 |
|
Balarabe
Musa
|
The
Second Republic Governor of Kaduna State, Mr. Balarabe Musa, in this interview
with ALLWELL
OKPI, speaks on the modality for conducting a national conference
IT
was reported recently that President Goodluck Jonathan was considering
convening the Sovereign National Conference, which you and other elder
statesmen have been clamouring for. Are there really indications that this is
true?
I
don’t think Mr. President can be considering convening sovereign national
conference because for a sovereign national conference to be held, the present
reality of government will have to be removed; that is the executive, the
legislature, the judiciary and their institutions. This can happen only when
there is an insurgency, a war going on, or a social revolution. I can’t imagine
the President accepting that.
So,
what kind of conference should Jonathan convene?
Even,
we who were propagating sovereign national conference have come to realise that
convening a sovereign national conference now will not be the proper step.
There is another step, which is more peaceful, democratic, patriotic, which can
involve all strata of the society and that is a national conference. Even among
ourselves, we have not agreed on the meaning of sovereign national conference
and the form it can take. Different people have different ideas. For example,
there are some who regard sovereign national conference as a conference of
nationalities in the country.
Some think it should be a conference of Nigeria
citizens and this is fundamental. Some people’s idea of a sovereign national
conference is superficial. We’ve had a number of meetings that have culminated
in the formation of two national forums. The first is the National Summit Group
headed by Tanko Yakassai and another person, who is from the South-South (Tony
Uranta). Then later came also Project Nigeria, headed by Maitama Sule and Prof.
Ben Nwabueze.
The National Summit Group and Project Nigeria have now come to
agree that sovereign national conference is not practicable because we don’t
even agree among ourselves. We agreed that it should be the last resort and
that we should give peace a chance by convening a patriotic national
conference. This national conference is not new. Civilian and military
governments in Nigeria have been having national conferences, but conducted by
them, with the agenda set by them.
What
form should this national conference take?
It
is time for the national conference to be the work of sovereign people of Nigeria.
All registered voters of Nigeria constitute the sovereign people of Nigeria.
They will function through a body chosen by them, because registered voters,
who could be up to 100million, cannot all participate in a national conference.
They would have to do so through democratic representatives.
And those
democratic representatives, who can represent the people after due election of
delegates are civil society organisations such as the Nigeria Bar Association,
Academic Staff Union of Universities, Nigeria Labour Congress and other
credible civil society organisations. I know we have up to five to 10 civil
society organisations that are credible enough to conduct a national conference
on behalf of the sovereign people of Nigeria.
Our
agenda for the national conference, in short, is first to reconcile Nigeria
because Nigerians have doubts about the continued existence of Nigeria.
Secondly, to review the state of the nation; thirdly, to decide and agree on
our fundamental national objectives; fourthly, to produce a draft constitution
of Nigeria, which would be subject to a referendum; and lastly to conduct a
free, fair and transparent election, leading to a legitimate government.
And
the participants are those who should organise it. I mentioned earlier that it
should be the sovereign people of Nigeria, the executive, the legislature and
the judiciary, which means everybody is involved. The executive, the
legislature and the judiciary should be honest enough to know that they have
failed and that is why we are having this negative state of the nation, which
is endangering the continued existence of the nation. Since no section of the
society can solve the problem, let everybody be involved in the national
salvation.
Those
against the national conference fear that it may lead to the break-up of the
country or the undoing of the 1914 amalgamation of Northern and Southern
Nigeria. How can this conference be conducted so that at the end of it, Nigeria
remains one?
In
the first place, let us identify what is responsible for the negative state of
the nation. One of them is the fears you have mentioned. Another is the social,
economic and political controlling of all developments in the country, which
has produced a political leadership, the result of which is, for instance, this
disabling level of corruption, stealing and criminal waste of resources. The
system and the leadership is based on self-interest first; public interest
second or incidental. If you can change the system from one based on
self-interest, to one based on public interest, you will be able to win the
confidence of the people.
If we really want a Nigeria that is worth its name,
ethnic identity should be secondary. The primary thing should be national
citizenship – you are a Nigerian. If we cannot have a system of citizenship,
then Nigeria is not even worth having. If we are talking about ethnic
nationality, it is impracticable. We have ethnic nationalities numbering up to
300 or 400. How is it practicable to have a conference of ethnic nationalities?
