On Wednesday, on a Lagos based radio station Nigeria Info 99.3fm I had the privilege of discussing the issues around the Sovereign National Conference. Professor Pat Utomi was part of the discussion. We differed on the Sovereign National Conference. For me that was supposed to be a hard ground to stand because the SNC is now the word on the lips of most politically conscious folks and here I has taking a stand different from the revered Professor Utomi. What I had going for me was two things; I have a history of not joining the crowd except the crowd is right and I was in a position to know that the SNC is just another distraction for our country to forget the essence of its nationhood.
Apart from bad governance and corruption, one of the things that have stalled development in Nigeria is the continuous pre-occupation of the elite on mundane issues rather than a dedicated focus on what really matters to the real Nigerian. The battle for the soul of Nigeria is not a battle being fought for the real Nigerian, it is a battle being fought by the elite for the elite. When the die is cast though, the Nigerian becomes the tool of war and s/he more than anyone else suffers the consequence of that elitist war of attrition.
What would the farmer in Potiskum have Nigerian elites talk about? What would the fisher man in Hadejia prefer we go for now as a group of learned Nigerians? What would that poor family in Igbokoda expect we talk about now? Are they in their predicaments because Niigeria is yet to have a Sovereign National Conference? Will an Oduduwa, Niger Delta, Arewa add-all-the-other-possible-Lilliputian-divisions Republic mean that all of the problems of the Nigerian entity will disappear? So a certain Ibori would have been a good president of Niger Delta Republic? An Akala as President of Oduduwa Republic would have done better and an Akwe Doma would have performed better as President of whatever republic he falls into? Sheer nonsensical hypocrisy!
While you think through the questions, let me say to you that Nigeria as it is is an anomaly. The 1999 constitution is more a curse than a blessing. The structure and form of government is a conduit of underdevelopment and corruption. We are a nation that needs a healing from many diseases. We are confronted by challenges on all fronts. Do we kill a man because he is at the point of death and has no chance to live? Does Nigeria have a chance? Does the 1999 constitution allow for its amendment or is it cast in stone like the Laws of Moses or the Persia-Mersia Law that cannot be altered or amended? Let us not deceive ourselves; most of those who are calling for the SNC are ethnic jingoist who have lost out in the power game. A lot of them were in power, what did they say or do about an SNC then? Are they calling for this Conference for the sake of the real Nigerians or their perennially destructive selfish interest? Will the SNC solve all the problems we are battling as a people?
This happened only last month. I still get goose bumps over it
Let us even assume the SNC is the way forward. The representatives of the different ethnic groups will either be selected or elected. Either way, most of those that will emerge are the same old rogues who are yet to pay for their rape of this country. Going by the cost of the last elections, it would cost us some N100 billion to get these folks elected/selected and would cost us just about the same amount to organise and execute the conference. Is that what the real Nigerian wants? Talking about attendance, is it the same old folks who have consistently and unrepentantly raped this country that will be represented or those who are generationally bound to live with the consequences of the decisions that are made in today’s Nigeria? If we do not trust those we supposedly elected to represent us in the Sovereign National Assembly to do what is right about restructuring the country, are we going to get angels to conduct the process to get a new set of people to meet at the neo-SNC?
Each time the National Assembly meets, a Sovereign National Conference is going on. A conference is a meeting of two or more persons for discussing matters of common concern. Sovereignty is authority. The Assembly has all the elements of an SNC. We cannot have a National Assembly and also have another Sovereign National Conference going on. One issue of concern for proponents of an SNC is the issue of fiscal federalism and the derivation formula. The 1999 constitution itself was sincere about the fact that it could fall short of the expectations of Nigerians so it set aside Section 9, subsection 1-4 for its own amendment. Every part of the constitution can be amended. Most of us say “We the people” had nothing to do with we the people when the constitution was signed into law in 1999. That can change if we the people look at the wrong things about the constitution and get to correct them.
No nation or country started with a perfect constitution. The world’s most referred-to-country especially in terms of democracy, the United States has had 27 amendments; 17 regular amendments and 10 bill of rights which are the original constitutional amendments. The United States will be 236 years old July this year. There have been 94 amendments to the Indian constitution with the last one on the 12th of June 2006. We cannot birth a perfect constitution or a people representative constitution with an event. It is a process. Nation building is a process.
Those who want change must bury their egos and come together. Evil people have been together for 13 years of our democracy because they always agree to loot our money no matter the other disagreements they have. Progressives must agree to come together for the sake if our country if they disagree on other fronts. Country first before egos.
If we want change, we first must educate and enlighten our people. We must get involved in the process of governance by demanding for good governance on all fronts.
