The need for a thorough restructuring of Nigeria
has become yet another interesting talk every
Nigerian wants to participate in which will go a
long way in solving the country's numerous
problems.
In early 2013, when former President Goodluck
Jonathan caved in to pressure by the vociferous
groups of civil society and ethno-cultural groups to
organise a national conference that would address
the “national question”, correct the imbalances and
usher in a brand new Nigeria, I knew that, once
again, the country had begun another wild goose
chase that was going to lead nowhere. Indeed, as
the conference was being put together, I had a
sense of déjà vu and a feeling that deliberations
from the conference were going to end up in the
dusty shelves of our archives.
This was not a case of the sincerity of the
convener. Beyond the matters of sincerity, the
intent and framework guiding the proposed
conference were flawed from the outset. My
conclusion about Jonathan’s motive was that the
former President must have thought that convening
a conference had been the usual thing to do by all
presidents that had ruled Nigeria. Even though the
proponents of the conference and Jonathan’s
sympathisers had made the conference look like
the final solution to our country’s national
questions, it was glaring to discerning Nigerians
that his capitulation to assemble prominent
Nigerians from all walks of life to deliberate on
Nigeria’s future was not borne out of any
conviction to truly restructure the country.
Incredibly, some Nigerians still believe that a
conference whose aims had been defeated right
from the inaugural speech of the former President
could still usher in a new Nigeria of our dream.
Just like former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s
political reforms conference, the Jonathan’s parley
will soon be forgotten until another President
decides to embark on another jamboree and the
saga continues.
Looking back in contemporary political history of
our country, Jonathan was not the first president to
have agreed to the idea of a national conference
whose goal was to re-shape Nigeria’s structural
challenges. The demand for a true fiscal
federalism has been a war cry by the minority
groups that make up the federation. Some have
even advocated that we return to the regional
structure of the post-Independence era.
What had become a familiar but depressing
scenario, about past conferences, was that after
months of deliberations, the reports were sent to
the archives while future governments would waste
taxpayers money on organising another. In the
process, huge taxpayers’ money is wasted in
organising a talk show. Why anyone would expect
an incumbent centrist president to implement
decisions he did not help put in place is what has
made those clamouring for the implementation of
past conferences ignorant of presidential politics in
Nigeria. First, Jonathan was never going to rock
the boat of the illusion of a one indivisible Nigeria
he inherited from the powerful political blocs that
propped him up as President. He had to toe the
line. A national conference was a good distraction.
Bringing Nigerians together to discuss had
announced him into the pantheons of presidential
gods who had also done the same without being
necessarily convinced it was the right to do to put
Nigeria on the path of greatness. In any case, it
would have been an irony that a minority Niger
Delta whose stock had suffered years of
degradation and exploitation by the powerful
Nigerian state would not readily accede to the
dismantling of the status quo. But Jonathan was
either not convinced or was too spineless to cause
an epoch making shakedown in the way the
country is run and structured.
A better explanation would be that unlike Obasanjo
who we all know to be an unrepentant nationalist
of the dying but still powerful generation of
Nigerians, Jonathan seemed not to understand the
symbolism of his Presidency to alter the course of
history. He maintained the status quo. Long before
the modalities for the implementation of the
conference decisions became another media
debate, the former President’s speech at the
conference had convinced me that the confab was
going to end up like the ones before it. I knew
there and then that we had begun another fruitless
search into Nigeria’s future.
In his speech, Jonathan had maintained that “the
indissolubility and indivisibility” of Nigeria was not
negotiable and must not be discussed. What that
meant was the delegates could discuss everything
but the restructuring of Nigeria. Yet, those who had
called for a national conference had made
restructuring of Nigeria the centre of their
agitation. Do not get me wrong. This piece is not
about the last national conference. My worry is
ours is a nation that suffers from collective
amnesia and has always failed to learn from
history.
During the eight years of Obasanjo, the question of
a national conference also dominated political
discussion. In February 2005, Obasanjo suddenly
convened what he called the National Political
Reform Conference, comprising a motley of
persons handpicked by himself and the state
governors as well some members of certain ethnic
groups and other associations –a completely
undemocratic body with no mandate from the
people or from the ethnic nationalities and civil
society organisations. There was no enabling law
establishing it and backing up its work.
The role of the Obasanjo conference as announced
by the then Attorney-General of the Federation,
Chief Akinlolu Olujinmi, was only to make
“recommendations which the National Assembly
and the Presidency will look into and see how to
integrate these views into our constitution.” In other
words, the conference was simply part of a
process of consultations to aid the Presidency and
the National Assembly in the discharge of their
functions with respect to the amendment of the
Constitution. The NPRC thus differed totally in
nature and character from the proposed National
Conference.
The NPRC was dogged by crisis and, after some
months of deliberations, ended abruptly in
confusion. Its failure is, to some extent, a product
of defects in its character and structure just like
many conferences before it. It was, in the apt
characterisation of it by the print media, a mere
talk-shop lacking power to take legally binding
decisions, which made the entire exercise a farce,
a charade. That it is why it beggars belief that
Nigerians continue to demand the implementation
of a conference report that will never get
implemented by the incumbent president.
What I think should dominate national discussion
is how our country can truly have a genuine
people-oriented conference that will be subjected
to a referendum. The Brexit referendum should
guide future agitations for a Nigerian version. We
cannot expect the Nigerian establishment that is
represented by the powerful Presidency to initiate a
true conference that will lead to a genuine
restructuring of Nigeria along the lines of equity
and justice.
-Written by Bayo Olupohunda,
bayoolupohunda@yahoo.com
-Follow me on Twitter: @bayoolupohunda
