By
Chinweizu
President Jonathan is reported to have
“affirmed that the decisions arrived at during the talks would be forwarded to
the National Assembly to enact into law.”--Confab resolutions will be sent to
NASS –-Jonathan http://dailyindependentnig.com/2013/10/confab-resolutions-will-be-sent-to-nass-jonathan/
That may be the conventional and
constitutional thing to do in situations where the legitimacy of the Constitution
is not itself in dispute. But is it appropriate in our Nigerian situation where
that legitimacy has been challenged in the courts, and where the courts have
for 6 years now and counting (May 2007-Nov 2013), through endless adjournments,
evaded their responsibility to make a determination?
What role therefore, if
any, is appropriate and legitimate in this National Conference process for a
NASS that was set up under that fraudulent constitution? That question should
also be part of the Dialogue-–and a very important part too, I think.
Should the resolutions be sent to NASS
rather than directly to a referendum for the sovereign people to decide on?
Should the Sovereign people delegate this vital decision-making to their NASS
employees? Those who think so should tell Nigerians why? I myself think not,
and here’s why not:
The institutional as well as personal
interests of the NASS members implicitly compromise their impartiality and
disinterestedness in the outcome of this process. There are probably only some
10,000 Nigerians who are direct beneficiaries of the frauds of the 1999
Constitution. The NASS and its members are among the major institutional
beneficiaries.
In August 2013, Pan-African News Wire
carried a story, sourced from ThisDay and headlined “Ezekwesili Challenges
Nigerian Lawmakers To Declare Remuneration”
http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2013/08/ezekwesili-challenges-nigerian.html
(Accessed Oct. 2013)
Ezekwesili accused the National
Assembly of guzzling over N1 Trillion in eight years, a figure she described as
a huge drain on the economy. She also mentioned a report by the Economist
magazine which said that Nigerian federal legislators, with a basic salary of
$189,500 per annum, were the highest paid lawmakers in the world.
Ezekwesili simply added fresh details
to what, in 2010, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Central Bank Governor, had
presented to the country through televised Senate proceedings—a very expensive
NASS: Total federal overheads, N536.2 billion (100%); NASS share, N136.25
billion (25.41%).
What we have here is Nigeria’s
Fortune-500 Club. Unlike the US Fortune 500 of corporations which produce goods
and services that make life better for their people, Nigeria’s Fortune 500 is a
cozy club of less than 500 members out of a population of 150million, who are
the highest paid legislators in the world, and who consume 25% of the huge
“overhead” funds federal officials spend on themselves. Is it reasonable to
expect such a club to vote to end the arrangement that is so enriching to
themselves?
Can they, in particular, be expected to enact an enabling
legislation for a National Conference process that would terminate a
constitution on which their bonanza is based? What do you think?
In light of the serious conflict of
interest it would involve, referring the National Conference decisions and
recommendations to the NASS would be like referring a fraud case to a High
court whose members are beneficiaries of the fraud. You can expect them to use
their positions to protect, not terminate, their bonanza. They would be saints
to do otherwise. And saints in politics are more rare than hurricanes in
Nigeria.
Given their powerful self-interest in
the matter, the honorable thing for the NASS is to excuse itself from the
National Conference process. But waiting for these honorables to do the
honorable thing may prove to be like waiting for 500 miracles.
So, isn’t it better for the people to
decide this matter by themselves? In the world of business, there are times
when the owners/shareholders must directly exercise their duty and right to
decide what their company does; when it would be irresponsible of them to leave
a decision in the hands of the management team they hired and pay to run their
company for them. I think Nigeria is now in a comparable situation.
Having argued why the National
Conference process should bypass NASS, whether for an enabling legislation for
the conference, or for a law to implement its decisions, or for anything else,
let me raise some other key issues that, I think, should be part of this
National Dialogue.
Boko Haram:
The Boko Haram sect, like all other
Nigerians, should now argue its case and convince the rest of us, not just
about why it is right that it should impose its sectarian version of Islam on
Christians, Polytheists and other Muslims; but even more importantly, it should
present its case for why Christians and Polytheists should not retaliate and
impose their preferred religions on all of Nigeria’s Muslims, even by resorting
to Boko Haram methods.
