National Confab Report Will Solve Nigeria’S Problems
The social, economic and political backgrounds of the invitees were varied, for a purpose: The session was designed to get the views of eminent citizens of different hues. Nothing of importance must be left out.
The roll call was impressive: It included Chief Femi Okurounmu, a senator, committed advocate of a national conference as the basic minimum for the continued existence of Nigeria, who was eventually called upon by President Goodluck Jonathan to midwife the recently concluded confab; Professor George Obiozor, former Director General of the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NNIA), former Nigerian Ambassador to the United States and leading member of the South East at the talkshop; Mr. Soji Odedina, a leading light in the advertising industry, and Comrade Sola Salako, the President of the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and other Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI). The Finnish ambassador to Nigeria, Pirjo Suomela-Chowdhury had earlier disclosed that she might not attend in person. But, as an indication of her commitment to such a forum, she promised to share her views online.
In the end, all contributors spoke passionately, and with forthrightness on Thursday 9th April at the Daily Times premises.
It was the inaugural session of the newspaper’s Leadership Forum at which eminent citizens will have the opportunity to dissect national and international problems, and proffer solutions to them.
The contributions, produced on these pages, will surely add to the body of knowledge as Nigeria takes yet another step towards greatness on May 20, 2015 when a new President takes office.
Editor
Nigeria at independence raised the hopes of the black world as a great nation. However, things seem to only have been moving from bad to worse. What happened? Where did the country get it wrong?
*** TUC Deputy President, Sunday Salako
Coming from a pan-Nigerian organization, as the Deputy President 1 of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), the Labour has always canvassed that what we knew and we were doing very well but on our march towards independence and shortly after the independence, we abandoned it and everything got muddled up. Now, what were we doing right? Farming. Agriculture was what was giving us value and we were showing dividends of that by monumental edifices that you could point at: the first TV station in Africa, Cocoa House in Ibadan, first radio station in Nigeria, Kano groundnut pyramid, coal in Enugu, oil plantation, and others. But the moment we wanted to cut corners, because we knew that so much money was coming in from oil, then we decided to abandon what we were doing right. If you look at the skin (colour) of man, especially in Africa, God has really given us the colour of the soil because that is to show that we need to till the ground before we can eat and that is not by accident. Now, we have seen what oil has done to us and every country that has depended on oil in Africa. You see what is happening in Angola even Ghana that just discovered oil is having a lot of issues now because they are following the footstep of Nigeria in exploring their oil. I think we really need to go back to the basics and invest heavily in our agriculture. We don’t have business importing some of the edibles we import into the country, because a country like Nigeria that is so blessed is importing even toothpick from China and other countries, which is bad.
Now, since we have decided to look for easy money, corruption has come to us in a monumental way that we cannot get anything right.
So, we must deviate from this reliance on oil and go back to the basics and invest heavily in agriculture and agro-allied business, our economy will be better for it and we will not have some of the problems confronting us.
Now that we have a new government and a new party in power, we don’t need another 26-point agenda. Rather, he should only have a two-point plan, which is: fix electricity and revamp the economy. Leave the rest, Nigerians are not lazy, they will fix the rest.
*** Professor George Obiozor
Do you agree that the President-elect should simply fix electricity and the economy and leave the rest?
The truth of the matter is which economy? You mentioned Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah once said: “Seek ye first the political kingdom and everything else will follow.”
The superiority of politics over economy is known to the academics, that is why they describe politics as the Master Science, because if you get it right every other thing will go well.
We people talk about economy. As far back as 1970, there was a publication in the Times Magazine about countries that would suffer as a result of dependence on oil. Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, Libya were among the countries.
Meanwhile, we must all accept this fact; Nigeria is a country whose past is better than its present and its future is still in a serious doubt even by a serious nationalist. We must sincerely stop the idea of denial; countries that live in denial will always have fundamental problems. Thank God we had the National Conference; the confab is a landmark, and a place to begin the rebuilding of our nation, Nigeria.
The country must be rebuilt from the foundation. We are tired of blaming the colonialists, tired of blaming leaders; fundamentally, we must discover what is wrong.
