Picture: A cross-section of delegates at the 2014 National Conference
President Jonathan’s
National Conference has finally ended plenary sitting. What remains is the
technicality of appending signatures to the consolidated Conference Report,
which event is scheduled for 11th August, 2014. Thereafter, the
Report will be presented to the conference convener.
When I told a friend that
I was writing an article on the failures of the Jonathan National Conference,
he asked if my post-mortem examination was not too early. I replied him that I wasn't doing a post- mortem job but a listing of what the Conference did not do.
Readers should please appreciate the difference as they read. Those who will
thoroughly analyze the Conference may find this article a good starting point
as they review the Conference agenda to assess if what was supposed to be done
was done. It is also my hope that Mr. President would be better informed by this
early commentary as he considers the final Report.
This article will
attempt to read in-between the events that transpired while the Conference
lasted. Identified gaps and newly created issues will be highlighted. The
actual decisions reached by conferees are not the main subject of discourse
here but what was omitted or created. Inductive reasoning shall be employed.
1.
CONVENER’S OBSCURE INTENTIONS: The true intentions
of the convener of the Conference, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR,
have remained obscure right from the conception of the Conference up to the current
stage of development. He who was initially totally opposed to the idea of
holding any such conference surprised Nigerians when he announced that he would
convene one within weeks. The agitators of a Sovereign National Conference were
overjoyed while the skeptics and antagonists concluded that Mr. President had a
hidden agenda up his sleeves. How honest was the convener when he refused to
propose the conference agenda but asked the Okorounmu Committee to draw up one?
Instead of an agenda containing about a dozen key contentious issues, we ended
up with a 38-point unwieldy agenda with two-thirds of the items better left for
MDAs to fashion out. The released conference modalities and the modalities for
the emergence of delegates were so skewed to enable Mr. President to
remote-control the Conference that it further heightened the speculation that
the President had a sinister motive embedded in his Conference plans. But what
could these sinister motives be? Till date nothing is clear or certain. The
nearest we have come to understanding his game plan is an inkling that he might
be interested in ushering in a new constitution for the country based on the
conference decisions. This assertion has been informed by two events. The first
is his pronouncement that Conference decisions would be presented to him in the
form of a new draft constitution (which now looks unlikely). The second is the
Deputy Senate President’s attempt to surreptitiously smuggle a clause hitherto
not discussed into the final report of the Senate Committee on Constitutional
Review which he chaired. The aim of the
un-debated clause was to grant the President of Nigeria the constitutional
right to introduce a new Constitution for the country by way of an Executive
Bill to the Legislature. Was Senator Ekweremadu acting the script of Mr.
President?
2.
MARGINALISATION OF MANY NIGERIANS IN
CONFERENCE COMPOSITION: The modalities for the emergence of delegates excluded
80% of stakeholders in the Nigerian project. Those who had been clamoring for a
National Conference for about twenty years were not recognized. Mr. President
personally nominated the following delegates, 37 Elder Statesmen, 6 Youths, 6
Judicial Officers/Federal Government and another 20 delegates; thus giving Mr.
President the opportunity to nominate a total of 69 out of 492 delegates. State
Governors and the FCT Minister nominated another 109 delegates according to
Nigeria’s Senatorial Districts. This means that a total of 178 delegates, about
40% of all the National Conference delegates, were nominated directly by Mr.
President, the 36 State Governors and the FCT Minister. Mr. President and State
Governors heavily influenced the nomination of delegates from among Traditional
Rulers, Retired Military & Security Personnel, Retired Civil Servants and
Political Parties. The combined effect of the foregoing is that Governments directly
or indirectly nominated about 80% of delegates who attended the Conference. Ethnic
nationalities who were in the forefront of the agitations for a conference were
allocated 90 slots, or 15 delegates for each of our 6 geo-political zones.
These 90 delegates were to be selected/nominated/elected somehow by the
‘stakeholders’. We all know now that State Governors hijacked the
selection/nomination/election process and simply hand-picked their cronies and
forwarded 90 names to the SGF’s office.
3.
DOMINANCE OF THE PRESIDENT’S MEN: Though
the Senator Pius Anyim-released conference guidelines specified that conference
decisions shall be reached by consensus (100% agreement), delegates amended
this to 70%, which was not adhered to even once as all final conference decisions
were arrived by voice vote, which was not provided for at all in the conference
modalities. Is a majority voice vote tantamount to a 70% or more consensus? Why did delegates only
object to the voice vote procedure when it came to the Derivation Principle
decision? It is no wonder that newspapers are now saying some delegates are
planning to sabotage or scuttle the final Conference Report signing ceremony on
11 August, 2014. Was there consensus on all the issues decided upon? It doesn’t
appear there was.
4.
TRAUNCY BY DELEGATES: Many delegates
played the truant school child during the Conference. Absenteeism among them
was rampant. We daily observed the empty seats with bold name tags without
their supposed occupants. Many final decisions were taken on Committee Reports
when less than 70% of delegates were at plenary sessions. Should such decisions
bind the millions of Nigerian who were under-represented by their un-elected
so-called delegates?