Of course, it is predictable that Boko Haram will spurn
any invitation to participate in this National Dialogue, just as it has spurned
invitations to discuss its grievances with the Govt. Nevertheless, its
Caliphate and ACF sponsors, as well as other sympathizers, are undoubtedly
taking part. Some have spoken up, airing their opposition to the National
Conference. They should publicly present the views held and the justifications
proffered by their shadowy agents and protégés and let all Nigerians judge the
matter.
If the Boko Haram sect and its sponsors
continue to reject a resolution of our differences by democratic discussion,
then it is clear that they insist on a resolution by civil war against the
non-Boko-Haram majority of Nigerians: the peace-loving Muslims, the Christians
and the Polytheists. Then this majority combination of Nigerians must openly
accept the challenge and declare and wage war, total war, on the Boko Haram
sect, and let’s see which side crushes the other.
Yes, war is hell. So let’s
consciously give them hell. What we are being put through by Boko Haram is war,
civil war. And you can’t win a war by pretending to yourself that what’s going
on isn’t war but a polite, due-process-observing, counter-terrorism operation.
The alleged non-negotiability of
Lugard’s One Nigeria:
In July 2012, a news headline said:
“OBJ, IBB-Nigeria’s existence not negotiable - Say we’re ready to sustain its
unity.” http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/front-page-news/44967-i-n-s-e-c-u-r-i-t-y-nigerias-existence-not-negotiable-obj-ibb-say-were-ready-to-sustain-its-unity (Accessed
Aug. 2012)
Some, like Shehu Sani, have recently claimed
that the dialogue will divide North and South, as if North and South have not
already been bitterly divided on many unresolved issues in the past century. So
what’s new if it does remind us of our intractable divisions? And what’s wrong
if it forces us to finally confront them?
Nigerians should specially invite OBJ,
IBB and those others who insist that the Nigerian union is not negotiable to
present their full and best case for their position.
And we need to remind ourselves that we
live in a world of changes, a world where, since 1970, Pakistan, Yugoslavia,
Czechoslovakia, Sudan, and even the mighty Soviet Union, a superpower of the
20th century, have broken up.
If the Nigerian union is
non-negotiable, or is indissoluble; if Nigeria must not break up, is it because
(a) it is in the
eternal interest of the 84% of Nigerians who have been needlessly impoverished
by Nigeria; or because
(b) there is some
secret decree by God/Allah/destiny, some doctrine much like the Papal dogma
that marriage is a union eternal and indissoluble because it is a holy
sacrament instituted by and pleasing to the Lord, God Almighty, maker of heaven
and earth; a divine doctrine that this Nigerian union must last forever, and at
whatever cost to the people, because what Lord Lugard, the Lord Almighty, once
joined together, no mortals shall ever put asunder; or because
(c) as Jigawa state
Gov. Sule Lamido recently boasted, Nigeria’ elite of vampires “will never allow
Nigeria to break because once it breaks, we will lose”;
Here he is in full on
‘Why Nigeria can’t break’:
Lamido also said he
was in agreement with President Goodluck Jonathan that Nigeria cannot break as
he said that members of the elite class in the country were united in
preserving their advantages over the masses irrespective of tribe and religion.
“Who will break it?
The ordinary person in Jigawa or the ordinary person in Sokoto or the ordinary
person in Bayelsa?”
“Is it the Ibo
vulcaniser or the Yoruba woman that is selling kerosene by the roadside or the
Okada man in Delta?
“They don’t have the
capacity to unite because they are burdened by poverty. We have taken away from
them their dignity, their self esteem, their pride and self worth so that they
cannot even organise.
“Up there, we (elite)
unite, we sing and so we will never allow Nigeria to break because once it
breaks, we will lose.
“But the common man
loses nothing. What is he losing? He is already living in hell; he cannot lose
anything more than this hell.”
