Jonathans Confab Blunder Ever since the agitation for a national conference or sovereign national conference began, the underlying sentiment had always been the desire for a convocation of an assembly that is truly representative of all Nigerian peoples to enact a draft constitution that would comprehensively reflect the desires and expectations of the peoples, ethnic nationalities and groups which make up the Nigerian republic. The ultimate aim being of course the evolution of a constitution that is just and fair to every Nigerian citizen. It was therefore an irreducible minimum requirement that all groups, ethnic, political or otherwise which make up the federation would be represented through a democratic process to ensure that all Nigerians can ultimately take ownership of the deliberations arrived at and the constitutional implications thereafter. There is hardly any Nigerian who is opposed to the search for a just constitution. That is as far as Nigerians have agreed. The task of reconciling the diverse ethnic, the diametrically opposite religious and regionally jostling definitions of justice and fairness have always threatened at some point to take the British-formed country apart at the seams. This danger had made previous administrations wary of going down the mine fields of national conferencing. It had always seemed wiser to live with the injustice inherent in the 1999 constitution than to risk the destruction of national cohesion or disintegration. Even Obasanjo, perceived as the strongest Nigerian president of this republic could not pull off his version of the national confab. His successor Yaradua was not interested in conferencing and so, also it was presumed of Goodluck Jonathan until last year when clearly unsettled by the rise of the opposition, he suddenly whipped out a national dialogue project from his fedora. It was clearly unexpected, his personal popularity rating had gone through the floor, he was locked in a battle with the new PDP faction led by seven rebel governors; apart fron the Niger Delta region where he enjoyed and continues to enjoy home support and most of the South-East where he is seen as the next best thing to an Ibo president, his national dialogue plan ran into a wall of suspicion and defiance. It was so easy in these places of opposition to see the presidents move as some unfolding plan to shore up his flagging fortunes. But his supporters saw such belly-aching as being borne out of prejudice. A conference of Nigerian peoples was needed. What was wrong with the president coming up with one ? Being the first Nigerian president from the Niger Delta, a region long polluted by oil majors and local oil bunkerers, politically marginalised and burnt by several battles for self determination as well as the rise of militant organised crime syndicates preying on the oil economy, Jonathan, a witness to the despoilation of the once unruined creeks could not have escaped the influence of Niger Delta civil rights leaders like Isaac Adaka Boro, Harold Dappa Biriye, Melford Okilo and Ken Saro Wiwa. The yearning for national restructuring to address issues of fiscal federalism or resource control, environmental degradation and infrastructural development of the Niger Delta region has always been central to the regions political thought. Jonathan was not unaffected by such strictures. It was not impossible that he harbored a yearning for national dialogue all these years. The timing of the confab was wrong. It should never have been crammed into the election season. This is the strongest argument against the confab and the federal governments timetable for the conference has further confirmed that either the president underestimated the time needed for such a sensitive and troublesome project or he had no plan to go as far as Nigerians hope and fear. In practical terms the confab which Jonathan is offering is a disappointment to proponents of the national conference. Like the military dictators before him, he has put certain issues out of bounds. Babangida and Abacha had even done better because a majority of delegates who attended their constitutional conferences were elected by their peoples. In Jonathans case, all the delegates have been selected either by the president or governors or lords spiritual and temporal or special interest groups. He has given ordinary Nigerians less of a say than Abacha did. The delegates to Jonathans confab have not been elected by the Nigerian people, simply because there is not enough time to organise a nationwide delegates election before campaign begins for the general election of 2015 Whatever recommendations to be made at the end of that confab will definitely not be the Nigerian peoples recommendation because they were not represented at the confab. That is the presidential blunder which will eventually kill off this confab. I voted for Jonathan in 2011 but he has denied me the opportunity of being represented at this confab. I doubt that the president fully grasps the implications of this decision. The Nigerian people can not take ownership of the outcome of this exercise. andybriggsreport.wordpress/
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 08:48:43 +0000
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