Even in democracy as we practise it, such a conference of ethnic nationalities
will inevitably be dominated by the Wazobia (the Hausa, the Yoruba and
the Igbo). You can’t think of an ethnic nationality, which has a population of
less than 100, 000 in Nigeria, expecting to be equal with an ethnic
nationality, which numbers up to 20million in Nigeria. It is not practicable.
But if you base it on citizenship, every single Nigerian should have the same
rights with any other single Nigerian.
You
said this conference should lead to the drafting of a new constitution and also
a free and fair election. If this is done, what happens to the National
Assembly that is currently amending the 1999 constitution and the Independent
National Electoral Commission, which has the responsibility to conduct
elections?
In
the first place, the National Assembly will be part and parcel of the process,
because it is patriotic. In the case of the INEC, which is a secondary
institution, it would be taken care of by the conference; by the
delegates. All of its complaints would be decided by the delegates to the
conference. It is not like the executive, the legislature and the judiciary
handling it. This could help stop the public from apportioning blames; the
Nigerian citizens blaming the executive, blaming the legislature, blaming the
judiciary. Let us stop the blame game and go to national salvation.
That is why
I said the present reality of power, in the form of the executive, the
legislature and the judiciary, should be retained and should be part and parcel
of the national conference. If this becomes impossible through the action of
the government in power, a sovereign national conference will be inevitable,
because we can’t continue like this.
Now
that it seems that President Jonathan is considering convening the national
conference, are you people not happy that your campaign is yielding fruit?
Yes,
we are happy. But we hope that he is not talking of national conference like
those convened by Ibrahim Babangida, Olusegun Obasanjo and others. We are
talking of a national conference which shall be conducted jointly by the
sovereign people of Nigeria, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.
If that is what he is thinking, we are with him and we regard him as a national
patriot. We hope he is not thinking of the type of national conference that was
conducted by Obasanjo, in particular.
What
exactly was wrong with the national conference convened by former President
Obasanjo?
Obasanjo
represented the reality of power. He was the President of Nigeria. He was part
and parcel of the negative state of the nation and therefore he had no right to
think he could correct it. You cannot correct what you have created. He alone
brought about his idea of a national conference. He decided who should be the
delegates. He drew up the agenda. The national conference recommended to him.
He had the right to decide what to accept and what not to accept. The national
conference this time will be the work of the sovereign people of Nigeria through
credible representatives in conjunction with the executive, the legislature and
the judiciary.
Some
people believe Jonathan is only playing politics with the national conference,
agreeing to it at this time, when political tides seem to be rising against his
second term ambition. What do you think?
Let
it even be so. And let us force him to concretise it. We now know that he is
now weak and he is accepting the idea of a national conference, therefore it
our task now to be stronger and make him concretise it and the world will see
it. If Jonathan agrees with us on a true national conference, and he makes it
public, it is our responsibility to convince him to participate as the
government. If he says he agrees with the national conference and we begin to
doubt his sincerity, how can we get up? How can we do it? None of us has the
solution. It must be a joint effort to find the solution to Nigeria’s problems.
If we don’t do that, a social revolution will push us aside and decide the fate
of Nigeria. And it can happen. By social revolution, I’m not talking about the
imperialist manoeuvre that was called Arab Spring. I mean a real social
revolution leading to a change in the political reality in Nigeria.
Socio-cultural
groups representing ethnic nationalities such as the Afenifere, Ohanaeze
Nd’igbo and Arewa Consultative Forum are likely to disagree on many issues, one
of which is return to true federalism. How can such divergent opinions be
managed and do you think the conference can agree on federalism?
First
of all, we, Nigerians, have intellectual problems. We say things that when we
really find out what they mean, we find those things unacceptable. This culture
of federalism is one of those things. Federalism, as it is, means a system with
strong regions and capable Federal Government like we had during the First
Republic. We had these regions, they had their constitutions.
They were
powerful enough to cope with the regions, because the regions were big enough.
And they had the Federal Government, which by the constitution was capable of
controlling the states in the interest of the nation. The only problem we faced
was abuses. For example the regional premiers abused their powers and they
became very powerful, more powerful than even the Federal Government. For example,
we had the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, was the leader of the Northern
People’s Congress. He refused to go to the centre. Instead he sent his defeated
Tafawa Balewa to go to the centre.
And
so he controlled Tafawa Balewa. We also had the case of Obafemi Awolowo and
Samuel Akintola. So, if as it is today, we can return to federalism, similar to
what we had in the First Republic, and avoid the abuses, I think federalism
would be a good solution. We can do away with the 36 states and increase the
regions to eight. We have a Federal Government that can coordinate the
activities of the region and protect supreme national interest that cannot be
left to the regions.
