‘Draft’ or ‘New’ constitution may be matter of semantics – Gambari

He was a delegate to the 2014 National Conference. He speaks here on his experience at the just concluded conference, among other issues. You founded the consensus building group at the just concluded National Conference. Can you explain the controversies surrounding the three different reports that emanated from your committee on derivation formula?It is unfortunate […]

He was a delegate to the 2014 National Conference. He speaks here on his experience at the just concluded conference, among other issues.

You founded the consensus building group at the just concluded National Conference. Can you explain the controversies surrounding the three different reports that emanated from your committee on derivation formula?
It is unfortunate that this group is only remembered for our work on derivation. This group is a totally informal group; it is not one of the 20 committees set up by the conference. It was officially the chairman of one committee on Foreign Policy and the Diaspora that made far-reaching recommendations on how to reprofessionalise the Foreign Service to develop a separate Foreign Service Commission; how to accelerate the establishment of the Diaspora Commission, and how to give Nigerians in Diaspora the right and the opportunity to vote where they are. These were my official roles and the recommendations were well received and reflected in the report. This consensus bridge building group was totally informal and I must give credit to Chief Dokpesi and Dr. Peter Odili because it was them and I that thought of the idea. We had good representations such as General Ike Nwachukwu as the leader of the Igbo delegation; Chief Falae as the leader of the South-West and middle belt leaders who often attended. From time to time, leaders of the north-west and north-east also came together in this group. What we presented was often not registered. For example, the very idea of consensus was something that we have been promoting. We looked at all the reports of the various committees, as we speak, we didn’t vote even once at this conference. The idea is to reach agreement by consensus. Because we felt that we were doing things that will be longer lasting. Even if we do something that lasts, it is better to have them on consensus rather than voting for 30 percent, 80 percent or whatever.
So, that spirit of consensus helped us in getting through the first hurdle which were the rules and the establishment of the 50 wise men – the so-called friends of the conference. Now, that spirit of consensus went through all the committees. I think the only committee where there was some serious control was that on the devolution of powers where they agreed on 13 percent of derivation but one member submitted a minority report which was tabled but was rejected by the conference.
If you have consensus in virtually every committee, almost all the issues, there are people that are behind the scenes and I am proud to be associated with that and for the most part, it works.
When it comes to answer your question specifically on the issue of derivation, we anticipated there will be a problem. So in the context of that consensus being a bridging group, I suggested to the leaders of the six geo-political groups and they agreed that there should be three representatives from each of these groups, making 18 and they were nominated by the leaders of the group to meet and try to come up with a position, because we realised, if you recall, that at the beginning there were some people from South South saying they wanted total resource control, 100 percent derivation. Then it went down to 50 percent, then they were saying the irreducible minimum of 25 percent, then it went down to 20 percent.
Don’t forget, there was the last conference in 2005 which ended inconclusively and the South South felt that they were promised 18 percent which was supposed to be reviewed upward. So, for this group to tackle this issue head on and suggest a formation using this win-win approach we recommended increase in derivation from the status quo which is 13 percent to 18 percent and we said 50 percent of the money accruing to derivation should go to communities where the resources are being produced. I really wish that has survived. But we threw out the baby with the bathwater. And then, we said, that derivation, most of the people benefiting will be those in the oil producing part of Nigeria. So on solid mineral development which in our view, every state in Nigeria has the capacity to develop it, we said let’s have something for them. And already, there is three percent of federal government’s account which should go to all states of the federation.
Now, the controversial part was the issue of the five percent of the federal government revenue that should go to mitigating the consequences of terrorism and insurgency, particularly in the worst affected areas. Why there was controversy was that when we were deliberating, we didn’t quite fine-tune and didn’t really reach agreement completely on how to present this to the plenary. I gave an oral report which was to be followed by a written report in which it was felt that the national character of this stabilisation fund was not specified. And that this is not a fund that is forever and that there is a fund for a particular part of the country that is most affected. Then, we went back and involved more Civil Society Groups and then reached a consensus and it was to be a package deal in a win-win. So, 18 percent derivation, 5 percent solid minerals and 5 percent national intervention fund for stabilisation, reconstruction and rehabilitation of the areas most affected and in the first instance, the north-east.
Where we didn’t have agreement was whether to spell out north-east and any other part of the country or northeast, northwest and north-central. But before we now presented it formally, people have intervened. Some governors have intervened that 18 percent derivation was too high while others were saying why should it be fund only for the northern part of the country even though it was said to be a national intervention fund with its first instance being those most affected but in any case what was responsible for the different interpretations was those who left before this final paper was agreed had another understanding. That document that Dokpesi produced was discredited because lots of people said they didn’t sign it.

Before the derivation controversy, there was a Dokpesi document detailing ‘agreed’ reports of the 20 committees that sparked some controversy, what is your take on it?
On that one, I was away at the conference for some time. I had long standing engagements. It is a surprise that anybody should present this as if it was a consensus group because we never actually met to discuss the idea of producing a document to purport to be a consensus among us. Some ideas were discussed and I believe what flowed was South-south, South-west and Southeast delegations that met with the middle-belt groups and said what areas can we find commonalities. And there were all kinds of discussions, including on state creation. So, I think it was during that discussion, not the whole group. It was not formally discussed to produce that kind of document and that’s why at the end, that document had to be disowned by the management of the conference to say this is not a conference document and that it is a group that is working on it.

