“People should not talk while
they are eating or pepper may go down the wrong way.” Nigerian Proverb.
The public hearings conducted by the Advisory Committee
on National Dialogue which came to an end almost two weeks ago must have left
members of the Committee with a crises of choice. Just about every idea,
suggestions, proposal, demands, criticism, grievance and advice on what should be
the agenda of the Dialogue have been given in public. There must also be loads
of written submission waiting to be examined. Nigerians found a new platform to
expose old issues. Some think their voices will be heard this time. Others
raised theirs because everyone else is raising his. The nation was reminded of
many fora such as 1978 Constitutional Conference, the Oputa Panel, Obasanjo’s
Political Conference and many panels on security set up in the last two
decades. People looking for new angles into old problems must have been disappointed.
The hearings were to provide popular inputs into the
committees’ Terms of Reference. Many of the presentations attempted to operate
within the mandate of the committee, but the opportunity was too tempting to
let go without treating it as if it is the real Dialogue. Politicians tore the
idea of the Dialogue to pieces in the face of the committee, the public and the
media. Others offered their views privately, fearing that they could pay
unaffordable prices with their electorates and powers if they spoke openly. Knowledgeable
and pedestrian opinions, articles and paid adverts were published on what the
conference is not, or should be. Many leaders who shaped public opinion chose
to walk a fight rope: not condemning the idea of the Dialogue, and not exactly
embracing it with open arms either.
President Jonathan said that the Dialogue is intended as
“a National Project, a sincere and fundamental undertaking aimed at
realistically examining and genuinely resolving long-standing impediments to
our cohesion and harmonious development as a truly united
Nation”. He charged the committee to “consult widely before sitting down to
develop the framework that will guide and guard the proceedings of the discussion.”
Emphasising the plebian value of inputs, he told the committee to ensure that
“no voice is too small and no opinion is irrelevant. Thus, the views of the
sceptics and those of the enthusiasts must be accommodated as you formulate
this all important framework. This conversation is a People’s Conversation, and
I urge you to formulate an all-inclusive process that protects people’s
interest.”
Perhaps Professor Ben Nwabueze was unable to read the
President’s speech while he was away in London. Or, more plausibly, he had
settled on the idea that the entire process was his brainchild, and he has the
exclusive and personal franchise to see it through from start to finish. In any
case, he rained on the Dialogue parade in a manner guaranteed to throw it into
deeper levels of despair. Just when his infamous opus titled “North-South
Divide” which was rumoured to have formed the basis of the decision to set up
an Advisory Committee on National Dialogue was being consigned to dustbins across
the nation as a delusional output from a man whose distinguished past was coming
to a most inglorious end, his leaked letter to President Jonathan requesting
approval to produce an alternative constitution which should form the focus of
a Constitutional Conference appears to be putting the final seal of
non-credibility of the whole idea. The long line of critics, including many who
thought the Dialogue idea should be given the benefit of doubt is growing by
the day. The idea that a new or alternative constitution can be privately
produced in Nwabueze’s living room and then legalized in a manner that makes it
the issue before the forum is offending large segments of public opinion. Even making
allowances for President Jonathan’s poor public relations record, the failure
to distance the administration from Nwabueze’s increasingly leprous influence on
the Dialogue idea is incredible.
The Dialogue idea, in the first place, was born with
massive congenital defects. Its champions had taken up permanent positions in
the fringes of the political process for a long time. Its timing was suspect. The
sudden conversion of a self-confessed sceptical President to the idea was not
credible. Influential political leaders shot it down before it even had a
chance to fly. All Progressives Congress (APC) decided to have nothing to do
with it. A major player who could have underpinned Jonathan’s vision within the
committee quarrelled himself out of it. The zonal junketing revealed nothing
new: Nigerians have the same ideas, issues and grievances about their nation as
they had in the last twenty years.
The issues raised at the public hearings substantially
mirrored the issues which the Senate and the Representatives sent out their
members at great cost to seek Nigerians’ views on. Those responses are either
still being processed, or they have been filed away until the next time the
National Assembly asks for more founds for constitutional review again. Then the
same issues will come up again, and very little will be done about them. Although
there is a serving Senator on the Dialogue Committee, the national assembly
must be watching all these developments with some amusement. It knows that it
holds the trump card, or at least it thinks it does. The output of the Dialogue
or Conference will have to come to it. There will be nothing to compel it to
act on it, unless some extraordinary inducement is provided that will encompass
political ambitions and fat accounts. It is difficult to see how Jonathan will
find that type of inducement under the present circumstances. Some elements in
the legislature may be worrying over the possibility that political and security
challenges may be contrived to railroad the national assembly into adopting
another legal gymnastic posture akin to the Doctrine of Necessity to give
substantial space to the outcome of the National Conference. This type of
thinking is already gaining ground around people who cannot see through to the
value of a National Conference at this time.
With just a few days before the Advisory Committee
submits its suggestions to the President, it will be helpful if its members read
the speech he read at its inauguration again, particularly the part which urged
it to not only “be alive to the expectations of our people, but to bear in
mind, that what we desire is what can work for the good of our people and
country. The goal is to bequeath a better and greater Nigeria to the present
and the generation that is to come.” If the committee will do justice to these
demands by the President, it will need courage and wisdom. It will need courage
to advise him that the timing and current political circumstances are not going
to help in creating a genuine and all-inclusive national dialogue. It needs
wisdom not to suggest that the entire idea is abandoned. It should advise
President Jonathan to encourage Nigerians to engage in a National Conference
after the 2015 elections. If he is still the President then, that will be even
better for his project. If he is not, Nigerians may then choose to demand for
the opportunity to have the Conference from whoever is the President.
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