urged on the Federal Government the need to convene a national conference to iron out the foregoing nagging issues which come under the rubric of "the national question". We continue to believe that the socio-economic and political stability of the Nigerian nation-state depends on it. But President Obasanjo has nursed a hunch first, that a national conference, with or without the adjective "sovereign", would whittle down his powers, and secondly, that it might issue forth in the dismemberment of the country. For these reasons, he has ingenuously argued that, if sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria, he and the National Assembly, representing the people of Nigeria, encompass that sovereignty, and, therefore, should be entrusted with the assignment canvassed for the national conference. We dare say that this evasive argument by the President begs the question, considering that this National Assembly and the Presidency have been in existence since the past five years and have made no attempt to scratch the burning issue of the "National Question" even on the surface. The 1999 Constitution remains, as it were, a hybrid of the speckled owl and the barn owl: it is neither federal nor unitary; it is not secular or theocratic; military or civilian. It bristles with ambiguities and equivocations, and tilts more in the direction of tsardom than democracy. The geo-political configuration of the body politic remains a moot point, both because of and in spite of the Presidency and the National Assembly. For this and other reasons, meritocracy is sacrificed on the altar of political expediency and balance. The nation is beleaguered by ethno-religious and political crises, portending terminal instabilities. The ballot box has been desecrated and is consequently unreliable. It is for these and many other reasons that all right-thinking Nigerians call on the Federal Government to convene a national conference to peacefully negotiate their future under a federation. Once again, we urge the Federal Government, comprising the national legislature and the Presidency, particularly President Obasanjo, to hearken to the collective voice of the people and organise a national conference, sovereign or not, provided the resultant collective decisions of the people will not be rendered nugatory by executive fiat. � 2003 - 2004 @ Guardian Newspapers Limited (All Rights Reserved).  Powered by dnetsystems.net dnet�

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