Those who want a Conference should tell us all the issues and processes around it. Even if ethnic nationalities will bear the cost, it is important to know how much it will cost each part and the whole. Objectives, expectations and outcomes must be spelt out. We cannot afford another journey into another kind of darkness.
Nigerians want good governance and a post Sovereign National Conference Nigeria does not guarantee that if we still get to have the same set vampires ruling our people. Do we need a National Distractions Committee to help us manage distractions? We are a perpetually distracted people. God help Nigeria!
This is @omojuwa
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This is probably the first of your pieces that I am 100% satisfied with. On the one hand, you have pointed out that even the 1999 constitution recognises that there are no “settled issues” and, on the other,it is probably lazy for SNC agitators not to compel their elected legislators to canvass pro-regional/pro-federal views at the National Assembly.
A great scientific diagnosis of the issues bedeviling the call for an SNC! A brilliant-articulation of the points for a Nigeria without an SNC ! A patriotic-defence of Nigeria and what to be done to take her forward, beyond the naive and marrow-minded postulations of the pro-SNC fellows!
Overall, a powerful and very compelling piece by one of Nigeria’s finest and most objective minds! Great job, Japheth! GOD bless you. GOD bless Nigeria!
This piece is your own opinion,u have a right to it, but ask your self,if the senator/rep representing you from ondo state is suitably qualified both by character and by process to be there at the assembly,ask yourself if the current NASS especially senate whose president hasn’t won any of the 4 elections that brought him in cleanly can amend a constitution that will suit d common man,I have seen you,nasir,GEJ,mark take a different stand,@least u agree with jona on this one, but ask yourself what do u av in common with jona to find ur self on d same side. Ruling class will defend its status,Gej and mark can’t b an exception. I support SNC that will av as representatives nigerians unda 50yrs bcos they have greater time/stake in nigeria. When nigeria had regional govt,there was healthy rivalry,so let’s go back there.I av also seen something abt 20million youth/2015,its good but can’t work bcos if it succeed,it will only give power to another set of cabal, a new base dat will have d likes of u and other proponents as power broker,and who told u things will b different, I doubt it, bcos mugbabe used to b a freedom fighter.but his a dictator now. Think about it
A very beautiful piece that should show pro SNC the way and how to achieve whatever they wish to achieve though the NA.
It also shows our elite are “very lazy” at everything except when it comes to looting the treasury.
This is a good article. May Allah guide u. Thanks
Excellent piece kip it on
Well said my broda, National Assembly is the SNC we can have. So y not table your issues through your constituencies to them? if we would occupy all those agitators.
Mr. Omojuwa, i totally agree with you that the quest for a SNC has been hijacked by disgruntled politicians. Do find time however to visit my blog, at http://www.frankijege.blogspot.com, where i published the views of professor Claude Ake, on the SNC. A view he held in 1992
A well articulated & objective piece.
We should be more concerned with our representations at the national assembly and our ability to legally and in a civil manner,boot out elements that fail to champion the course of development and mutual coexistence.
I am very delighted after I read this note, its encouraging and supportive write-up.
To add to this, the People of Nigeria have learned to live together for the past 40yrs after the civil war, but those in power are trying to break us apart due to their selfish interest.
So, Nigerians should be aware of these elements and fight them fist, because they are the cabals that GEJ is always worried about and he can’t fight them course they brought him to power.
Arise Nigeria, especially our teeming Youths and fight these anti Nigeria elements.
Its a beautiful well articulated piece. The proponents of SNC should pause a while and think of the effects the SNC will eventually have on the people especially, on those who chose to make all parts of Nigeria their home. We have more southern nigerians settled in the north than in all the south combined. How do they expect them to fare?
I can’t agree with you on this because many of the people in the national assembly are not actually the choice of the majority. They induced, coerced and deceived people to put them there. That apart, all were “elected” based on their party affiliations and so, for them not to die politically, they MUST preach what their party believe in. Therefore, such people having their loyalty not completely to their constituency cannot give us a DESIRABLE CONSTITUTION. Come to think of it, are all the people of Nigeria represented in the current national assembly? If no, how will the voice of such people be heard? In Lagos for example, there are over 16million people represented by 3 senators thesame with other states with less than 5million people, how can you reconcile that? Looking at the current national assembly with its structure, nothing much can be done.
“Each time the National Assembly meets, a Sovereign National Conference is going on. A conference is a meeting of two or more persons for discussing matters of common concern. Sovereignty is authority. The Assembly has all the elements of an SNC. We cannot have a National Assembly and also have another Sovereign National Conference going on”.
