By Jaye Gaskia
In recent times there
have been some renewed talks and agitation for the convocation of a Sovereign
National Conference (SNC), or any conference, but with more or less constituent
powers!
These calls and talks
have been pouring and coming in from various quarters, including from the
Senate president, and even muted speculations from the presidency of the
country.
Well, to be certain,
some of these calls are quite self serving, and are usually taken up and
parroted in increasingly more strident manners by various wings of the ruling
class, at moments of deep intra class ferment, and as a mode of competitive
whipping up of popular emotions and stoking up of mass illusions in the
supposed responsiveness and sensitivity of the ruling class.
The closer to
elections these periodic intra class turbulence breaks out, the more vigorous
the competitive calls and dismissals of the urgency of a Sovereign National
Conference! The more theatrical of the ruling class elements even go as far as
hinging national survival, and collective existence on the convocation or not
of the said conference!
Now let us try to pay
much closer attention to the details of the issue or issues in contention; let
us put the demand, struggle and call for the convocation of the SNC in context
and in proper perspective.
A Sovereign National
Conference (SNC) or a Constituent Assembly (CA), with full constituent powers,
in reality means an assembly or conference whose authorities supersedes that of
the existing state structures; a conference or assembly, that is supreme to the
existing government, and whose decisions, can in the final analysis only be
ratified by a popular referendum! It means that its powers are subject only to
the outcome of a popular, free and fair referendum.
Now there are several
ways through which such a sovereign conference or a constituent assembly can be
convened; it can be convened at the height or as the concluding phase of the
victorious overthrow of an existing power structure by a popular insurrection
or insurgency; in which case we are here speaking of a revolutionary process,
an uprising that is culminating in a victorious revolution; where the
victorious revolutionary forces are trying to reorganize society and establish
incipient organs of popular power.
This is the first and
purest instance. This was the only way for example that such a sovereign
conference or constituent assembly could have been convened under the
intransigent military dictatorships; it was through it that the June 12
presidential elections result could have been revalidated, the winner installed
as the president and head of an Interim or transitional government etc. But
this was also unfortunately the path not taken, the path not favoured by the
dissident factions of the ruling elites/class then organised into NADECO and
its many incarnations. This was the path, understood, but also feared by a
section, the majority, of the popular resistance organised by JACON and UAD in
the anti-military struggle.
There are other ways
such a sovereign conference or constituent assembly can be convened! This
includes a situation and context where the existing state structures and the
faction of the ruling class holding power on the one hand; and the opposition
forces from both the dissident factions of the ruling class and the popular and
exploited subordinate classes have more or less mutually exhausted themselves
in a fierce contestation.
Hence such a
sovereign conference or constituent assembly is convened to organise the
resolution of the conflict, and reorganize the society to take account of
competing demands in the uprising. Such a situation will create a dual power
situation. We were at such a moment in the immediate aftermath of the twin
murders of Abacha and Abiola. It was a path which again, the agitators for the
SNC did not take.
One other way in
which such a conference or constituent assembly can be convened will be in a
moment of deep ferment, deep enough to instigate and fuel the implosion of the
ruling class into antagonistic and increasingly irreconcilable factions. During
such a period the call for the SNC and CA will gain in stridency, and it might
then eventually be convened in an attenuated manner; with the existing state
structures retaining their validity, and powers, and with decisions of such a
sovereign conference or constituent assembly subjected to a referendum, before they
become executive bills which must be passed into law by the legislature. Even
as such, this will still create a dual power situation, and it is little wonder
that although different factions of the ruling class are making such demands,
they are not prepared to take the necessary steps towards actualizing their
demands.
But even more
important questions than the question of process needs to be raised and
discussed! These are questions of content and quality. When the ruling class
factions talk of the SNC what do they mean? They are essentially speaking of
and reducing this to a conference of ethnic nationalities; they are essentially
posing the problem, in primarily ethnic and nationalities context rather than
in social context. They want representatives of the ethnic nationalities alone
to sit together.
Now how might the
representatives of the ethnic nationalities to the conference or assembly be
chosen/selected/elected? Which ethnic nationalities are to be represented at
this conference? And in what proportions might they be represented? No one is
raising or addressing these germane issues if the conference or assembly,
sovereign, constituent or not, were to be convened as a conference of ethnic
nationalities!
