By Kayode Ketefe
 |
|
President
Goodluck Jonathan
|
“Fellow Nigerians, our
Administration has taken cognisance of suggestions over the years by
well-meaning Nigerians on the need for a national dialogue on the future of our
beloved country In demonstration of my avowed belief in the positive power of
dialogue in charting the way forward, I have decided to set up an advisory
committee whose mandate is to establish the modalities for a national dialogue
or conference.”
With these words made in an
early morning Independence Day broadcast, President Goodluck Jonathan finally
capitulated, demonstrating his readiness to accede to the request Nigerians of
various hues and persuasions, (save some minority vested interest) have been
calling for.
Our sitting presidents over
the years tended to have some apathy, even phobia, for convention of national
conference. This disenchantment stemmed from some strange assumption that the
conference could undermine their authority, or if made sovereign, could lead to
the breakup of the country.
But finally President
Jonathan has jettisoned this unfounded fear by moving decisively in the right
direction. From the wordings of the president’s speech, it is apparent that
this committee which is headed by a former Senator from Ogun State, and
has the former youth leader of the People's Democratic Party, Akilu Indabawa,
as its Secretary, has not been curtailed by any behind-the-scene script.
This means it would have unfettered discretion to work out its modalities
without prior encumbrances of “no go areas”.
There is no denying the
fact that the divergent peoples of Nigeria need authentic convergence to
address all the underlying problems pulling the nation apart.
We need to go beyond the
cosmetic unity to lay the foundation of authentic and useful unity.
The 1999 Constitution
fraudulently alluded to this cosmetic unity when it provides that “Nigeria
shall be an indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under God” Now,
that is both historically false and ridiculous – it is historically false
because Nigeria peoples have never communed in a genuine sovereign conference
to determine they wanted to form a nation, its people having been welded
together by a colonial fiat in 1914. It is ridiculous because there is nothing
that can be put together by human beings that cannot be put asunder.
So we really need to
correct this foundational defect by making the proposed conference sovereign.
It is when peoples come together voluntarily and agree on some cardinal issues
haunting our multi-layered federation that we can have genuine commitment to
nation building. The sovereign national conference would not break us up; it
would strengthen, rather than dissolve Nigeria. It would afford an opportunity
for the people to provide curative prescriptions for all the problems scourging
the country’s present brand of federalism.
President Jonathan himself
agreed that problems confronting the nation is multifarious and require some
drastic measures to address them. The president said, “I admit that these may
not be the best of times for our nation. Our people are divided in many ways –
ethnically, religiously, politically, and materially. I cannot hide from this
reality. I cannot hide from my own responsibilities.
“When there are issues that
constantly stoke tension and bring about friction, it makes perfect sense for
the interested parties to come together to discuss.”
From the words, it is
ostensible that no topical cosmetic surgery can fix the nation; we need a
general surgery to excise the malignant cancer afflicting various parts of
organic Nigeria. Unless we make the conference sovereign it might just end as
yet another time and money-consuming national ritual - a jamboree
conference of people converging just to be “blowing grammar” in Abuja with
nothing substantive coming at the end of the day.
On the other hand,
sovereign national conference will afford us the opportunity to redefine out
lost vision. The vision that drove emergence of Nigeria was magnificent; the
dream to form a great nation of the largest concentration of black people in
the world. The peoples comprising the country, like the Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani,
Igbo, Urhobo, Efik., etc., are after all distinguished, accomplished, great and
culturally advanced people in their own right. Our lands boast of all sorts of
people including the extremely talented humanity.
By ordinary reckoning, our
coming together ought to have provided amplification of the greatness on the
synergy of mutual cooperation and envisioned commonwealth. But today, 99 years
after amalgamation and 53 years after independence, the golden vision seems to
have given way to enervating catalogue of woes!
Surely, the requisite
conditions for a viable nation with limitless potentials were all present. But
the vision became blurred along the way while the nation lost its sense of
direction. The nation needs to undergo an ocular surgery to remove the cataract
and conjunctivitis in order to restore her vision that is now so dimmed.
With sovereign national
conference our peoples would most likely ensure that our unity is based on the
solid ground of pragmatic and sound philosophies tethered to the peoples’
wishes and aspirations, rather than on the quicksand of enforced bonding. We need
to redefine the organisation of our governmental powers, using the paradigm of
a true federalism.
No comments:
Post a Comment