Gradually, with uneven steps and incoherent tones, the national conference ends this week. It has been a gathering full of surprises. Though no blows have been exchanged, rising tempers have not been in short supply.
While it lasted, there were fears that it would crash. But within split seconds, the confab would spring back to life. Even now, the worst is not over yet. Arguments are still raging. Tempers are still rising. Ethnic loyalty rather than nationalistic ego still reigns supreme. Some villains are still at work.
But no matter what happens, this has been a conference of bold decisions. Most of the decisions may not go down well with everybody. No national conference anywhere has ever spoken with one voice. None has ever lacked disagreements.
If this confab succeeds, its chairman, Justice Idris Kutigi, takes a huge chunk of the credit. He has shown leadership. When it is necessary, he acts tough. When it is needed, he is assertive. To soften the atmosphere, he illuminates the hall with his traditional magisterial laughter.
In more times than once, Kutigi reminded himself that he was not presiding over a Supreme Court session; but regulating the conduct of men and women of political might. When he would have given a tear-dripping ruling, he chose to laugh or just keep quiet.
More than once, when deadlock surfaced, I contemplated writing Kutigi a letter reminding him of the 1787 Philadelphia Convention which we have previously discussed on this page. History tells us that when there was an impasse on issues, including representations in the Senate and the House, a certain Benjamin Franklin asked for prayers. This was what he said:
“The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasoning with each other – our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many nays as ayes, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding.
“We indeed seem to feel our own wont of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist. And we have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances.
“In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark, to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it; when to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine Protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered.
“All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence, we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance.
“I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that ‘except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it’.
“I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a bye word down to future age. And what is worse, mankind may, hereafter this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.
“I therefore beg leave to move – that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that service.”
This divinely-inspired intervention was made on June 28, 1787. George Washington, who was addressed even at that time as President of United States, was presiding. As soon as Franklin’s request was granted, and prayers were said every morning before commencement of session, things changed.
Suddenly, stalemates were broken. Issues that had tended to divide the new republic were amicably resolved. It was after the introduction of prayers that the Great Compromise was struck. Prayer works wonders. Spontaneous prayers work wondrously.
At the Abuja Conference, prayer is routinely said every morning; read from a script. But we are talking about a different prayer here. God says when we earnestly seek Him, or knock on the door for His intervention; or ask diligently and in sincerity whatever we desire; it shall be given to us. If prayer worked in Philadelphia, it could have worked in Abuja.