There is this belief that the Dokpesi group was a select group. Do you share that?
It won’t be fair on Dokpesi. The membership is fluid. People came in and out. It was an informal group. You go there at your convenience. Some of the northern delegates, beyond the middle-belt, felt that there were some games being played. Sometimes meetings would be called and they would not be there and the southern delegates will not be there or they will come and the meeting is finished. There was a lot of distrust. And it is a pity because I think it is the character of the group. It was totally informal and voluntary.

There was a report in June that Professor Akinyemi, the vice chairman of the conference, was lobbying northern delegates to adopt a new constitution. What do you have to say on this?
Everybody speaks to Professor Akinyemi and I was one of the people he speaks to. He did ask at one point that what should be the outcome of this conference? Are there some elements in our decisions that could form the basis of a new constitution or the revision of the old one? And so, he did talk to people. But what became controversial was that after we have approved all the reports of the committees as amended in plenary, what do we do and people were now arguing that at the end of the conference, we should have a new constitution. But the consensus was that we were convened by the president and the report categorised into three. One will be the recommendations of the conference that the executives can implement on their own; they are policy issues. Second will be those recommendations whose implementation involved changing existing laws which means that they will require legislation by the national assembly. And the understanding was that there are few issues which require constitutional amendments and so these three should now be presented in a report in plenary to finalise and the secretariat was tasked with producing the reports accordingly.

We met on Monday and to the surprise of quite a number of delegates, for the volume one and two of the reports, there was not much controversy but then what agitated us was the third volume which was labelled Draft Constitution. The conference couldn’t have given the secretariat that mandate to produce a draft constitution while not elected and not being a constituent assembly. The northern delegates met and sent an open letter to the chairman and a press conference at which they argued that it has no basis. I think it should not have been a northern affair because there were some delegates from the south that also were not comfortable with a draft constitution. So, we had a case and we shouldn’t have made it a northern thing. In any case, good sense prevailed. It was retitled proposals for the amendment of the 1999 Constitution and that seemed to have facilitated happy ending of the controversy and the conference.

What is your take on allegations that some delegates, particularly northern delegates were compromised by the Presidency for a third term agenda?
Honestly, I’m not aware that anybody was compromised. Everybody had to live by their own conscience. What I saw in the 50 wise men’s group in the committees was the commitment of the delegates to do a good job. A lot of work has been done by delegates that I believe if faithfully implemented, will impact positively on the country. Look at the composition; it’s not just the elite or old people. There are young people there, the civil society groups, trade union groups and even market women associations. It was an all-comers’ conference. 492 of us, traditional rulers, elder statesmen but everybody had to live with their conscience. Even the northern delegates criticising the draft constitution did say publicly that they put the interest of Nigeria first.

When the issue of a new constitution came up, the chairman categorically said at plenary that the secretariat had not formed any committee to draft a new constitution. But during a select group meeting, he said he had the president’s mandate to draft a new constitution and suddenly a brand new constitution came out. What is your take on this?

Well, I wasn’t there, which is a pity because I was supposed to be there. I find it difficult to reconcile his posture as a father and leader of the conference, as somebody who has made a disclaimer about any subterranean efforts to that but I wasn’t there, so let me leave it there.

He said there won’t be a new constitution, but there is a draft constitution…?
Well, to be generous, one could say maybe it’s a question of semantics. I think what it may be saying is don’t judge a book by its cover; that if you look at the content labelled a draft constitution, it is really suggested amendments to the 1999 Constitution. But I think there should be a lot more sensitivity because this issue was discussed before and there was opposition to the idea of a new constitution and I think what some northern delegates could have also done was to look closely at what was actually there and not the cover.

Do you think the secretariat will submit a report in consonance with all the resolutions of the conference to Mr. President?
I expect so. That’s why they are the secretariat. They have the resources in their arsenal and the expectation of the delegates is that they will faithfully reflect all the decisions but I must confess that some of the decisions at the plenary were sometimes contradictory. I don’t know how they will handle it. I recall that there was a decision that states should not have their own constitutions but there was another one that said local governments should have their own constitutions. It was not always clear what we decided on.

Now that you have retired and having gathered both resources and goodwill across the world, apart from your conflict resolution centre, what else are you trying to venture into?
First of all, I haven’t gathered any resources. I have been a salaried man all my life so I have no personal financial resources. There is a lot of goodwill that I have accumulated over the years, both within Nigeria and outside and I’m very proud of that. And this is, in my view, more important and bigger than money. I have also built some good name. I’m just back and I want to draw upon my experiences to start what I hope will be a world class centre for research, advocacy, training and that’s what my experience has been and that’s what I have done over the years. I intend to bring some of them to bear on addressing issues, primarily in Nigeria, but located in Savannah. That should keep me busy for the next few years.