FESTUS OKOYE, human rights lawyer and member of the Committee on Political Parties and Electoral Matters at the national conference, talks to COLINS OSIGBEME on activities of the confab, especially some of the resolutions it had adopted and those hanging
Achievements of national conference considering positions by interest groups
Festus OkoyeI think the national conference has entered a critical stage, in the sense that we have finished work at the various committee levels. The 20 committees set up by the conference have submitted their reports and we are now considering some of those reports. When we started, certain individuals and groups came with certain positions that would have, at the end, presented the conference with a fait accompli. Some of them came with certain fixations, certain conclusions and insisted that it was either they got what they were asking for or the conference could as well close shop. After about three weeks, people started to drop their hard line positions, having realised that you cannot have a national conference made up of the Nigerian people without engaging in consultations, negotiation, compromise as well as give-and-take. I think it is that process of consultation, consensus as well as give-and-take that has moved the national conference to where we are now.
Harmonising views and positions of the different interest groups
What the delegates are saying, and the position of patriotic delegates, is that they are not going to be fixated to any position and that what should be the over-riding principle in relation to the national conference will be what we want for the Nigerian people and not the position of one section of the country. You can see that on some of the issues that were very contentious, at the end of the day, civil society groups and organisations, the Labour union and some other patriotic Nigerians engaged in bipartisan consultations that led to some of those issues being resolved.
Let me give you an example with three issues. First is the withdrawal of fuel subsidy. The positions were very high. There were some people that insisted that the only way Nigeria can make progress is if fuel subsidy is removed. Some of us insisted that the removal of fuel subsidy will bring untold hardship on the Nigerian people. At the end of the day, it was a bipartisan position proposed by civil society groups and organisations as well as labour and other patriotic Nigerians that carried the day. We said the government should go and fix the refineries and get them to work, improve the general condition of living of the Nigerian people, after which you can gradually remove subsidy over a period of three years. That was the bipartisan position everybody agreed on. The second bipartisan position related to the constant clashes between farmers and Fulani herdsmen. At the end of the day, we arrived at a bipartisan position saying that a time has come when we must establish grazing reserves, especially in states that agreed to it and that over a period of five to 10 years, the government of those states and the federal government must establish such reserves, for us to reduce escalating incidences of people being displaced, people being killed on account of these problems and some of these challenges. The third bipartisan position was the establishment of what we called an equal opportunities commission which we have made a part of the federal character commission, so that persons who are disabled, women and other people with challenges can also have an opportunity within the federation rather than reduce the issue of federal character to geography. These are some of the issues that have seen the light of day at the conference using bipartisan positions.
There are other issues that are still outstanding, one of which is whether we should transfer the Land Use Act or expunge it from the constitution. There has not been any resolution regarding that. You also know that we are going to deliberate on issues of state police, as well as whether Nigeria should be made up of three zones, among others. I am convinced that with the spirit of bipartisan position at the national conference, we are going to resolve all these issues in a manner that will be in the best interest of the Nigerian people and in a manner that will lead to the development of this country. So, I am positive that very positive resolutions will come out of the confab, and at the end of the day, key stakeholders in the Nigeria project will look at some of the policy and administrative issues and implement them, and also look at the issues that will require legal and constitutional amendment and attend to them as such, so that Nigeria will be the better for it.
Hitch-free confab all the way
We have had a lot of challenges. One of the key challenges we have is the crisis of imagination. When a country stops thinking, when a country stops taking risk, when a country does not think ahead and does not plan ahead, that country is likely to stagnate and make a lot of mistakes. Other countries are already planning how to deal with pensionable citizens in the next 20 years. Some countries are already looking at the statistics to know how many people will be unemployed in their country in the next 20 years and are putting in place mechanism to address them. But in Nigeria, we wait for things to take us by surprise before we start putting in place measures to address them. I believe that this confab is going to put down the template for a greater Nigeria; a Nigeria of the future, and will also look at some of those challenges and crises that have stunted our growth and deal with them. I hope and pray that we should have the political, administrative and constitutional will to implement some of those recommendations that will come out of the national conference. But one thing I would want to advise is that the Nigerian people must moderate their expectations relating to what is going to come out from the conference. The conference will not fix Nigeria in one day, but will lay down a template on how to resolve some of the challenges facing the country. So, it does not mean that the moment we conclude the national conference, all Nigeria’s problems and challenges will disappear. That will not happen, and so I think we should moderate our expectations because some of the recommendations will be futuristic, while some of them will demand immediate implementations. I hope and pray that the political class in this country will have the will and courage to implement some of the recommendations that will come out of the conference.