Will the Yorubas for
example be represented by Asiwaju, Afenifere (old and new), OPC (Faseun or
Adams), the various Odua self determination groups, or by whom? Will the Ijaws
be represented by Clark, Tompolo, Asari, Alameisiegha, the INC, IYC, Oronto
Douglas or by whom? In fact for the purpose of ethnic nationalities conference
that is sovereign and has constituent powers; will the Egbas, Okuns, Ijebus,
Ondos, Ekitis, be considered separately or as part of the Yoruba nation? Will
the Okrikas, Ogbias, Andonis, Kalabaris, etc., be considered separately or as
part of the Ijaw nation?
We insist that there
are far bigger national and social problems confronting us as a people and
nation, that have had a collective experience of slavery and the slave trade;
the unequal trade which preceded colonialism; the internal class exploitation
by a shifting alliance of national ruling class elements and international
capital; as well as national exploitation through the global structures of
dependence of a globalizing international capitalism.
We insist that the
major fault lines in our society are class, not ethnic in nature; that the
major contestation is between the ruling elites and the subordinate classes;
that real issues are around the share of national wealth owned and controlled
by ruling and subordinate classes in society. We know that 70% of our
population are living in poverty, and that they come from all the ethnic groups
in the country; we know that for every Dangote, Dantata, Abiola, Otedola,
Adenuga, Emeka Ofor, Igbinedion, Iwuayanwu, Tompolo, Dokubo, Alaibe, etc.,
there are several millions of people from those same ethnic nationalities who
are poor, homeless or living in inhuman habitation; jobless and hopeless!
We know that whereas
the state of public education is such that the education of the children of the
poor is happening under conditions that are not conducive to learning and that
the education of the middle class is happening at increasingly unbearable costs
to the families, the education of the children of the ruling class is happening
in choice private institutions at home and abroad. We know that one in two
unemployed youths comes from every one of the ethnic nationalities in the
country; we know that the 18 million housing deficits is a burden borne
exclusively by the poor and lower middle class from all the ethnic
nationalities.
We know that the
problems associated with gross lack, inadequacy, and dilapidation of basic
services in health, education, housing, and of basic infrastructures in roads,
transport, etc., is a burden disproportionately borne by the 70% of the
population that are poor in the first instance; followed by the 25% that live
on middle class income in the second instance. And we know that they come from
all the ethnic groups.
We insist that the
fundamental problem of our society is that emanating from the disproportionate
access to, ownership and control of social wealth, including basic services.
And we know this because a mere 10% of the richest Nigerians own and control
41% of national wealth, whereas the bottom 50% of Nigerians own and control 10%
of national wealth.
We affirm that the
real issue needing resolution at a sovereign conference or a constituent
assembly, is the situation that makes it possible to have a national minimum
wage of 18,000 Naira per month that is not even being paid to workers in a
country where the per capital income is over $1,500; where the wealthiest man has
a personal fortune of $40bn (making him the richest African, and 25th
richest man globally], an amount more than 60% of the entire country’s external
reserves and savings; or where its wealthiest woman (who is also the wealthiest
Black woman) has a personal fortune in excess of $3bn!.
This is the fundamental,
National Social Question that requires urgent attention, and that needs to be
addressed through the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference, or
Constituent Assembly! We insist that the social forces that ought to be
primarily represented at such a national conference or constituent assembly are
such social and class categories and forces as workers and their organisations;
employers of labour and their organisations; professional organisations; active
coalitions of membership based citizens’ organisations and other social
movements; youth formations; student formations; women organisations; artisanal
groups and their organisations; traders and their organisations; and political
parties and political formations; representatives from the NASS and State
Assemblies, the LGAs, the Federal and state executive councils; and only after
these, religious delegates and delegates from ethnic associations that are
organised.
But for us it is
clear that the fundamental social forces in our society have been, and continue
to be the social formations of citizens that have to do with how they earn
their living and how they are trained, etc. These have been the social
formations that have shaped our history, and continue to shape our daily
existence.
It is only such a
Sovereign National Conference or Constituent Assembly, constituted by these
social forces rather than the ethnic forces that can dispassionately discuss
the issues of restructuring of the federation, and agreeing the procedures and
systems for real fiscal and political federalism. It is only in this context
that issues around Federal minimum wage standards, local government autonomy,
and democratic and representative community governance can be addressed in the
interest of the wider population, and not in the treasury looting and light
fingered interests of the ruling elite/class.
For the teeming
majority of Nigerians who are the collective victims of the collective greed,
avarice and misrule of the ruling elites, this must be our agenda for the
SNC/CA, if we are ever going to put ourselves in a position that will enable us
to Take Back Nigeria, and regain control of our destinies from the death grip
of the rampaging pillage of these bands of organised treasury looters.
Visit:
takebacknigeria.blogspot.com; Follow me on Twitter: @jayegaskia & [DPSR]protesttopower;
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