To me, what is wrong with Nigeria is structural; a defective structure that we inherited and we persisted in it. Since 1960, after the independence, every Nigerian government has tampered with the constitution. The First Republic from 1960 – 1963, we had three constitutions; a constitution gave us independence and, after it was tampered with, another one gave us a Republic in 1963. Two years later, we started having problems, we started having crises, we started tampering with where the problem lay. Should there be more regions? In 1963 we had Midwest, we didn’t create Middle Belt immediately and that was the problem that led into many more problems for those who want to be realistic about the history of Nigeria. We should stop denying that we have problems, we have fundamental problem of structure; a defective structure cannot produce good leadership. The good leadership that you would have if you don’t have a good structure is to have a hero. Heroes rule by their grace and carry people along, if you have a strong man in power things will move, but this world is full of ordinary people and more often in many countries like ours these ordinary people get into power. The truth about history is that individuals make history, if you can’t believe that, read history again. Let’s face it, let’s call a spade a spade. Let’s get rid of prejudices or ethnic or religious bigotry. Since Obasanjo left office, this country has known no peace. Whether you believe it or not, whether you love him or hate him, since he left office there has been no peace. We are not saying that everybody should be like him but we need restructuring in Nigeria. Thank God we have in our midst today the man who has always championed national conference, the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee that recommended everything that was eventually done at the National conference and later became a member (Senator Femi Okurounmu). I was also a member of the 13 wise men committee and the Presidential Advisory Committee, and also the coordinator of the South East delegates at Confab. The country will begin by restructuring, by taking serious measures to implement as much as possible the outcome of the National Conference. The reason is that whether the country is old or new, a trinity governs the life of any country. The first part of the trinity is the military strategic importance of that country, because people must survive first; and that means national security. The second are the economic and social conditions in the country. There must be peace for other things to be develop and the third is the political diplomatic leverage the country has because no country is an island. Most of the countries in the world have friends that you can easily link with them. When you think of Britain, you think of the United States. If Britain coughs, US will catch cold; automatic reaction. That is the kind of political diplomatic relationship we are talking about. It enhances their national security and economic development. For us in Nigeria, we are not an island so we shouldn’t ask for historical exceptionalism. We must go and look at ourselves and know what is in the best interest of our citizens as a structure and how the federation of Nigeria will go. In fact, our founding fathers got it right in the beginning; they chose a federal system that guaranteed and respected the legitimacy, autonomy and aspirations of different groups. Nigeria is nothing but an amalgam of some national groups. Whether we believe it or not, nationalism is so strong just like it was in the past. Nationalism in Nigeria is real. It is part of the disintegrative forces that are keeping Nigeria uneasy and unstable.
… Mr. Soji Odedina…
The Prof. already spoke about an alternative development tool for Nigeria and that when President Obasanjo was in power there were a couple of things he did very right. I remember in the build-up to the election, this presidential election, a lot of people were abusing Obasanjo, and what I said what was that even the tool that was used for the abuse was provided by Obasanjo. He brought GSM, he paid Nigeria’s debt. I tend to share the idea that we need a strong leader. I remember when President Obama came to Ghana and didn’t come to Nigeria due to reasons best known to him, he threw a shot at Nigeria when he said: ‘’Africa does not require strong leaders but Africa requires strong institutions.” I beg to disagree with him. Strong leaders have made things happen for their countries. I take the example of the UAE, a country where every Nigerian now when we are on holidays, desire to visit. One man, Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, saw a vision that, ‘this island in the desert will one day become a place where the whole world will be attracted to’. Europe is no longer the centre of the world; Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the centres of the world because that is where everybody goes now. What have they done differently? They looked at the whole world and decided to create something out of nothing. Only a single man saw the vision. What has been the vision for Nigeria since inception? The kind of business that I do, if you don’t have a vision or mission statement, your business is doomed from the beginning. It is vision that will help you to think of what you can become in the nearest future. In everything I have seen from campaigning and the likes, the last time I saw a vision for Nigeria was during the Obafemi Awolowo years, when he came up with four cardinal programmes. Till today whatever the United Nations is talking about today, especially when talking about the human development index, is built around the four cardinal programmes because the human person is at the centre of the four cardinal programmes. Now, where are we today? Someone earlier talked about taking a two-point agenda: electricity and economy. But I think the problem goes beyond that. Even when will talk about the economy, Nigeria today has the largest youth population. There is a report of a new study that just came out that said one of the four countries in the world to look up to, and that will drive global growth include Nigeria(the only country in Africa), Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey. But that study was done before oil crises started. Britain just discovered oil, 100 billion barrels in reserve. So, the question is: who is going to be buying Nigeria’s oil? We better begin to look for sources where foreign exchange will begin to come from, beyond oil. Oil as it stands is no longer a commodity of value. Virtually all countries in Africa have now discovered oil. So, who is buying Nigeria’s oil? America, as we speak today, buys 0% of Nigeria’s oil. The restructuring of the Nigerian polity must cut across all indices: from politics, to economy, to social relationship, to how we see ourselves as Nigerians.
After the Oba of Lagos spoke about the Lagoon and those who would swim in it, there has been a lot of hate messages on the social media. As we speak today, this country is not one. Way back when Tafawa Balewa spoke about Nigeria, he said: “God didn’t create Nigeria, the British did.” The definition has not been redefined till today, so it goes back to the question of structural deficiencies of the Nigerian nation. So, we need to start the restructuring now.
Senator Okurounmu…
I think this election has reiterated the need for Confab recommendations to be implemented fully because, as Prof said, we are very fond of self-denial in this country. We pretend that everything is fine, we bury our noses in the sand refusing to see the problem. This election has revealed a number of problems about Nigeria which in spite of the euphoria that is being propagated by several sections of the media, I hope the President-elect will see that these are challenges ahead for him. If you look at the elections, apart from the South-West and then a tiny fraction of the North-Central zone, other zones voted purely on religious and ethnic lines. The South South and South East on one side, the North East and North West on the other side, the North Central was divided. It is only in the South West that we were talking about issues and performance. We still have ethnic and religious division and tension that we cannot say don’t exist in the country.
The second problem is that in a matter of weeks after this election, we are going to have a one-party state in Nigeria because the nature of the Nigerian politician is that he cannot stand opposition except in the South West where people can sustain being in opposition. In every other zone, it cannot be sustained because Nigerian politicians believe that resources should be shared. Nobody wants to be left out of the sharing so everybody wants to grab as much as possible. So, the moment your party is not in power you can decamp and join the ruling party. Before long, every politician will be in APC, which means every rogue will be APC. So, fighting corruption might not be easy for Buhari because all the corrupt people will be with him. If he wants to fight corruption, the first person to be sent to jail is Tinubu, followed by Amaechi, Saraki just to mention a few. And these were the people that promoted and sponsored him, singing they wanted change. If Buhari wants to truly bring change, then these people should be in jail because they are among the most corrupt people in Nigeria. So, it not about high principles, it has been about old prejudices. In fact, we must commend Jonathan for conceding defeat because just by that act he has quenched the fire that would have consumed this nation after that election. If anyone looked at the election closely, you will notice that the election was pre-rigged in favour of certain ethino-religious group.
If you look at the number of accredited voters in Kano and Jigawa alone, it is more than number of accredited voters in the whole of the South East (five states). They didn’t even come near those of kano and Jigawa alone, No single vote was voided in Kano State or Jigawa. When you look at the vote of the North West zone, take the votes of APC and PDP together, it beats those of the South South and South West combined. That is two geo-political zones; that of the North West alone beat them completely and this were all pre-arranged from the moment of issuing PVCs, to the additional registration of voters, to the setting up of polling units even though the National Assembly said they must not be set up, still they were set up, they called them polling point. From all that, we could see that the whole thing was manipulated in a certain direction. One cannot pretend to say that we had a free and fair election but if your party has won, of course you will commend Jega for conducting a free and fair but everybody knows that Jega was part and parcel of the rigging. Jega colluded with a certain section of the country to rig election for Buhari and people have been making noise and shouting about this but because the media is substantially controlled by the APC – and that is one of the unfortunate things about this country, I don’t know how the opposition took over all the media, over and above the government – so all we got from media was propaganda which is pro-APC. Even when Jega was not ready for anything we were told Jega was ready. If elections were conducted February 14, less than 40% of Southerners would have voted whereas about 90% of Northerners would have voted and we would have concluded that we had free and fair elections. Even our Western friends said that we were ready. There was even some western complicity in this whole rigging that took place and that is why we said we have created a potential boiling point. But Jonathan defused the tension, disarmed everybody by saying that he conceded defeat. That is a rare act of statesmanship.
The challenges before Buhari, he must see to it that he implements all the recommendations from the National Conference, that should not be difficult for him because his number one supporter and promoter, Bola Tinubu has always been an advocate, a financier, supporter and crusader for National Conference. It was this his immediate agenda that made him to make a U-turn when Jonathan convened the National Conference. Now, they have the conference report before them. Tinubu can now tell his man to implement the recommendations of the National Conference. If they don’t, the crusade and the agitations for restructuring will continue.
Nigeria is not one we all know that. When we were talking about vision, we all knew that Awolowo had great vision for this nation but he could not implement it because the Northerners didn’t want him. The Hausa, the Fulani people didn’t want him. That was why I said even if Jesus Christ had come with the best vision but had not come with the right ethnic or religious group, they would still not want him. Therefore, it is difficult to have a vision for Nigeria, unless the nation is divided into East, West and North. If we have been divided, I tell you, each of us would have gone way beyond where we are now. If the West was on its own, it would have been able to develop along its own vision. With the kind of vision that Awolowo had, we would have been competing with the likes of the Asian Tigers, they wouldn’t have left us behind. And I am sure that the East would not fold their hands and allow the Western region go pass them. They could even have done better so it is this idea of thinking we must be one, that is drawing us back. If we must be one, a lot of things have to be done to see that we are truly one and enough effort needs to be made to see that we are truly one. The Hausas and Fulanis were not ready to tolerate anybody outside their zone in this last presidential election except their person, no matter the vision the person has. They believed that the presidency must come back to the North and that was quite unfortunate. Since Nigeria’s independence about 55 years ago, the North has been in power for close to 37 years, so they cannot say that they have been marginalized when it comes to presidential power whether civilian or military, they have been there. It is only the years of Obasanjo that gave the South the few years we’ve had. How can they not tolerate the minority having the presidency for eight years which the constitution stipulates, that the thing must now come back to the North? If we just brush over that thing then we are not seeing the problems of Nigeria because that is a serious challenge.
What happens if the incoming government petitions CONFAB report?
Senator Okurounmu…
The confab is Yoruba belief; it is something the Yorubas have been agitating for. So, if they want to save the government, they had better implement it, else the Yorubas will turn their backs against their government too. Every South western state had representative sent and approved by their governors at the Confab, whether APC ruled or not.
The APC sent representatives as government but not as a political party. If APC decides to sweep the confab report under the carpet, after they have taken over by May 29, it will arouse greater intensity, greater resistance among the people of Yoruba land.