This writer is full of contradictions. How many ethnic nationalities do you have in the NAS? Mostly WAZOBIA. The NAS does not represent the Ethnic Nationalities.
I think we should have a SNC to settle the issues once and for all. We may discover to our pleasant surprise that we have more ties that bind. Who says SNC wiil lead to a break-up of Nigeria? And so what if we break up? Do we have to stay together in misery? If the SNC was the only tool to employ to break up this Country, and Nigeria was not meant to be, delaying the conference is just delaying the D-Day. Let’s just get it over and done with.
I am brilliant, but the Country Nigeria classifies people like me as minorities. The Fed Civil Service is filled with the Tripod of Wazobia. I don’t even wish to mention the issue of Niger Delta where I am from. But God in His infinite wisdom saw it fit to situate the life-source of this country in the Niger Delta. But what do we have? Minorities are still discriminated against in their own backyard by the the owners of Nigeria.
I say let the conference roll on. Let us discuss. I certainly do not feel like this is my Country. Apart from the injustice in the system, there is really no cultural affiliation with certain groups in the North. This is the truth for me. I grew up there so I have a lot of friends from up there. But fundamentalist Islam of today is not what it was when I was growing up. The current Islamic fanaticism I can live without, thank you very much. Although they are nicer people than Southerners, the cultural difference is just too uncomfortable for me.
Otherwise we will continue to live in segregated communities, with different cultures and norms, and values tearing at the seam of our existence, while pretending to be one nation.
There’s nothing wrong in going our separate ways, I want my own Country.
I followed ur contributions both on Twitter and FB and I’m always impress with ur comments. The issue of SNC is a wasting of time and resources. The so called SNC conveigners I called them expired politicians who want to include in one committe or another and since their expired and want to share part of the National cake, at least we pay them allowances for attending SNC.
Good talk. But where do we go from here, is it as usual ?
Pessimistic ppl won’t see what good can come out of something.. again omojuwa has given us a beautiful piece… Change is only possible to the man that tries to be different….. 20million youths for 2015.
People of d north who constitute majority of opposition to SNC/NC only do it cos they profit most from d lopsided xture in nigeria,or better still they don’t undastand it.Omojuwa doesn’t even present a serious reason for opposing it,just dat its a distraction,and we av a nass whose action omojuwa himself doesn’t believe in.I challange him on dis earlier. If really we don’t need snc, y did some fools in d north started burning houses n killing corp members after Jona won in april? Mind u,I don’t support jona, but d truth is he won d election fairly though not with d bogus figure. Y were they killing southerners in d north. If truly they so much believe in nigeria,or is nigeria only good when someone from north wins? I read elrufai comment on snc, and I watched with pity his reaction when cpc lost d recent election in adamawa, y didn’t people protest? Or is it bcos it was a contest btw hausas only, even when it was obvious d governor didn’t perform, owing salaries ,locking down house of assembly?the people were helpless, Curiously he wasn’t so visible on d bayelsa charade too, for omojuwa I commend your intellectual activism, but there are some obvious truth you can’t gloss ova. I support indivisible nigeria,with the opening up of d political space for people to aspire to d top with d usual cabal or religious/ethnic holding u to ransom. That was d problem jona had wen he decided to contest 2011. A confederate system with strong bonds, but little power at d centre is better. Omojuwa ask your northern friends d main reason dey oppose snc,they will either say they don’t want to break nigeria, I don’t want that too, but why did they fight after 2011, at least yorubas didn’t support obj during both elections he won,but we didn’t fight, yaradua was imposed on d north/nigeria against GMB, but they didn’t fight him. But they fought a southerner! Watch it brother, in your attempt to project your sophistication and altruistic fervour, you loose touch with d majority. The Ruling class will not allow people to decide a better way forward bcos it profits them as it is.
I support an SNC, not The SNC. The SNC is the typical Nigerian approach to important issues. Fire brigade. The SNC as is being formulated amounts to putting a cart before a horse. The present crop of leadership lack the pedigree to successfully negotiate such issues of historic national importance. Before convening an SNC, we need to have the right leadership. This can only emerge in the context of a mass movement. First you generate a mass movement- occupy Nigeria is a seed, and then an SNC. Anything short is a sure route to disaster.
