Of butchers and surgeons

“A sieve is not acquired to fetch water.” Hausa Proverb

Butchers and surgeons have one thing in common: they work on bodies. Butchers, however, live off dead bodies, while surgeons work on bodies to save lives. There are fine arts to both professions. Butchers learn to make the most out of carcasses, and their knowledge of dead meat is valuable in determining how much is made out of it. Surgeons have to posses vast knowledge about anatomy of living things and sharpened skills to work on bodies to save lives or relieve illnesses. They do not always succeed, but the worst surgeon knows better than to operate like a butcher.

The national dialogue advisory committee is President Jonathan’s butcher. His choice of its members is evidence that he does not require the fine skills of a surgeon to advise him on the nature of an ailment, and to work on it towards healing. A butcher will kill the animal and dispose of its as commodity. His goal is to make maximum use of the carcass, in the same way little effort has been deployed towards hiding the real intent behind the committee.

President Jonathan says his advisory committee on national dialogue is his response to popular clamour for a forum to discuss the manner the nation is structured, and to seek ways of improving it. The committee is to advise him on modalities for organizing the dialogue and linkages between its output and constitutional amendment. In this respect, President Jonathan can be described as a relatively new convert to the old idea that only a tribal conclave which disregards the constitution will provide real and final solutions to all the problems of Nigerians. A surgeon would have advised him to first appreciate the nature of the ailment, and evaluate the links between the illness and the treatment. The wrong diagnosis will almost certainly lead to the wrong prescription, and the patient may be a lot worse off after treatment. A butcher will take a look at the problem, and see the potential to make capital out of it.

Those who have campaigned for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) will not be impressed by an arrangee conference facilitated by advise from a hard core of government supporters. They will, at best, lean hard on Senator Okurounmu and Professor Nwabueze to rebel against solid barriers and push through proposals for a conference that will not be answerable to Jonathan the Nigerian constitution. Even if they can, and this will be difficult, they will only register a moral victory in having an SNC voice heard at the highest official levels. The bulk of the nation will reject any forum that exists outside the constitution and takes away power from elected representatives.

If the elderly gentlemen of the old SNC genre need help, it will have to be from hard core PDP people in the committee who, while not supporting a tribal and sovereign conference, will seek to achieve objectives that specifically serve President Jonathan’s ambition. Prof George Obiozor, Dr Indabawa, Mr Tony Uranta, Alhaji Dauda Birma, Dr Aisha Amshi, Colonel Tony Nyam and Senators Khairat Gwadabe and Adudu will provide a critical mass around certain objectives. These could include recommending a forum that focuses on contentions issues not being resolved by the current reviews of the constitution such as terms for elected executives, fiscal and revenue allocation and the structure of the federal system. They could also represent a bloc that will prevail in debates over representation and the legal status of the dialogue outcome. Knowing the deep crises in the party of the President, they will be sensitive to recommending modalities which will best reinforce his tenuous hold over rebellious tendencies, or which shield him from them. There will very likely be two lone voices from Dr Abubakar Siddique Mohammed and Malam Buhari Bello who may attempt to resist recommendations that worsen the nation’s problems. They will have an uphill task working in a committee designed to produce a pre-determined goal, and they may work under the pressure that they are part of a programmed process which will harm their constituencies.

We are a long way from an actual dialogue forum at this state. This makes it a good moment for some speculation. Whether he specifically intended it or not, President Jonathan’s middle-of-the-road approach would have fatally damaged the idea of a sovereign national conference. He will argue that his facilitation of a pure talkshop has created a fair solution for the two extremes represented by proponents of SNC and those who repudiate any idea of conference at all. He could strike a balance between a pure, ethnic-based representation and a selection process which seeks some elements of ethno-religious inclusiveness and some weighting to reflect demographic indices. He could also fill up the dialogue agenda with the type of issues which will satisfy ethnic champions, as well as matters which are currently under review by the national assembly in the context of constitutional review. Then again, he could undertake to forward, untainted and unedited, the outcome of the national dialogue to the national assembly to do as it wishes. This way he would wash his hands off what happens to it. Attention and hostility or high expectations will turn to the legislature, which is very likely going to ignore it.

President Jonathan cannot pretend not to know that the nation has had a bitter history with conferences. He must also know that neither his dialogue nor SNC enjoys popular, national support. Time after time, attempts to amend the constitution have been floated by the legislature merely to guzzle massive resources. The nation is more or less resigned to live with a constitution and a federal system which are virtually immutable in their fundamentals because those who should change them prefer them they way they are.

So the logical question to ask is what benefits will President Jonathan derive from the planned dialogue? The answer may lie in the desperation of the administration to secure some relief and additional space to fight its legion of challenges. A dialogue process which absorbs all national attention, from its conceptualization to operationalization to output will be very beneficial to President Jonathan. The thinking may be to foist a controversial process on the attention of the citizenry and hope that it will represent a new and different focus of interest and hostility. Diehard SNC proponents will tear it apart at every turn. Others will debate its value, debate whether to participate in it or ignore it; debate every word uttered in it; and debate measures which may be deployed against or for it. A few fringe groups may see it as a backdrop for irredentism, and others will see it as evidence that it is designed specifically against them.

While the arangee dialogue is going on, the hope will be that Nigerians will be less critical of the administration’s dismal record in fighting insecurity, corruption, brazen theft of our resources and keeping our economy afloat. If nothing tangible comes out of the dialogue forum at the end of the day, little other than huge expenditure and the death of the dialogue concept would have been lost.

But President Jonathan may not be able to pull off the gamble. Large sections of the nation may have nothing to do with it, either because it promises too little for them, or because it promises too much for him. His opponents within the PDP will be likely spoilers to the extent that every step he takes henceforth will be seen as a hostile move. All Progressives Alliance (APC) leaders will resist an attempt by Jonathan to earn a few brownie points, even at the risk of offending a geriatric support which has lived on SNC oxygen. The media may resist the temptation to play along in the diversion strategy, in spite of massive resources which will be used to entice it.

President Jonathan’s dialogue forum represents a butcher’s attempt at a surgeon’s job. His advisory committee has his ambition’s imprint all over it. This will inspire very little confidence in what it will advise the President in terms of planning the dialogue forum. But it will read its mandate well, and will attempt to capture its essence. The nation, however, may think differently. Whatever happens, President Jonathan will have his dialogue, and the nation will pay for it from increasingly dwindling resources. As for the response of Nigerians, the President may find citizens ignoring his arangee dialogue altogether.