--- Posted by: The
Citizen in Governance August 12, 2013
If this indissolubility is not
justified by of any of the above, then what justifies it? Those advocating
indissolubility have their chance now to present their case in full to all
Nigerians or forever remain silent. They should thoroughly argue their case.
Fairness and reciprocity also demand
that those who disagree with them should present their case and let the
Nigerian people as a whole make their own unfettered decision on this most
basic and contentious issue.
Why the National Conference should be
open-ended
I earlier suggested that the National
Conference process be open-ended. Our elected office holders, and other
politicians, are not likely to welcome this suggestion because it would affect
their plans and ambitions for the 2015 elections.
We, however, need to realize
that the elections scheduled for 2015 are not sacred. Maybe they are sacred to
the politicians; but are they, or should they be, to us the people? If it turns
out that we need ample time to discuss and decide our long-term future, why
should we shortchange ourselves to suit the politicians?
What interest should
guide us on this matter—theirs or ours?
Given this their wayo and wuruwuru
Constitution, whose interest should this National Dialogue/Conference serve?
The interest of the 10,000 gangsters, the likes of Sule Lamido and his band of
elite vampires who want to keep on sucking the peoples’ blood and want the 2015
elections to take place on schedule; or the interest of their victims—the 150m
rest of us Nigerians of today and our generations of descendants into the long
and indefinite future? Which interest is more important? Therefore which
interest should decide the conflict in schedules between the National
Conference and the 2015 elections?
We will do ourselves and our
descendants a grave disservice, I submit, if we limit our considerations and
issues to those of interest to our politicians. This may well be our last
chance to sort out our differences by dialogue, rather than by war, so let’s
take however long it takes to jaw-jaw our way to peace, rather than hurriedly
plunge into war-war, by cutting the talking short. For, as they say, when
talking is frustrated, blows follow.
Why only ethnic nationalities should be
represented at the National Conference
What entities should take part in the
National Conference? I have argued earlier that there is no legitimate basis
for religious groups and the 36 states to be represented at the National
Conference. For the reasons already presented, the structures of the fraudulent
1999 Constitution have no legitimate place in the process for selecting
delegates to the National Conference and should be bypassed.
This applies not
only to the “states”—as argued before (see “Proposed suggestions”)--but also to
the “LGAs”. In starting the delegates-selection process at the grassroots, we
should revert to the constituencies which were similarly used for the 1949-1950 consultations that produced the Federal Constitutions by which Nigeria was
governed till 1966.
But it appears that professional
associations, trade unions, NGOs and the like are keen to send delegates.
Should they? I don’t think so, and here’s why. Every Nigerian belongs to an
ethnic group (“tribe”), and would have his interests represented once his
ethnic group is represented.
For a professional association or trade union to
send delegates would mean that its members will have additional representation
to the one through their ethnic group (multiple representation). Is that fair
to the other Nigerians who belong to no professional associations or trade
unions?
In the case of NGOs the
over-representation and unfairness would be even worse: Many of them are just
one-or-two-person outfits, so their operators would be greatly
over-represented. Besides, those funded from foreign sources would be a conduit
for the influence and views of their foreign paymasters/funders. To admit such
would be to admit foreign powers, through their Nigerian compradors, into our
National Conference.
If they are admitted, what would stop Shell, Chevron,
Mobil, ELF, AGIP and other transnational corporations from being represented?
Or British Airways and Air India and China Civil Engineering Construction
Company (CCECC)?
The issue of the principle aside, there is the practical
issue: God knows how many tens of thousands of NGOs, foundations, LLCs and PLCs
operate within Nigeria! How would participants from such outfits be selected?
Or is a conference of 10,000 or more delegates feasible?
We would be wise to make this a
Conference of Nationalities only. We should bear in mind that by recognizing
only ethnic nationalities and blocking entities like professional associations,
trade unions, NGOs, and the entities created by the fraudulent 1999
Constitution, every Nigerian would be represented, and none would be given the
unfair advantage of multiple representation.
If you want your diverse interests
represented, please channel them all through your ethnic group like everybody
else. That’s the route to a level playing field for all Nigerians.
Chinweizu
All rights reserved.
© Chinweizu 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment