David Mark and the National Conference

The difference between the call by Senator Mark and what other militant groups have been calling for lies in that word sovereignty. The president of the senate is also of the view that such conference should be constituted on the basis of ethnic nationalities. The word as put is that the conference should be a […]

The difference between the call by Senator Mark and what other militant groups have been calling for lies in that word sovereignty. The president of the senate is also of the view that such conference should be constituted on the basis of ethnic nationalities. The word as put is that the conference should be a meeting of Nigeria’s ethnic groups to discuss matters concerning these nationalities and the nation as a whole with a view to possibly entrenching the terms of all the nationalities in the process of nation building.
Be that as it may and no matter what name the senator wishes to call the conference, I think the issue in point is that as a senator of the federal republic and chief presiding officer of the senate, he has thrown his weight behind the calls for the constitution of the conference but like all other agitators, the SP has not told us the manner and form the conference would take.
Yes, it is not a sovereign national conference as Senator Mark would want it, but its constitution should be by Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities. What is gap here is what the contours of these nationalities are and how the so identified nationalities are to be represented at such conference. For instance the delegation from Benue state should comprise of all the ethnic groups in the state or that are indigenous to the state and the immediate thing that comes to mind is that there are the Tivs who form the majority of the population of the state, then the Idomas and the very few others.
In sending representatives from the Benue, the Senate President should go further and suggest some ideas on number for each group or does conference of ethnic nationalities mean that every ethnic group should have equal number of representation at the conference?
This among several other questions in my view have since the beginning of the agitation served as posers yet unanswered as one major step towards the convocation of such a conference that some Nigerians believe is the only way out of the mess and backwardness which the nation is suffering.
I will like to see a conference for instance that will have the mandate to among other things decide whether Nigeria indeed should remain or people go their ways. The conference shouldn’t limit itself to the determination of the form and content which the alliance should take but whether to be or not to be.
I am thinking allowed. What were the factors that made the senate president take this position recently? Obviously people say it is the crisis in the PDP which has apparently torn the party apart and being one of the major beneficiaries of the distortions in the party, he is beginning to sing a new tune, which by and large may be seen as confusion of the slide from a majority in the senate to a minority.
Yes, confusion, yes slide from a majority to the minority. Both Senator Mark and his deputy, MY AMIABLE FRIEND, Ike Ekweremadu would be in the minority in the senate if those senators who identify themselves with the new PDP would join forces with the APC in the senate. What that means is a great political danger for Mr SP even if he will remain the senate president; it won’t be as juicy and easy ride as it’s been in the last six years.
Again, Senator Mark to me has exhibited the true PDP character in that recommendation because the simple interpretation here is that when the going was good and the party was undoing everybody at the expense of a very few of which he benefitted much, nothing was seen as wrong with the Nigerian alliance, but now that a recalcitrant group is tearing the party apart and at a great cost to the political luxury of Senator Mark, Nigerians must sit in a conference to discuss issues among which is why should people in or outside of politics feel aggrieved and challenge a status quo that is not just emasculating but mainly responsible for the nation’s backwardness.
I am one of those who are itching that Nigeria organizes a sovereign national conference. My agenda for such a conference will be that Nigerians should agree to the dismemberment of the country for very obvious reasons. It will appear that we cannot make progress as a people under the current arrangement and order where a few take everything at the expense of the majority who are yawning in poverty and ignorance.
A nation that in the last one hundred years has not agreed on the basic minimum in my view cannot subsist and thus the necessity for drawing a new agenda so that those who will be alive in the next one hundred years would agree that the decision to part ways has done more good than harm.
The various sections of this country are infested with one form of endemic disaster or the other whose resolution lie primarily on the ability of the citizens to propel solutions together but we are unwilling. When a problem particularistic to one section rears its ugly head, the other sections blatantly refuse to look at it with the emotions of togetherness, similarly is the case if such in other areas.
The meaning of this in my humble interpretation is the apparent unwillingness to cohabit this entity called Nigeria. The government at the center which takes 52% of the entire national resources is too busy engulfed in pecuniary politics while the rest of the nation is on fire. With the mutilation of the units of Nigerian federation beginning 1967 to the last time General Abacha created states, the basis of federating and for citizens to actualize their beings at the level of units have since been eroded and defeated and thus creating intense competition for and at the center.
I, like Senator David Mark am not averse to a conference but I will prefer it is sovereign which means that all matters must be discussed and the resolution or fallout of that conference must be binding on Nigeria. Where I will again defer with the President of the Senate again apart from the reasons behind the agitation is the nature of composition. We may not agree on the composition, but I believe it is necessary that Nigerians meet now so that we may end this brazenness where a few are having a field day at the expense of most.
We must restructure the nation so that the majority would be formed through consensus and rid our polity of porous electoral system. However, the challenge before the conference is that there must be attitudinal shift in this country. The degree of indolence and selfishness are alarming and the nation cannot continue on that basis if it is to survive before the conference.