5.
COMPREHENSION OF ISSUES BY DELEGATES: Many
delegates did not comprehend the issues at stake. This could be deciphered from
many of them who were interviewed by media house after debates. Many displayed their
ignorance and incompetence. The last decision to be taken at the Conference to
the effect that the Federal Government should set up a Technical Committee to
handle the highly emotive 13% Derivation Principle proves this assertion. Among
the 492 delegates were men and women from all professional callings. Why did
the conference not deem it fit to constitute such a Technical Committee and
make the needed recommendation for amendment?
6.
INABILITY TO SOLVE PRESSING NATIONAL
ISSUES: One monumental failure of the Conference was the abdication of its
responsibility to decide on the Derivation Principle. The conference
secretariat short-changed delegates by deciding not to allow a debate on the
issue. In short, what is going to be adopted as a final conference decision is
not a decision at all but an abdication. Nigerians were shocked to see watch
the Conference leadership impose a no-go area for conferees. The Derivation
Principle effectively became a no-go area.
7.
DELEGATES’ CONTRIBUTIONS: In terms of
individual contribution to the conference by delegates, we estimate that less
than 50% of delegates contributed meaningfully towards the final conference
resolutions. The inference from this is that it is likely that 492 was an
unwieldy number of delegates for such a conference. It is also likely that up
to 50% of the government-selected delegates were undeserving of the privilege
to be there. This is another dimension of corruption. Delegates for national assignments should
never emerge again in the manner the National Conference delegates emerged.
8.
NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL COHESION: Many
delegates claim that the national interest was the overriding logic in their
deliberation, but we find it difficult to agree. Every issue was viewed by
delegates either through religious prisms or through regional trick books or through
well-polished and sophisticated ethnic binoculars. May be the only exception to
this was the recommendation for the creation additional 19 States in the
country, which was a really nationalist decision, although the North-West and
North-East delegates opposed it. Recollect that the Conference proper was
preceded by a religious protest to the Convener led by the Sultan regarding the
‘lopsidedness’ in the faiths of delegates. The last impossible decision on
Derivation was aborted because the so-called ‘North’ insisted that the newly
recommended 5% Fund be restricted the NE, NW and NC zones. Nigeria’s greatest
stumbling blocks remain ethnicity, geography and religion. Shall we ever change
and become the nationalists that we always claim to be? The Conference failed
to change us.
9.
RE-STRUCTURING: The failure of the
Conference to achieve this most articulated progressive issue is another big
failure of the just-concluded conference. The South East, South South, South West and
North Central geo-political zones arrived the Abuja venue of the Conference
minds made up to demand the regionalization of the country into 6 Regions. Chief
Femi Fani-Kayode recently published an article titled, “Give me Oduduwa Region
or Nothing”. A South Eastern socio-political group has asked delegates from
their zone not to return home if they do not secure a recommendation for the
creation of a South Eastern Regional government. Everyone thought Professor
Jerry Gana would finally deliver a Middle Belt Regional Government to the
eternally oppressed Christians and minority tribes of the North Central zone. Alas,
the much-touted return to Regionalism and the Parliamentary system were not to
be. What happened? Only the North West and North East objected. Suddenly we
heard that the Lagos people said they couldn’t imagine themselves travelling to
Ibadan for decisions once again. They have made too much economic progress and Lagos
State autonomy is sweet. ‘Northerners’ said the days of the Kaduna mafia are
long over. Kaduna is no longer a power base or power symbol. Easterners claim
that they have invested too much in real estate, especially hotels, in Abuja to
be separated and legally confused by 6 new regional constitutions in the
country. It appears that the Middle Belt people are the true losers in the
failure to achieve a return to regionalism. Why did two-thirds of conference
delegates capitulate on such an important issue? How will the still unresolved
“Middle belt Question” be resolved? The actualization of the creation of the
Conference-recommended 18 (or is it 19 States, one in the SE plus 18 others) is
now the only hope for the liberation of the oppressed Middle Belt minority
groups.
10.
LEGAL STATUS OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE
AND ITS DECISONS: The lack of an enabling legislation for the convocation of
the National Conference itself is one of its greatest undoing. The entire National
Conference might turn out to be one monumental waste of time and resources if our
National Assembly legislators have their way. They say that there is no provision
in our Constitution and Statutes books to accommodate the decisions of the
just-concluded Conference, and this is true. Similarly, there is no provision
for the much-touted referendum either. The un-cooperative legislators said they
will throw out the Conference Report whenever it is presented to them for
ratification. Why didn’t Mr. President first propose a Bill establishing a
National Conference Commission before convening his conference? We recollect
that many Nigerians advised him to do just that. Failure to have such legislation
in place could have spelt doom for the National Conference even before take-off.
11.
