By Sam Akpe
They talk, rage, throw tantrums and grandstand. Disagreement is a norm. Agreement is optional. Then they vote; and the majority celebrates. While some smile, others cry. Oh consensus? Forget it! It only works when an issue as watery as leaving meteorology in the Exclusive Legislative List is discussed, or on those matters whose natural domain within the constitution is unquestionable.
Sam AkpePractically, consensus has failed on issues like state police and resource control; there is an unwritten rule that these issues are not to be decided on common consent. So, at this conference, delegates only talk about consensus when the tyranny of the majority prevails. Forget about the orchestrated talk about Nigeria being the centre-piece of the conference. It’s a mere hype.
Covering the on-going national conference in Abuja has been quite an experience. If you have ever covered the National Assembly and are familiar with the organised behaviour of senators and the protocols of conducting affairs, then covering the national conference could be as frustrating as dropping off an aircraft and mounting a bike to travel the same distance.
Delegates to the national conference probably went there with the mentality of possessing constitutional powers equivalent to those of elected representatives. This became more obvious when issues of national security came up. Some moved motions compelling the president or even the military to perform certain functions. It took repeated explanations by the conference chairman, Justice Idris Kutigi, that they lacked such powers allocated by the constitution exclusively to the National Assembly.
But as the conference matured, delegates also matured in experience and seemed to have learnt on the job. Only one thing has not matured in this conference: the pursuit of one Nigeria as a common agenda. Most delegates are at the conference to re-enforce their pre-Independence and post-civil war positions. They have vowed to continuously apply failed solutions to new challenges. What I see delegates do is like combating the dynamite-throwing Boko Haram and Uzi gun-shooting kidnappers with catapult. They are so rigid in their reasoning and positions that at the end, Nigeria may be left in a worse state than it was prior to the conference. God forbid!
What this conference needs is shifting of grounds or a little compromise between delegates from the North and those from the South. Dr. Bello Mohammed, a delegate, had said during a plenary session that (in paraphrase): there is nobody in the North who does not know of the destructive environmental problems in the Niger Delta, where people can hardly fish or plant crops; and there is nobody in the South who does not know of existing poverty and illiteracy in the North. He then proposed that delegates from both sides must strike a compromise in terms of you scratch my back and I scratch yours. But I have since realised that talk is cheap. Since the committee sessions started, such a fine suggestion has been reduced to a mere theory.
There is no other committee where this has become more obvious than the Committee on Devolution of Power. Here, the word consensus is so alien to delegates that you would think 1914 never happened. This committee focuses on the twin areas of Legislative List and fiscal federalism with eyes on revenue sharing, sharing formula, and resource control.
There is no doubt that delegates from the North prefer a stronger centre where the nation’s resources are accumulated and shared; and delegates from the South prefer a decentralised centre where both political and economic power go to the federating units while the centre assumes a supervising status. Both have held onto these positions so tenaciously.
By last Thursday, their different positions had negatively affected discourse on devolution of power. Yes, there was a very laughable semblance of consensus on this. But that was the end of it. From that point, delegates from the North got set to ensure that every ingredient of constitutional provision that could make devolution of power effective dies on arrival. For instance, while considering the Exclusive Legislative List, the idea of a state police was shot down mercilessly. Watch my lips: how can you practise devolution of power without a decentralised police force? The reasons offered by the delegates from the North were that state governors would abuse the use of state police; and that it would be impossible for some states to fund it.
It took the committee four straight days of intensive debate and hair-splitting arguments before the committee could resolve the issue of decentralised legislative powers regarding mining of mineral resources as stated in Item 39 of Exclusive Legislative List. The reason is that the delegates from the North are committed to ensuring that such powers reside at the centre, so that oil-bearing states do not exploit it to their benefits. They are opposed to any kind of modification, even if it is left in the Exclusive List.
If we accept that the conference is about Nigeria, then delegates must shift grounds. One delegate told yours truly last Tuesday: even if our stubbornness will make this conference to fail, it does not matter. This is unacceptable. History is watching, and listening. Tax-payers’ money spent will cry for vengeance if this conference ends in failure caused by tribal interest. Consensus does not mean weakness, neither is stubbornness a show of strength. Let us give consensus a practical meaning for the greatness of Nigeria.