The regions can create as many states and local
governments as they can manage with the allocation they get from the centre,
because this allocation from the centre, apparently will continue indefinitely.
I think federalism this way, will be helpful. But the problem is that the ACF,
the Ohanaeze, and the Afenifere will not be thinking of federalism in the way I
have explained. They would be thinking of federalism in terms of avoiding a
situation where they are in the way of each other in the fight for political
power. Let us get out of mere political competition between the Wazobia
and others, and think about what is really good for the country.
Another
issue that is likely to come up at the conference is that of resource control
and it is likely to be proposed by South-South delegates. If they do, will the
North, for instance, agree to that?
Let
us accept the fact that every part of Nigeria, the North, the South-West, the
South-East and the now South-South have at one time in the history of Nigeria,
sustained the Nigerian economy by their contributions. The South-South’s oil is
only the latest. Before the South-South, the North with agriculture,
particularly cotton, groundnut, etc, sustained the economy of Nigeria. The
South-East with the coal, without which there would have been no Nigeria
railway, sustained the economy of Nigeria.
The South-West with cocoa and higher
level of administrative staff in Lagos sustained the economy of Nigeria at one
time. During these times, the South-South contributed virtually nothing. Now
that the South-South is really playing its part, we should know that out of the
four, the resource of the South-South is the least dependable. Through oil
theft and others, this oil is wasting, for instance a lot of experts have
predicted that in 20 years time, there may be no more oil in Nigeria. By then,
where will the South-South be? There will still be agriculture in the North.
We
know cocoa can be developed to a much higher level. Besides that, the
South-West has been established as a modern economy. But the most important
thing is that if you are talking about true federalism and you are not talking
of confederation, then there will be no talk of resource control. In a
federation, which is not a confederation, there are certain national resources
that must be controlled by the centre to serve the interest of every one. There
is no way, for example, that Nigeria will rely on the contributions from
regions, if we want equality and even development of the country.
If we really
want Nigeria to continue as Nigeria, resource control in the way they are
talking about it in the South-South should be out. Some resources must be
controlled by the centre. But there is a level of resource control that is
necessary. At the moment the Federal Government can go to any state and take
the resources of the state without minding the welfare of the people of the
communities there. That should not happen. The communities must be involved
because it is the communities that are affected.
For example, the issue of oil,
the exploitation of oil has caused havoc on the environment and the people
there whose environment and livelihood is affected must have a say. At the
moment they don’t. We must have resource controlled by the centre for
progressive and even development, but there must be regard for the interest of
the host communities.
But
if the centre continues to control key resource, it will remain very
attractive, how then can the fierce tussle for the presidency, which is
Nigeria’s major political problem, be eliminated?
We
will get rid of that with time. The question of having a capable centre is
inevitable if we want one strong country and not a confederation.
Since
the Senate President, David Mark, backed the call for a national conference,
some people have reacted, saying it is either a sovereign national conference
or nothing, others believe it will not solve the country’s fundamental problems
such as corruption?
The
fact is that it is the conference, either national or sovereign otherwise the
other option left is tribal warfare that we had before colonialism; acquiring
territories with brute force. What we are talking about is consultation,
exchange of ideas and agreeing on something. For those who are talking about
national conference or sovereign national conference is that first we have to
decide whether we want one united Nigeria or not.
And I believe Nigerian has
grown up to such extent that we have to do that. If we can’t agree on that then
the conference is useless. With such a large economy, how can you even imagine
the disintegration of Nigeria? It is unthinkable because the damage will be
great. Despite what we think, the economic integration of Nigeria has gone very
far; political integration of Nigeria has gone very far. Where we have problem
is in the area of social integration but all we need is to change the
social-economic system controlling all developments in the country, and the
political leadership produced by it, which is based on self-interest first and
public interest second or incidental. If we can make this change, believe me,
99 per cent of Nigeria’s problem will be solved.
And
you believe this can be achieved through a national conference?
What
I’m saying is this conference is the only sane alternative. The alternative to
the conference is to return to nature, that is the pre-colonial situation of
Nigeria – survival of the fittest. If we don’t want that we must talk in a sane
atmosphere. Let me add that this conference will be a conference of delegates
who will be elected from the 744 local government areas in the country. With
two from each of the local governments we will have about 1500 delegates and
about 500 delegates representing various interests like ethnic nationalities,
the emirates, the chiefdoms and other interests.
Source: The Punch
No comments:
Post a Comment