IN SEARCH OF AGENDA FOR A SOVEREIGN NATIONAL CONFERENCE ( PART I )

The focus of this debate is to submit that a Sovereign National Conference convoked by an independent body made up of eminent Nigerians which I have chosen to refer to here as National Elders Forum is an imperative. This is without prejudice to the constitutional role of the upper and lower houses of the National Assembly.

The irreversible headlong plunge into something of the equivalent of Burundi/Somalia, the irremediable collapse of institutions and infrastructures as well as the final disintegration into unproductive and irreconcilable monads perpetually at war with one another that have strategically positioned themselves as the inescapable outcomes of government’s inaction with regards to corruption and terrorism on the one hand, and a National Assembly that lacks the requisite integrity and resolve necessary for placing the kind of constitutional reform that is imbued with a special character and at the sametime serves the needs of the moment on the other hand, are the two factors that have coaleased to throw up the Sovereign National Conference imperative in Nigeria.

From another angle and in confrontation with Babangidarism, it has to be asserted that June 12 and its extension in the very personality of Late Chief Moshood Abiola cannot, in fairness and justice, be regarded as a foregone option. Instead it is the hub and the starting point of any democratic process that seeks to realistically address the twin issues of national reconciliation and integration.

But in a confessional statement during his trial by a Federal High Court in Lagos, Al-Mustapha alleged that some Yoruba elders sold out on June 12 and betrayed Chief Moshood Abiola. While it is pertinent to approach this unsubstantiated claim with every amount of cynicism and suspicion it deserves because of the high threat it posits to Yoruba unity and the integrity of its elders, every honest effort made by the Yorubas to revisit and review the pains incurred by the annulment of June 12 election and the legitimate struggle to actualize it cannot refuse to admit this claim as a fact to be deliberated upon by and compulsorily made to probe the conscience of Yoruba nationalism especially as this affects the national consciousness of the Yorubas in national discourse and events in the coming years. Even at this, the challenges and questions raised by the annulment of June 12, 1993 election still persist, and have coalesced into a very sore spot on the national consciousness.

One could accept, as it were then, the contrived legitimacy of the successive military regimes of Major General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida and the brief intervention of the Chief Earnest Shonekan administration. But that of General Sani Abacha was not only illegitimate and a tragedy but also an insult on our common sensibilities as a nation. It was illegal in the sense that there was a President – in – waiting whatever arguments one may advance to the contrary. A tragedy in the sense that for six long years, a mad dog held the country and its president hostage in a violent war, and when the opportunity came for the restoration of order and the inauguration of the new government, the so-called interventionist army as led by General Absalami Abubakar became careless with the life of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And for reasons that were not in the interest of the nation but self serving, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP became the unenviable beneficiary of General Absalami Abubakar’s abysmal perfidious experiment in illegality and tragedy.

Where was the Northern when General Ibrahim Babangida, a Northerner annulled the freest and fairest election ever held in the history of this country? Where was the North when General Sani Abacha made a bloody attempt, although unsuccessfully, for six consecutive years to truncate a smooth transition to a democratic government?

It was a Yoruba mandate that was sabotaged. It was the Yoruba that lost the cream of its society. But it was the murderer, General Sani Abacha that was celebrated by the North while the winners counted their losses in the West. If the North feels enraged, it should go to Yoruba land to a take clue and a lesson on how to execute a struggle in a democratic and legitimately constituted democratic government. It is like it has been used to a government through the barrel of a gun.

 Chief Gani Fahwehinmi, Chief Moshood Abiola and a host of others were highly committed Muslims. Therefore, there is the need to pull this religious mask off the face of the Boko Haram.

As a result of Mr. Goodluck Jonathan’s surreptitious abuse of the zoning formular advocated by PDP as a principle of national cohesion, the core Northern PDP elements are floating a militia group in the name of Boko Haram hiding behind religion having found themselves almost in the same spot where the Westerners were during the June 12 debacle. But it is imperative to note that the Boko Haram insurgency predates the Jonathan administration. It is a terrorist firework assembled consciously from disparate Islamic fundamentalist enclaves by the Northern PDP elements who are averse to a General Mohammadu Buhari presidency to protest Chief Mathew Obasanjo’s bizarre Yar’dua Innovation otherwise perceived as the height of treachery by people like Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, General Ibrahim Babangida and General Gusau. In a discreet move by these people that overburdened and destabilized the security consciousness of the Niger Delta militants, the Boko Haram boat was made to find an anchorage on the Niger Delta militants’ boat that held the entire nation hostage and paralyzed every economic activity in the oil sector during the Yar’dua administration.

It is true that Mr James Ibori used part of the money he fraudulently amassed from the Delta State treasury to sponsor Yar’dua’s Presidential election. But is it equally true that the oil subsidy funds were fraudulently diverted under the watchful eyes of Mr Goodluck Jonathan to execute and sponsor his election? In this trajectory of corruption and terrorism is found the explanation for the situation of Henry Orkah, Mr James Ibori and Mr Simipre Sylva. While Henry Orkah allowed himself to be used by the North as an enslaving bargaining chip against Jonathan, the greed in James Ibori was stroked and fanned into flames by the same North as a way of gaining uncontrolled access to Jonathan’s data during his tenure as the governor of Bayelsa State. If only Mr Goodluck Jonathan had been more proactively congenial and less provocatively dictatorial in his dealings with Mr Timipre Sylva, the situation would have been different. In the short interval Mr Timipre Sylva vacated the office of the governor, some Photostatting machines were busy making copies of documents that could prove the fact that Niger Delta Militants were financed with government funds.

Everywhere in the Southern part of the country, the Boko Haram bombs have been laid. The picture gets clearer when one comes to appreciate the fact that one is dealing with suicide bombers in respect of the kind of crowd found in places like Lagos, Onitsha, Port-Harcourt, Aba, etc or during the normal Sunday services at the respective Christian centers. In an interview with TELL in 1999 (reproduced in TELL, July 23, 2012), Ahmed Abubakar had said that the engine of the Northern political leadership had knocked having worked itself into irrelevance. But it is frustrating to come to appreciate that this knocked engine is still the force that drives the rickety PDP molue in which Nigerians are travelling to their Eldorado. And Babangidarism – the unknown and hidden face of Boko Haram is the sole beneficiary. The entire scenario is about the desperation and greed of the Evil Genius built into the insatiable appetite of PDP for power and blood. This is the true color, size and shape of Babangidarism.

 In this regard, can Jonathan toy with the idea of a unity government as a compliment to national reconciliation and integration? Or confronted with some evidence of corruption and terrorism by the members of a National Assembly that have been reduced to a handful of timid church rats by reason of the kind of skeletons that have been found in their respective cupboards, is there any possibility of another luck smiling once more on president Goodluck Jonathan in the event of a threat of an impeachment?

A Sovereign National Conference is therefore an imperative. The National Elders Forum ( For a description of the structure and a pictorial aspect of the constitution of the National Elders Forum,please see the Hubpages blog : A Call For National Elders Forum in Nigeria( http://evurulobi.hubpages.com/hub/PRESS-RELEASEA-CALL-FOR-ELDERS-FORUM-IN-NIGERIA)) are therefore:

1.   To draw up and execute, in collaboration with the Upper and Lower Houses of the National Assembly, the two projects of National Reconciliation and Re-integration.

2.   To review the 1999 Constitution, and on its basis, draw up a new Constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

3.   To work out a National Ethic and the principles of its application for the Nation.

       

As a flashback, the visit of the National President of the Christian Association of Nigeria did not send the right signal to the Muslim Community in Nigeria. Boko Haram signifies the syncretic outcome of the invasion and deployment of a retarded Islamic mentality by political bigots in their desperate pursuit for wealth, power and fame. It has not graduated to an international terrorist body like Al-Qaeda and Al-Jeezra even though it has strong links with these and many others. Asking the U.S. Congress to declare it a terrorist organization translates to an invitation of the full military presence of the U.S. in Nigeria and a designation of the country as a terrorist state. CAN’s solicitations to the U.S. Congress are a vote of no confidence derogatorily passed on the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration – a Christian. By the event of that visit, CAN has conceded a strong point in abysmal defeat to Boko Haram.

On the other hand, for a sect like Boko Haram to spring a surprise of this nature on all of us means that as a nation and as Christians, we have been sleeping for too long. It serves us right, otherwise Lagos, Enugu or Abuja may get up one morning to find itself surrounded by Islamic Jihadists like Fulani herdsmen will surround and slaughter their neighboring communities in Plateau State. A SNC will be able to define the meaning and import of religious freedom. Besides, and on a note that has a special significance to the Catholic Church, the time has come for the Catholic Church in Nigeria to make the Canon Law operative and functional. All these while and owing to the Nigerian factor, the whims and caprices of the Bishops and major Superiors have, to a large extent, tended to impede the proper functioning of this all-important tool of ecclesiastical governance in respect of responsibility and transparency. Except for few, those in Canon Law practice in Nigeria including the so-called Canon Law Society of Nigeria can hardly distinguish between a legal stooge and a canonical expert. This portends great dangers for the Church in the event of the emerging new world order. There is no attempt here to denigrate the exalted office of the Bishops but an alert on the urgent challenges that have been thrown up by a decadent society like ours.The resolve to fight the cabal that is behind the rot in government should be replicated in the Nigerian Church especially with regards to the knighthood. And in reference to the Catholic Church, it is pertinent to point out the occultism that has been built into the knighthood of St Mulumba. (This is not about and cannot in all fairness be said of the Order of the Knights of St John’s International).