Goodluck Jonathan Lack Nigerian’s Mandate to Convene a National Conference BY DANIEL ELOMBAH President Goodluck Jonathan lacks the peoples mandate to convene a National Conference (Sovereign or otherwise) because the promise to convene the conference was neither contained in the manifesto of the Peoples Democratic Party, nor did Jonathan promise to convene the conference during the 2011 presidential campaign. The best Jonathan can do is to promise now that if re-elected, he will convene the conference after 2015 and moreover get the ruling party to enshrine convening the conference in their manifesto towards the upcoming 2015 elections. The people of Scotland will vote in an independence referendum on Thursday 18 September, 2014. They will be asked the question: Should Scotland be an independent country? Yes or No. The independence campaign is led by Alex Salmond’s Scottish National Party. The SNP is a single issue party with Scottish Independence as the corner-stone of their campaign for power. The SNP had long promised the Scots that if the party is voted to power, it will make Scotland an independent country from Britain. Alex Salmond’s SNP won the election held on 2007. Thus on coming to power , Scottish Ministers support independence, believing a sovereign nation can prosper by choosing its own policies for social and economic growth and having its own distinctive voice in Europe and the wider world. The Scottish Parliament has been granted the powers to organise the referendum and both UK and Scottish Governments have agreed they will respect the result. The main Scottish Independence Referendum Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament on 21 March 2013. It sets out arrangements for the conduct of the referendum, including the date of the vote. On Monday, 07th October 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the Advisory Committee on National Dialogue. The president gave the committee six weeks within which to formulate an all-inclusive process that will lead to a National Conference where all Nigerians will ostensibly contribute towards how they will live together as one. Jonathan described their task as a national project aimed at resolving long standing impediments to a united Nigeria which he had to carry out at the behest of Nigerians. However, unlike Alex Salmond’s Scottish National Party, Goodluck Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party neither included the issue of a National Conference in their 2011 election manifesto; neither did President Goodluck Jonathan promise Nigerians he will conduct a National Conference if voted to power. In fact, the first inkling that Jonathan would convene a national dialogue was in an early morning Independence Day broadcast to the nation where the recurrent call for a national conference clearly received presidential approval. President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan took a definite action on 1st October and announced an advisory committee to establish modalities for the exercise to resolve issues that currently cause friction in the country. Many Nigerians thus have good reason to view President Jonathan’s new found love for the conference with suspicion. Why, in an earlier interview, Jonathan had voiced his opposition to the convocation of a National Conference insisting it is not what Nigerians needed at the moment. Surprisingly early last month, indications emerged that President Goodluck Jonathan will consider the option of a national sovereign national conference to douse political tension ahead 2015 presidential elections. A group of political leaders from the South East and South South geopolitical zones were said to have prevailed on the President to wield it as master stroke that would put a stop to the crisis within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the current political instability. The group, made up of hardcore supporters of the President, said immediate convocation of a Sovereign National Conference among the 389 ethnic nationalities, would douse the tension in the polity and cause combatants in the political arena to pause and think as all component groups in the country take advantage of the platform, where the basis of Nigeria’s existence will be “fully discussed and agreed.” They also advised the President that, in case his convoying a SNC makes it difficult for him to run for second term in 2015, he should work to hand over to a President from either the Middle Belt (North Central) or the South East geopolitical zone. The memo, which in early September this year was said to be receiving “serious considerations” from President Jonathan, also said the SNC is needed to put a stop to the “blackmail and balkanisation” of the PDP, and give the President “the needed Plan B and C whereby he would shame his critics and stop the domination of Presidential politics by any group or region.” Evidently, the canvassers of the SNC option managed to convince the Presidency that President Jonathan should “think seriously of convoking Sovereign National Conference in which he will be the one to midwife it saying it would be an answer to the agitations of Nigerians for a forum to decide on how they want to live. After the SNC, if he contests and wins, Jonathan “will be a national hero”, they argued. Events within the past one month proves President Jonathan was completely bought over by the contents of the memo “sent by some of his loyal supporters” and the new push quickly gained converts within his administration, in a direct move to permanently change the political history of the nation. A week before the contents of the memo became public, precisely on Thursday, August 30, 2013, President Jonathan affirmed the belief of his administration in the rights of the nation’s constituent parts to come together to discuss how they will continue to live in peace and unity. The President told a delegation of The Patriots, led by Professor Ben Nwabueze which submitted a memorandum, which, among others, demanded the convocation of a sovereign national conference to discuss Nigeria’s future, that the issue of Nigerians coming together to discuss their future should not be out of place. He admitted that there have been discussions within his government on how to create an acceptable and workable platform for a national dialogue that will reinforce the ties that bind the country’s many ethnic nationalities and ensure that Nigeria’s immense diversity continues to be a source of strength and greatness. According to Jonathan, “the limitation we have is that the Constitution appears to have given that responsibility to the National Assembly. I have also been discussing the matter with the leadership of the National Assembly.” The Cat was finally let out of the bag by Senator Mark while speaking at the commencement of the Senate’s third legislative session on 24 September 2013. Mark said a conference of Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities called to foster frank and open discussions of the national question can “certainly find accommodation in the extant provisions of the 1999 constitution which guarantee freedom of expression and association.” The senate president maintained that the National Assembly, consisting of the elected representatives of the Nigerian people cannot be ignored and that “to circumvent the constitution and its provisions on how to amend it and repose sovereignty in an unpredictable mass will be too risky and a gamble and may ultimately do great disservice to the idea of one Nigeria.” Many see the President’s later day conversion as a ploy to divert the nation’s attention away from serious issues of governance. If that is the case, then he is scoring a success in this direction as issues requiring more attention such as terrorism, 2015 elections, crisis within the ruling party and continuous decay in socio-economic infrastructure appear to be giving way to discussions about the conference. Still many people believe that some of these problems abound because of the country’s structural crisis. While Jonathan may seem to have given Nigerians what they want, there are those who see a similarity between what he is doing now and what the former President Olusegun Obasanjo did in 2001. Those in this school of thought insist that Jonathan has only borrowed a leaf from the copybook of his estranged godfather. Then Obasanjo, just like Jonathan, had suddenly accepted the call for a national conference after he had persistently opposed it on several occasions. The former president not only accepted the idea, he invited 126 delegates from the nation’s six geo-political zones to draw up the modalities for the conference. The move had generated so much excitement and much hope, until it came crashing down when it became apparent that it was a smokescreen to oil the president’s third-term agenda, which he has consistently denied. Indeed many are now claiming that Jonathan, having been a studious disciple of his godfather, may be employing the national conference agenda to either further his second-term ambition, or use it as a payback to the political class which has a lot to lose if the national conference leads to the formation of the people’s constitution. I am not opposed to National Dialogue. It is in harmony with wishes of Nigerians to build a more perfect union. However, if Nigerians have subscribed to practice democracy we should abide by its tenets as practiced worldwide. In that manner, just like Scotish independence campaign led by Alex Salmond’s Scottish National Party, Goodluck Jonathan’s PDP should include the convening of a National Conference in their 2015 general election manifesto, and like the SNP which made Scottish Independence as the corner-stone of their campaign for power, President Goodluck Jonathan, or whoever is the next PDP Presidential Candidate should like Mr Salmond - who promised the Scots that if his party is voted to power will make Scotland an independent country from Britain - campaign for a National Conference. Only then would they have the mandate of Nigerians to convene a National Conference, if voted into power. A National Conference is not simply a national dialogue, it is an attempt to re-write Nigerians constitution, to restructure Nigeria and create a new grundnorm. To attempt that, you need the peoples mandate!
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 13:38:14 +0000