Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) leader, Gani Adams, who was a delegate to the recent national conference, speaks to Head, News Desk, VICTOR EBIMOMI, on some of the issues that confronted the delegates and how they tackled them.
Cause and course of confab
Gani Adams
We thank God. At least, from what we have been reading from the newspapers, you will realise that if 90 per cent of our recommendations scale through, either through referendum or National Assembly, we will have a new Nigeria. From the calibre of people at the confab, we had a conference that was quite different from other conferences Nigeria had had since 1978. So, Nigerians should prepare their mind that the outcome of the conference will solve Nigeria’s problems to a certain extent, if not totally.
Confab resolution for referendum or National Assembly
I think referendum is the better option. If it goes to the National assembly, it may be politicised. When we started the conference, we made it non-partisan. The people, who could be said to be partisan among the delegates, are not up to 10 – three from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), two from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), one from the Labour Party (LP), and something like that. But they are not up 10. What is going to the National Assembly is purely legislative recommendation because we have three volumes. The policy is going to the presidency, and the third one will go to the judiciary, maybe the National Judicial Commission (NJC). So they have to go through certain stages. I can tell you that if the entire documents go to the National Assembly, they will remove most of the contentious issues we decided on. People at the National Assembly belong to the political establishments, especially in the Senate. Some of them are even representing their godfathers. So, though they have ideology and believe in what we have done, if instructions come from their parties that they don’t allow so and so aspect to scale through, they will not scale through. If our recommendation is taken to the National Assembly, that means about four and half months we spent at the confab is a waste. So, let Nigerians decide. Let the new document be Nigerians’ document.
No enabling law setting up the confab
The National Assembly has to make that law to back it up. It has the responsibility to do so. What are the legislators doing there? They are there because of the people. How many days will it take them to make a law for a referendum? They cannot hold us to ransom. If they do, history will judge them. It took us a lot of pain for four and a half months. The committee period was so strenuous, so tedious to the extent that some of us did not even have time for any other thing because we wanted a better Nigeria. Nigerians voted them, there and so they should be prepared to be part of history.
I remember when they were doing the constitution review; they could not even agree, especially the Senate, on the creation of state police despite the security challenges facing the country. They did not agree that local government should have autonomy. If you don’t agree on those two issues, that means they don’t want restructuring; you don’t believe in the spirit of true federalism. But I think for now they should know that the wind of change is already blowing and they will not do anything that will make people see them as anti-Nigeria Project.
Conference worth the efforts
Of course, it is worth it. And the money spent there is not even up to 10 per cent of what we achieved. The government did not even empower most of the delegates like in other conferences. When we listened to the speech of Justice Idris Kutigi (confab chairman), he said 1978 constituent assembly spent 12 months, making one year, 1995 constitutional conference was six months, the 2005 National Political Reform Conference (NPRC) spent five months.
Assessing confab leadership
I think Kutigi is one of the best chairmen we have produced in the history of our conferences. Initially, I was concerned on how he could handle the calibre of people at the conference. But I later discovered that he was somebody that could weather any storm. Even when you were angry, he would crack a joke, and when he realised that he could not douse the tension, he would hand over to the Vice Chairman, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi. Akinyemi, as a good diplomat, would also crack jokes and douse the tension. And if the chairman realised that the matter at hand was too hot, they would go back to their chamber and agree on the best way to handle it. The combination of Kutigi and Akinyemi was fantastic, coupled with the performance of the secretary of the confab, Mrs. Valerie Azinge. She understood the work of the conference very well because from the document they gave us, you would know that the secretariat had performed wonderfully.
Participating on pecuniary consideration
Has it ever been in the history of Nigeria that a conference was held for even one month without the members collecting money? About 87 per cent of the delegates don’t live in Abuja, neither do they have houses in Abuja. The remaining ones who live in Abuja have their businesses but had to leave their businesses for the conference. We had to sit for a period of seven hours in every plenary. The committee was even worse; some sat for 10 hours. And we are talking of four and half months. The ratio of the money they give us every day was N100,000. And most of us were there with our aides. For instance, I was there with my Personal Assistant and the IT Assistant. I had to get about three rooms and sometime I had guests to brainstorm with on the next plenary and next issues. So out of N100,000, anytime I was in Abuja, I would spend about N75,000 to N80,000 to pay for hotel rooms in a day. And every Thursday, I would fly to Lagos on business class and two economy class seats. So you see we were even bringing our money to supplement what we were given. We went there on the basis of sacrifice.
