2023 And Sovereign National Conference Imperative
POLITICS DIGEST – As 2019 was winding down, Nigerians in different places, including schools, universities, offices, churches, mosques, market places most deservedly discussed what Nigeria would be like in 2020 having regard to the multifarious problems that afflicted Nigeria in 2019. Such ills include, but not limited, to unpaid salaries, pensions and other emoluments, spiral unemployment, different shades and shapes of violence, armed robbery, poverty, grossly underfunded institutions, poor infrastructure including deplorable road network, insecurity at home, on the road and on the farms as well as killings for different motives.
In 2019, Nigeria witnessed many cases of kidnapping of Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike, high court judges, justices of court of appeal, governors and deputy governors. The problem of insecurity came to a head around Christmas last year when the country’s immediate past President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, was brazenly attached at home in Otuoke, Bayelsa state, despite the intricate web of security woven around him. The common currency in the discussion by people from different strata of the societal ladder was where do we go from here? What should we expect in 2020? While most were pessimistic about the resolution of the problems identified above, others who were conversely optimistic.
They expect that some miracles could happen and that 2020 would indeed be a better year than the preceding year. As if the prayer of the few optimistic ones was heard, two miracles happened towards the end of 2019: The first was the closure of Nigerian borders with Niger Republic and Benin Republic which has brought a modicum of hope to the economy. For example, many Nigerian farmers have now gone back to their farms with the firm belief that they now have a ready market for their farm products unlike the practice before the border closure when their farm products were pushed to the back burner because of illegal importation of items like rice, fish, maize and others from neigbhouring countries.
The second was the sudden change of mind by the federal government, when like a bolt from the blues, news filtered in on Christmas Day that President Muhammadu Buhari had released Col. Sambo Dasuki, President Jonathan’s National Security Adviser, NSA, who had been incarcerated since December 2015 and Omoyele Sowore, founder of Sahara Reporters and the proponent of #RevolutionNow, who had been in the gulag for four months before his eventual release. I joined millions of Nigerians in commending President Buhari for obeying court orders thereby firing the hope that this government believes in the rule of law. It is trite to emphasise that the rule of law is the solid pillar on which democracy properly so called stands.
But no matter how well-placed the intention of the president and other Nigerian political leaders to tackle the problems highlighted above may be, such intention might come to naught unless Nigeria identifies the root causes of the problems and proffer workable solutions to them. There is this Yoruba aphorism, which translates roughly to “when a man is poor, he becomes hungry, when he is hungry, he becomes angry and when he is angry, he can engage in any vice like kidnapping, larceny, outright robbery and all forms of violence that were alien to our land in the days of yore”.
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Those of us who are over 80 years old will recall that there was no poverty in Nigeria in those days. This was simply because everybody was gainfully employed. Even those who were engaged in other vocations like bricklaying, barbing, trading and carpentry still engaged in agriculture if only to feed members of their immediate families. That was the trend in those days. It is my humble view that it is only when our problems are identified that we can proffer solutions to them. The real and main problem Nigeria has today is the military constitution which was christened 1999 Constitution and foisted on us by the military. Unless the 1999 Constitution is properly addressed and jettisoned in a place of a truly people’s constitution, we shall continue to groan in pain as a nation.
The 1999 constitution should be jettisoned because it encouraged indolence, lack of creativity, greed and avarice, wanton struggle for positions in the central government and the untoward attitude of begging for monthly allocation from the federal government. Today, that politics has suddenly and lamentably become the only lucrative business in the country. Already, those who are benefiting from the mess created by the warped 1999 Constitution, making billions of Naira at the expense of the massive majority of Nigerians, are already angling for the 2023 elections instead of addressing the problems inherent in and caused by the 1999 constitution.
To maintain the status quo, what the present caste of legislators have been doing is to amend, re-amend and further amend the extant 1999 constitution. They should appreciate that no one can successfully mend a skyscraper which is devoid of pillars: such a skyscraper will simply fall like a house of cards. In the circumstance, what we need to solve the multiplicity of problems is the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference. The enabling law would ensure that the outcome of the Sovereign National Conference will receive the status of a draft Constitutional Reform Bill which will be passed by the National Assembly without any amendment. To ensure broad-based representation and efficiency, the Sovereign National Conference should be convened as follows:
- Two to three delegates per state, elected on zero party basis.
- Every ethnic group in Nigeria should be represented at the Sovereign National Conference.
- Representatives of accredited professional, religious and non-governmental bodies, who will be distinguished personalities with unimpeachable records. Such organizations will be proportionately represented, based on their numerical strength.
- 50-50 representation for both women and men.
- At least 20% representation of youths in the SNC. Here I adopt the African Union’s definition of youth, which is “every person between the ages of 15 and 35 years”.
- The principal officers (chairman, deputy chairman and secretary) of the Sovereign National Conference to be elected internally by its members during the inaugural sessions of the body.
The proposed Sovereign National Conference must conclude its deliberations before any election. It follows therefore that there should be no election before the outcome of the proposed Sovereign National Conference. The 2023 general elections should be conducted using the new constitution which will be the outcome, indeed the product, of the Sovereign National Conference. This is the way to go if we are to make it as a nation. I wish Nigerians a happy and prosperous 2020.
Aare Babalola, OFR, CON, SAN is founder & chancellor of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti.