Confab as Jonathan’s platform for 2015
The national conference is made up of an amalgam of different forces. There are delegates from the different states, and you know that the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) as a political party does not control all the states of the federation. Each state government and its governor nominated delegates to the conference. There are also 24 delegates from civil society groups and organisations, and another 24 from the Labour unions. There are delegates from youth groups and organisations, ethnic nationalities, professional groups and associations among others. You cannot look at this rainbow coalition and think that you can use them to achieve purposes that are not noble. It is possible that some people had an agenda to use the conference for purposes that are not genuine. But if you look at the array of people there and their ideological inclination, you will know that if you bring anything with an overdose of pure partisanship, it will be killed on arrival. So, I believe that there are people at the conference that will not toy with their reputation and will not allow anybody to manipulate the conference to achieve purposes that are not noble.
Confab decision taking the country to Promised Land
My own take is that the time available for the conference to do its work is too short. It would have been better to divide members of the conference into the six geo-political zones for them to go to each state of the federation and feel the pulse of the people and get complete feedback from the people, so that they will buy into whatever recommendation that comes out of the conference. Second, the time available for us to do our committee work was also too short. For instance, I was a member of the committee on Political Parties and Electoral Matters. It would have been better, since we made recommendations on State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs), for all the chairmen of the SIECs to have appeared before us and justify why the commissions should continue to exist. Local governments are having very serious challenges. I would have preferred a situation where those local government chairpersons appeared before us and answered some questions relating to the operation of local government. I would have preferred a situation where we invited the leadership of the various political parties to appear before us and tell us why they think internal party democracy is not working. I would have preferred a situation where the leadership of the police would come before us and present the type of challenges they are facing policing election. But because of the timeframe available to us, we could not do all that and had to rely on previous reports as well as the imagination of people and the experiences of others to arrive at our decision. Now, it would have been better for us to have all these shades of opinion for us to do a good job. But given the time available to us and the conference as well as the reports that have been presented, I think the committee has done a good job, and if the conference considers those reports in the interest of the Nigerian people, it is possible that implementation of those reports will be to the glory of the Nigerian people.
Outcome of the confab undermining the duties of NASS
If you look at the Nigerian constitution, the National Assembly (NASS) comes first, even before the executive and the judiciary. If you look at part two of the constitution, the power of the executive, legislature and judiciary are grouped as the powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is not in the interest of anybody, not in the interest of the delegates, not in the interest of the executive and not in the interest of key stakeholders in the Nigeria project for anybody to ridicule the law-making powers of NASS. We are not in competition with NASS and can never be in competition. I respect both arms of NASS because it is NASS that is supposed to be the tribune of the people. But the truth of the matter is that there are certain policy issues, certain administrative issues, certain issues of perception and politics that have been bugging the Nigerian people and I think that it is when you get people of a rainbow coalition from different backgrounds that you can talk sincerely and honestly about those things and try to break down barriers of suspicion. I think that is one of the things that the conference is doing.
Lamido of Adamawa and pull-out threat
When we started, people came with certain fixations, and people were suspicious of one another because of the comments people were making. I see the comment of the Lamido of Adamawa from that context. But when we went into committee, he participated very well and has been making his own contributions on the floor of the house. Nobody has walked out of the conference. That is to show you that people have moved from the positions they were holding before and have moved to the centre. If you look at the people that sponsored the motion for the creation of an Equal Opportunities Commission, you would see that it was a rainbow coalition of all Nigerians from all the geo-political zones. I think that is the way we should go and that is what Nigeria ought to be. So, some of those barriers and suspicions are being broken. But do some geopolitical zones hold certain position? Yes. But you have to canvass those positions, and if you look at our modus operandi, we arrive at a decision through a process of consensus first. If we don’t arrive at consensus, we go for further consultations, and if that fails, we then arrive at a decision by 70 per cent (majority). Since we commenced, we have not voted, and none of the 20 committees arrived at any decision through voting. They all arrived at their decisions through consensus. We have discussed the report of the committee on environment and arrived at all the decisions through consensus. The same thing was the case with the report of the committee on civil service. We have considered the report on land use and are going to arrive at a decision through a process of consensus. There is only one issue outstanding as at now, and that is whether it should be expunged or retained in the constitution. We have also considered the report on science and technology, and I can assure you that we are going to arrive at all the decisions through consensus.
Non-implementation of confab committee reports
There are people who have canvassed a position that the moment we conclude our work, the report should be subjected to a referendum, and I have said no. I have canvassed a position that the fate of the report of the confab will depend on the outcome. I was a member of the Electoral Reforms Committee (ERC). When we submitted our report, it was like the report was thrown out. But today, there is nothing that NASS has done in relation to electoral reform that they have not referred to our report. All the amendments that have been made arose from our report. Prof. Attahiru Jega, who was a member of ERC, appeared before us and said that since he assumed office, all his actions are based on the report of the committee. What that means is that the Nigerian people saw merit in our report and bought the report as their own. That is why the more the government runs away from the report, the more the report follows it. So, everybody is quoting the report. If we do a good job, the Nigerian people will determine the fate of that report; whether it will be implemented or not. But if we do a bad job, the Nigerian people will throw it into the trash can. If we do a god job and the government dumps it in the dustbin, the Nigerian people will pick it from there and insist on its implementation. That is my own position.