A good example of wat snc will achieve is whether it is right for lagos with similar population as kano some 20yrs ago,afterwards jigawa and some other towns were carved out of it,yet the nigerian government claimed kano still has d same population with lagos,even though jigawa plus kano have well above 14million people. Also kano has 44Lgs, lagos has 20,and basis for sharing money is numbers of local govt, who is benefiting from this xture, and if u claim a national cake mentality is clouding snc advocates vision, I say let dem generate revenues and pay a percentage to d central govt. Attempt by lagos to create more lgs was met with resistance by dis same NASS @omojuwa is championing its relevance. How do u intend to correct dis, also part of d problem is what do we gain from a lopsided xture. Igbos av 5 states they av always said they wanted 6th one,bcos money is shared to other regions based ? number of state,but even if we don’t want to subscribe to a national cake mentality, let every region derives its revenue and pay to d centre,@ least regions will compete. Let ordinary people make corruption an offence punishable by death or beta still life sentence. Bcos Dis nass will never do all this things. In doing all dis things I will prefer nigerians under the age of 50years bcos they av more time to spend here and av gr8ter stakes in nigeria than d old folks. #letstalk
Mr Omojuwa i believe ur judgment is one-sided and that makes it lack utmost credibility.Since this nation got her independence what level of developmt can u point to with d enormous resources nature has bestowed on us.Is d country not being governed by crando of friends result in killing innocent Nigerians when they fall out in political ideology?Something is certainly wrong with our foundatn as people and this must be resolved thru SNC.Or u want to wait 4 a time wen evry tribe resort to fire 4 fire as BH continue to hack pple down and pple including corpers are now running away frm d north.And all these selfish leaders who are power mongers has nothing to do to stop d carnage.This is a shame.Our values and ethics differs significantly.
lon, I like you. And Im a northerner. However, you are suffering under some false assumptions. The north is made of major tribes like hausa, fulani, gwari, kanuri, chongai, gwari, babur, cibok etc etc Its also made of political thugs, unemployed youth, achaba riders, blue collared jobbers. Just like any place in Nigeria. In 2011, there was a riot where disgruntled youth alleged rigging and attacked many groups of people. Including EMIRS (highest class of royalty in this part of Nig) and most unfortunately churches too. Violence in itself is THE problem and not violence against a group of people as falsely promoted by the media. In fact just ask casually on who suffered the most casualties in Kaduna and who were refugees in the Hajj pilgrims board???? northern muslims for lack of a better description- they have been flushed out of their homes and many hundreds killed. Yet in the media, it was christains being killed. Please just go and ask. My point being violence is tearing us apart in Nigeria (everywhere), death on the roads, disease, politics….IT NEEDS TO STOP! regardless of tribe or religion. Thats the way forward..
The Igbo man and Igbo people will certainly be better and more advanced if they had their own country, oil or no oil..fact
There is nothing wrong in law or in equity if a section of the country seeks to separate and form a separate nation, if this is the consequence/intention of the SNC, so far as this is done within International Law
@nig4u, am a southern muslim, I very much kno wat happened during election,cos I av friends there.I kno ordinary northerner are also angry with leaders(own),but its now a recurring decimal for fighting/killing to b happening up north. I can also see tru d media lies,bcos I kno d truth, example is d issue of BH ,where attacks on people generally was tagged to mean attack against ibos, forgetting bombs don’t recognise tribe,but that’s part of d problem, d common people feel alienated,corrupt few r looting d country dry,cos we don’t av a document dat defines an acceptable standard as set by people. I support one nigeria till 2moro bcos we r beta off with d diverse population,its gives us d human resources, and I want to correct dat ibo guy who said they can stand alone, I hope he’s not unda delusion dat nigerdelta will b there with u,aside d fact dat u will b almost landlocked, ur investment in present nigeria wil b difficult to loose,just think abt it?millions of ibo traders will go bak home,u wil b selling ur stuffs amongst u,cos other region wil b challenged to step up! I support ONE nigeria,but certainly with a more equitable approach n representations,where there won’t b an immunity clause,where people won’t need d maze of religious/ethnic webs to ascend, where I can feel free and comfy. We shd all demand dat from NASS, but they cant/wont give in. Bcos a senator earn millions of dollar on behalf of me n u,and we can’t c wat has been done with. Bcos a pres can give our resources at will to anyone,he doesn’t fear d people and increase suffering by increase pump price eventhough we kno its wrong,yet we can change it.
I am a fullblown northener. I hate what is happening to the north. This killers will soon finish what remains of our very poor state. Let us tell our selves the truth. We always indoctrinate our kids and inpoverish them-a deadly combination that produce BH. Our southern brothers should not abandon us now. More than their oil. We need their presence in the same country to dilute BH, otherwise BH will make a minced meat of the few of us that BH does not enjoy our sympathy
Why are people blind to see..that this amalgamation called is a big joke.pls this nation should be divided for the sake of peace.
Thanks, you have said it all