By Benedict Okereke
It is expected that the National
Dialogue/Conference Advisory Committee may have answers to the following
questions:
(1) Must what every participating
interest group asked for in the national conference be subjected to a
nationwide referendum for the other interest groups to accept or reject?
(2) Must what every participating group
asked for during the conference be subjected to approval by the National
Assembly?
(3) Must what every participating group
asked for in the national conference be subjected to approval by a Presidential
Committee, or to any other body for approval?
Partly, or perhaps mostly, because none
of the past national conferences had presented any Nigerian – dead or living –
any other choice than having Nigeria as his or her own country, Nigerians have
continued to ask for unrestricted national conference close to 100 years after
the amalgamation of the one-time north and south of former British
Protectorates in West Africa.
Nigeria’s leaders, ranging respectively
from the ancient to the midrange and to the latest - Abubakar Tafawa Balewa,
Yakubu Gowon, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan - had at one time or the other questioned
the 1914 amalgamation. Other Nigerians, ranging from the most affluent to the
lowliest of the hoi polloi, have at one time or the other questioned the
amalgamation.
The National Dialogue/Conference
Advisory Committee chairman told Nigerians after his committee was inaugurated
by the president that the committee was not given any go areas.
Therefore, it must amount to a tactical
boo-boo, or at best, an exercise to legitimize the existing chaos, if the
advisory committee on its volition proposes a national conference, in whatever
name or form, without any mechanism to ascertain first, before the conference
proper, whether or not all the federating groups that today make up Nigeria
elect to have Nigeria remain their country.
In other words, if the conference
advisory committee gives a “YES” answer to any of the three questions above,
without first advising for a referendum to ascertain Nigeria’s groups’
allegiance to Nigeria, the committee has clobbered well-meaning Nigerians who
have for decades asked for unrestricted conference for political reforms for a
better Nigeria for the good of its people – or for a break-up of Nigeria
into smaller manageable countries for the good of the people.
When the committee recommends to the
Presidency that a preliminary referendum be held to ascertain the allegiance to
Nigeria of the federating groups, if the Presidency rejects that, it has
vindicated those Nigerians that accused it of insincere motives behind the
conference.
REFERENDUM
The referendum has to be conducted in
each of the six geo-political zones, or in the domains of every discernibly
large ethnic group in Nigeria.
From Hausa to Fulani to Igbo to Yoruba
to Ijaw to Tiv, to Bini, etc, – there are about 20 to 25 of such major ethnic
groups. The rest – the 300 or more minor ethnic groups - put together, may not
constitute up to 4% of Nigeria’s population, and who, if properly examined, are
mere “mutants” of some in the about 20 or 25 other major ethnic groups.
But to have people in these minor ethnic
groups express their desires, and to make the task easier for referendum
organisers, each of the minor ethnic groups may be pooled together with
any major ethnic group or zone deemed most closely affiliated to it for the
purpose of political sensitization and subsequent conduct of the referendum.
The referendum has to be conducted by
asking citizens to vote “YES” or “NO” to the question: “Do you want to remain a
Nigerian?”
In any zone or ethnic group whose
majority voted for “NO,” that zone or ethnic group shall be let off the rest of
the conference programmes, and allowed to leave Nigeria to form its new
country.
On the other hand, zones or ethnic
groups that voted YES to Nigeria are then left to articulate their positions
for association in Nigeria; and shortly after, continue with the programmes of
the national conference where they put forward their positions to others for
harmonisation.
After the conference, harmonized
positions of the zones or ethnic groups are subjected to a referendum in all
the domains of the zones or ethnic groups. At this juncture, whatever is the
outcome of the referendum remains binding to all the zones or groups that
participated in the conference.
If all the zones and ethnic groups in
today’s Nigeria vote for One Nigeria of 36 states plus Abuja, then the
positions of every zone or ethnic group must be subjected to a nationwide
referendum for harmonization. Sure, there may not be total acceptance of every
group's positions after one, or even two referendums, but subsequent
negotiations are most likely to bring agreements between the groups.
CONSTITUTIONAL CONFERENCE
After this stage, a constitutional
conference is staged. Elected representatives of the zones or ethnic groups
that participated in the national conference sit and draft a constitution for
the country based on the terms earlier agreed upon during the referendum.
A constitution fashioned like this
becomes a popular one - beginning with “We the people...”
This way, a true amalgamation of groups
to form one country is done - sealed.
And because the groups have made the
choice to belong to the country, a new country is born whose constituent groups
may no longer have any moral basis to cast aspersions on one or others over any
negative fall-outs from any imperfections in their union.
Above all, no group shall in future have
the moral fibre to call for national conference of any form, nonetheless, call
for secession from the country - unless clauses for such acts were agreed upon
during the referendum and enshrined in the constitution.
The Advisory Committee on National
Dialogue/Conference is implored to recommend a dialogue formatted on the
foregoing model, irrespective of the name the dialogue is called. In every
country, sovereignty belongs to the people, even Nigeria’s former military leader,
late Sani Abacha, did concede that.
Benedict Okereke can be reached at obenok@hotmail.com
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