“Comrade
Onwubiko, I didn’t see your name on the list of delegates to the national
conference”, was the exact statement presented in a most melodious tones by a
middle-age lady and a staunch member of the Peoples Democratic Party who
accosted me while making some purchases of essential commodities at the
Exclusive Superstores in Abuja also owned by a politician.
I looked
back to behold this beautiful lady from Imo State who has to her credit two
beautiful teenage female twins and all I could do was to smile and thank her
for believing in my ability to comfortably qualify to be at the National
Conference in a representative capacity for the highly skilled and visionary
and/or organized civil society community in Nigeria.
Same day while quaffing a hot cup of
Coffee, I was also confronted by a top flight political office holder in Kogi
State with the same question of why President Goodluck Jonathan and/or
stakeholders did not nominate yours faithfully to be at the National
Conference. My simple reply was that all of us cannot and should not be at the
Abuja national conference.
This gentleman who phenomenally rose
to the peak of his professional media career before his appointment by the Kogi
State governor expressed doubt in the capacity of a lot of the delegates to the
National Conference to qualitatively contribute meaningful panacea to resolve
the monumental crisis of underdevelopment confronting our nation state.
“See, my
brother, I just got a call from one of the so-called national conference
delegates who is a well known tout in Kogi State informing me that he has just
dropped his bank account details with the secretariat of the National
Conference” headed by Dr. (Mrs.) Velerie Azinge, wife of the ebullient director
General of the Nigeria’s institute of Advance legal studies Professor Epiphany
Azinge (SAN).
This
enormously gifted journalist then added in conclusion that “I wonder what these
delegates will deliver to Nigeria to salvage us from the imminent threat of
collapse”.
There is a
considerable amount of anxiety/apprehension among a majority of Nigerians that
Nigeria has never had it so bad to an extent that most of them have begun
procuring foreign passports should the unexpected happened and Nigeria
implodes. God forbid!
On that same
Monday that these conversations took place, little did we know that another
dimension of drama of epic proportion was unfolding at the venue of the
national conference at the Nigerian judicial institute.
Members of
the National Conference on the first day of the plenary were concerned about
mundane and unserious issues of whether government will engage special
assistants for each of them even as others argued like children on sitting
arrangement. One of the delegates representing the traditional institution was
caught on tape using the F – word to cast aspersion on a security detail who
asked him to produce any form of identification before gaining access to the
reportedly fortified conference venue.
The
traditional ruler in question was said to have retorted in bottled up
anger that if he was a traditional ruler from the North the security
operative will rather than stop him to demand his particulars, will
genuflect in obeisance/trepidation.
Predictably,
media report of that session was so very unfavorable even as majority of those
who spoke were said to have concentrated on selfish issues rather than national
matters.
The national
conference then rose from the first plenary session without achieving anything
tangible but adjourned for four days to enable the secretariat attend to
emerging logistical issues for the comfort of members.
Respected
fathers of philosophy were known to have stated that 'first impression in any
engagement matters so much' and that 'the morning shows what the day will look
like' and in line with that line of thought most Nigerians are now asking
probing question regarding the extent of achievements expected from this
national talk shop.
There is
therefore a general climate of expectation that the national conferees will in
no small measure achieve landmark revolutionary steps in moving Nigeria away
from the current state of constitutional dysfunctionality, developmental
inertia and general state of uncertainty and/or insecurity.
Honestly,
from what I have gleaned from the groundswell of expectations expressed in
words by most people, I think most Nigerians are unknowingly committing the
fallacy of hasty conclusion or what I have chosen to call fallacy of
exaggerated expectations from the ongoing national conference.
Reason: For
over fifteen years that democracy staged a come back in Nigeria after many
'donkey years' of unprogressive military regimes, the National Assembly charged
with the supreme task of formulating good laws has yet to roll out several good
legislations that would have addressed the many Constitutional imperfections
and lapses embedded in the legal frame work of Nigeria by the grudgingly
departing military rulers in 1999. It took the national assembly of
Nigeria seven years to pass the Freedom of Information Bill into an Act of the
National Assembly.
Besides, the
extant Constitution has come under considerable criticisms for inhabiting
several provisions that promote inequities of divergent types just as there are
many “time bombs” and lacunae in-built in that document which is Nigeria’s
grund norm.