Look at the recommendations and the ideas that came out of that conference, you will see that we went there on the basis of sacrifice. A conference of four and half months can never be free anywhere in the world.
Greatest challenge at the conference
The greatest challenge was the Land Use decree and the issue of resource control. But for the wisdom of the conference officials and the negotiating committee, the conference could have been a flop at the last minute. Out of the 20 committee reports, we treated 19 without having any problem. In the wisdom of the conference officials, report of the devolution of power committee would have been the first to be treated, but they kept most of the contentious committees for the last stage.
When we got to devolution of power, we had agreed on about 19 or 20 of the recommendations. But when we got to sharing of money, problem started. We tried to manage it; we met, we talked to ourselves.
Eastern delegates’ demand for compensation over civil war
The Igbo have the right to call for reparation because of the damages they suffered during the war. All over the world when war is fought anywhere and they agree to resolve the issue, you ought to pay them for the damages caused during the war – the lives and the property that were destroyed. But it is only the president who has the right to do that. He has the power. That demand cannot be met by the conference because most of the issues that could come under that have been passed to the presidency to handle.
Attaining South West objectives at the confab
Yes, we achieved a lot because under normal circumstances, we went for regional autonomy and parliamentary system. But when we got there, we realised that even in the South West, about 60 per cent of the delegates did not believe in regionalism anymore, especially those who represented the governors. The South West governors said they did not want regionalism because they don’t want to go back to Ibadan, which is known as the capital of the Western Region. They don’t want to submit their leadership to any premier. That was their excuse. Some of the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) did also not want regionalism again. When we sat with the South East, we realised that about 60 to 70 per cent of the South East delegates wanted regionalism. About 20 to 25 said they did not want it. Niger Delta was even the worst. About 70 or 80 per cent of them did not want regionalism. When you go Middle Belt that we allied with, they did not want regionalism at all. So if you had wanted to sell regionalism at the plenary, it would be unsellable. We now sat down and mapped out Plan B, which was: if you cannot get regional autonomy and parliamentary system of government, let us go for devolution of power, where power will be devolved to the states like in the United States of America. And that was what we achieved. In the issue of system of government; if we cannot get parliamentary system, we should go for the French-modified presidential system, which is just like parliamentary system. We also achieved it at the end of the day.
South West preparation for Boko Haram
The preparation of the South West is placed in the hands of the Almighty God because this is a guerrilla war, not a group that you can know is coming to strike. It is not a group that you can easily assess its strength. It is not a group where you can identify whether its members are here or there. So, definitely, I cannot tell you 100 per cent that OPC will stop Boko Haram in the South West. But we are doing all we can to make sure that the sect does not attack the South West. But like what has happened recently (Boko Haram creating a caliphate); their influence will be higher because we will have some Northerners who will believe in their cause based on the announcement. Because of the caliphate issue, many Hausa and Fulani will be sympathetic to their cause. So, we should be highly watchful and vigilant because this is a serious issue.
In the South East, we have the issue of Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). So, if something like this Boko Haram caliphate is coming from the North, it is a serious issue and shows that maybe the prediction of America of Nigeria’s disintegration in 2015 is coming to pass, if care is not taken. What we can do now is that all stakeholders must meet and map out a strategy, the government must carry all the groups like ours along. If we are not united, it will be very difficult to curtail Boko Haram, though we have been trying our own possible best in our organisation which I cannot expose to the media. But all hands must be on deck. That is my belief.
Specific advice to the federal government
The federal government should expedite action on the adoption of our recommendations at the confab, so that we can have a new Nigeria.
View on 2015 elections
It is just about six months away. Normally, when election is near, people always attack themselves; but on the day of election you will just hear that it is peaceful. I think it will be peaceful, if Nigeria still remains as one.
