Nigeria in trouble, reconstitute cabinet, call Atiku, Peter Obi, Kwankwaso, others to meeting, Udenta urges Tinubu
By Jeffrey Agbo
Founding National Secretary of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Prof Udenta Udenta, has called on President Bola Tinubu to take several actions to avert what he described as “disaster” that awaits the nation if things persist the way they are.
The political thinker bared his mind in a statement on Wednesday where he addressed the end hunger protests, the overall state of the nation, and Yakubu Dogara’s “hate speech”.
Udenta said peaceful protest is a civic right and that no amount of pressure by the state and its security, intelligence and defence apparatuses can constrain mass protests so long as their purposes are genuine, pro-people and progressive in nature and orientation.
He said the non-participation of the Igbo in the hunger protest is in itself “a form of protest against the Nigerian state.”
He said it reflects that the Igbo probably fear they would be treated more harshly than other sections of the country if they join the protests.
Udenta said Tinubu needs to get the elite on his side “in the apparent war his policies have temporarily declared on the people.”
He added, “President Tinubu should quickly convene a conclave of the nation’s leading political players as follows: Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, Peter Obi of Labour Party and Musa Rabi’u Kwankwaso of NNPP; the National Chairman of the APC and those of the above parties; the Leadership (majority and minority of NASS), the Chairman of Nigerian Governors’ Forum and the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum. It is his call to reach out to his political opponents and not the other way round. He is the president of the country; they are not.
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“At the end of the conclave the following political direction can be charted:
“A. Re-establish the Office of Special Adviser to Mr President on Inter-Party Relations as President Obasanjo did in 1999 when he appointed no less a person as the Founding National Chairman of APP (as it was then called), Sen Mahmud Waziri, as its head with unfettered access to him and as President Jonathan did when he appointed Sen Ben Obi to same office who went all out to platform the current high performing National Peace Committee with support from the EU.
“B. President Tinubu should, as a matter of urgency, re-constitute his Cabinet and incorporate elements within the organized political opposition and civic groups as President Obasanjo did in 1999 and Yar’ardua did in 2007. The outcome of such an arrangement will not be a coalition government or a government of national unity in its ‘normal’ institutional appearance; it’s rather a way of re-building political trust and constructing elite consensus and thus enacting one of the pre-conditions for any meaningful impact of economic policies to be felt.
“C. President Tinubu should also convene a meeting with the nation’s leading civil society lights. The primary purpose of this conclave is to work out modalities for mainstreaming civic concerns and strategic agendas into governance programming, specifying the correct way and posture in grounding state- civil society relations through the activities of a Presidential Council on Civil Society which he has to set up without delay, and more practically to work out the details for re-animating the Office of the Special Adviser to Mr President on Civil Society Relations as President Yar’adua did in 2007.
“My personal suggestion on the stalwarts to invite to such a gathering are individuals I have neither discussed this matter with and do not really know how they will individually react to it: Femi Falana SAN, Dr Olisa Agbakoba SAN, Annkio Briggs, Clem Nwankwo, Sen Shehu Sani, Dr Kole Shettima, Owei Lakemfa, Prof Sam Amadi, Prof Jibrin Ibrahim, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, Prof Chidi Odinkalu, Ene Obi, Omoyele Sowore, Amb Nkoyo Toyo, Deji Adeyanju, Dele Farotimi and Aisha Yesufu. These are Patriots with impeccable credentials and a proud history of telling unvarnished truth to power. They are fearless and if only President Tinubu will engage them openly and honestly the disaster that awaits this troubled nation if things persist the way they are may very well be averted.”
Udenta cautioned Dogara to be careful of his utterances which can set the entire northern region on fire.
“Nigeria is in trouble. Anybody who denies this is delusional to say the least. The nation state’s historicist foundation has weakened drastically with the steady implosion of the paradigm of colonial modernity that constructed its contingent geography to the decades of post-colonial misgovernance under which its structural and institutional underpinnings are decaying before our eyes,” he added.