DEVOLUTION OF POWERS: The Conference
failed to devolve some of the vast legislative powers vested in the Federal
Government of Nigeria by the 1999 Constitution to its federating units, the
States. Many had hoped that the Conference would recommend the transfer of many
of the 68 items on the Exclusive Legislative List in the Second Schedule of the
Constitution to the Concurrent List which has just 30 items. Prominent
constitutional lawyers, including one of the authors of the 1999 Constitution,
Prof. Nwabueze, submitted suggestions for achieving this. In my opinion, items
such as Census, Commercial and Industrial Policies, Construction, alteration
and maintenance of roads, Creation of States, Fishing and Fisheries, Labour, Maritime
Shipping and Navigation, Pensions and gratuities, Police and other government
securities, Prisons, Public holidays, Quarantine, Railways, Service and
execution in a State, The formation, annulment and dissolution of marriages and
Trade and Commerce should better be on the Concurrent List. Mind you, the
Federal Government will still be able to legislate on them as the name
‘concurrent’ suggests.
12.
SIZE OF GOVERNMENT: Today we have a
federal government with 3 tiers of government, about 450 Ministries,
Departments and Agencies (MDAs), 36 State governments with their own 3 tiers of
government, State MDAs and 774 Local Governments. Recurrent expenditure is 70%
on the average across the country. Therefore, only 30% of government expenditure
is of capital benefit. The Conference failed to recommend a significant
reduction in the colossal size of our administrative apparatchik.
13.
EXCESSES OF STATE GOVERNORS: The
overbearing interference of State Governors in Local Government administration
should have been checked. Instead, conferees decided to ‘throw out the baby and
the bath water’. They recommended the scrapping of the LGs and States’
independent electoral bodies. What is the problem? The problem is that the
freedom of the Local Governments has not been guaranteed by our Constitution.
The Joint State/Local Government Account should have been recommended for
abolishment. Also, the constitutional provision that the development of Local
governments shall be determined by States should have been equally recommended
for abrogation.
14.
SOCIAL ILLS: The many social ills
bedeviling our society were not addressed. Nothing substantial was recommended
towards ending our galloping governmental corruption, the huge and growing
economic dichotomy between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’, run-away
unemployment, diversification of our mono-product economy, deteriorating education
standards and growing security challenges. Majority of Nigerians are groaning
under the yoke of these ills and yet the Conference failed to address them. The
Ill-Gotten Gains Act recommended by the Conference will rely on the same
corrupt Nigerians to implement it ‘honestly’. If the Federal Character Principle
has been violated by officials with impunity in the past, then we should not
expect a different attitude toward the recommended Act. In the same vein, the Conference
recommendation for the establishment of a Religious Equity Commission will not
solve the problem of religious favoritism and discrimination. However,
Conference recommendation that all Governments should stop sponsoring religious
pilgrimages, which amounts to about N350 Billion waste annually, is highly welcome.
15.
NOMADIC FULANI/FARMER CLASHES: This
issue was on the Okorounmu Presidential Advisory Committee’s suggested
conference agenda, yet it was not treated. Nomadic Fulani herdsmen are daily
clashing with their host communities all over the country. Fatalities from
these clashes are running into tens of thousands. A solution to this problem is
urgently needed. We cannot see any other solutions to the problem apart from
ending nomad-ism, embarking on moves to settle the nomads on ranches where they
will practice integrated sedentary agricultural/animal husbandry. Land resource
has become scarce and too valuable for farmers to guarantee our ever increasing
numbers of nomads and their cattle eternal and unfettered access to it. Nomadic
Fulani people should not remain simply as floating Nigerian ‘citizens’ but must
be identified with by their States and Local Governments of origin and ‘indigeneship’
as is the case for all other Nigerians.
16.
FISCAL FEDERALISM: Called by different
names – resource control, revenue sharing Derivation Principle and fiscal
federalism – it was hoped that this vexing issue would be settled once and for
all by the Conference. However, delegates almost went physical on it as they
defended their regions or tribes or States at the expense of national interest.
In the end, Justice Kutigi, and his team of officials usurped the
responsibilities of the delegates by recommending that the issue be left to the
Federal Government to address via a Technical Committee. The question one can
ask is whether the Technical Committee will not be made up of Nigerians with
the same emotions as the delegates. Will Nigeria ever achieve true fiscal
federalism?
17.
FREEING THE LAND USE ACT: Failure to
recommend the freeing of this piece of legislation from the Constitution is a
great shame. Why is the Land Use Act part and parcel of our Constitution
anyway? Amending the Act now requires a constitutional amendment. Parliament
should be able to amend it just as other statutes. Obtaining title to land and
the obnoxious Governor’s Consent to Mortgage as contained in the Land Use Act have
stood in the way of providing low-interest long-term funding for land development
and the use of land resource as loan collateral. Housing development has been
greatly hampered by the inability to quickly secure land title. Our housing
deficit today stands at an unbelievable 17 million with no solution in sight.
What a shame!
James
Pam
01
August, 2014