For
instance, why should Kano state have more legislators at the Federal House of
Representatives than four of five states of the South East? This fundamental
constitutional time bomb planted by the late General Sani Abacha is yet to be
corrected.
Twice the
National Assembly at different sessions spent billions of tax payers money to
amend sections of the constitution to bring the law to comply substantially
with global democratic best practices, but the National Assembly is currently
not finished with this arduous task which has become a money spinning venture
for the national legislators.
How will the
National Conference that will last only three months be expected to deliver
these revolutionary changes when the National Assembly has yet to deliver one
quarter of the yearly aspirations of Nigerians even with billions of United
States dollars spent taking care of their needs?
Have we
forgotten so soon the revelation by the former Education minister and former
vice president of World Bank Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili that N1trn was spent
maintaining the National Assembly for eight years but yet not many more good
laws have emerged from these two chambers (emphasis is mine).
Only last
August, Mrs. Ezekwesili said
Nigeria had spent over N1tn on the National Assembly
members in the last eight years.
Ezekwesili,
in a keynote address she delivered during one-day dialogue session on the ‘Cost
of governance in Nigeria', added that banks earned N699bn as
interests last year on loans secured by the government.
“Since
2005, the National Assembly members alone have been allocated N1tr,’’she said
while also lamenting that “82 per cent of Nigeria’s budgetary cost goes for
recurrent expenditure.”
To
buttress her claim that much was being spent servicing those
in government, she said that “ a research conducted in the United
Kingdom identified Nigerian legislators as being the highest paid in the
world.”
Now that the
outcomes from the National conference will in some ways find legitimacy from
the law making mechanism of the National Assembly how do we expect that these
same legislators will be courageous and patriotic enough to change the status
quo that will take away their juicy allowances and allow democracy to work
optimally in Nigeria? Tall order, you may say!
How are we
expecting political miracles to happen at the National Conference when the
National Assembly that is grounded solidly in law has failed to reform Nigeria
from the many ills afflicting the body politics?
How do we
expect the national conference that has shaky legal ground/foundation to
deliver these lofty goals that will fundamentally change Nigeria to become a
functional democracy whereby adherence to the rule of law, equality before the
law, equal representation at the National Assembly, equitable resource control
and respect for human rights would become sacrosanct?
The National
Assembly is recognized under section 4(1) of the constitution whereupon it was
assigned the legislative powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But where
is the provision of the constitution that legally preclude and/or
insulate the national conference from imminent legal earth quake if the
subsisting court matter is decided in favour of the plaintiffs who are seeking
the dissolution of the national dialogue?
Mr. Femi
Falana, a senior Advocate of Nigeria and a delegate to the national conference
was well aware of the legal challenge confronting the national conference so
much so that he made spirited intellectual effort to anchor the national
conference under a constitutional provision that did not clearly make
pronouncement concerning the national conference but at best can be located by
way of a seemingly tenuous inference.
Falana said
the concern raised in some quarters that the National Assembly did not approve
the hosting of the conference is unfounded.
He said “By
virtue of Section 5 of the constitution, the executive powers of the President
include convening meetings of this nature to solve problems confronting the
country.
“The
President has already taken the idea of the conference to the Council State and
they appropriately advised him to go ahead and conduct the confab.
“The
constitution also empowers citizens to assemble peacefully and discuss issues
that affect their interest. So, why the talk that the conference is not
supported by the constitution.”
He, however,
said the National Assembly had a duty to consider legitimate resolutions from
the conference in the interest of the country.
Falana said,
“The National Assembly has a duty to take all the interest of Nigerians
into consideration.
“If the
resolutions from this conference are serious, profound and they address the
problems of the country, there is no way why the National Assembly will not
take cognizance of them.”
Sir,
to be candid, I think these aspirations you have expressed herein may
after all amount to a cocktail of wishful thinking if the undemocratic
antecedents of the legislators are anything to go by.
Herein lies
the worry that we may after all be expecting so much from this talk shop that
is billed to cost the tax payers the princely sum of N7 Billion which will be
blown away within three months.
Let us
moderate our expectations so we avoid cardiac arrest if at the end of the
ongoing national conference the recommendations are thrown into the dust bin of
history like all previous national/constitutional conferences.
* Emmanuel Onwubiko;
Head; HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA; blogs@www.huriwa.blogspot.com;
www.huriwa.org.
19/2/2014
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