How midnight, last minute consultations saved confab – Abari

What and what would you say came as a shock to you – in the deliberations, at the plenary, the drama and developments  –  at the recently concluded National Conference?I will start by saying that even the president who convened the National Conference was an arch opponent of such a conference before he convened it. […]

What and what would you say came as a shock to you – in the deliberations, at the plenary, the drama and developments  –  at the recently concluded National Conference?
I will start by saying that even the president who convened the National Conference was an arch opponent of such a conference before he convened it. He would not associate himself with any form of a call for a national conference. The fact that it was the same person who was initially opposed to it, and at a time the country is a few months away from the general elections, was enough ground to generate all forms of nuances, interpretations and expectations.
But all said and done, the conference was convened. In his inaugural address, the President said what he wanted and, thereafter, the conference continued. We started on a tense note, the atmosphere was full of mistrust, maybe because Nigerians were not used to this kind of atmosphere. Various interests came to the conference with various  interpretations and various expectations of what the conference was designed to achieve.
We all knew it took more than a week before the conference could resolve some issues of what it was supposed to do. It took another about 10 days or so before the conference could agree on how it would arrive at decisions, whether two-thirds or whether three-quarters.
These are issues not very far away or that can be delinked  from the interpretations coming from whatever background or interest groupings linked to the convocation of the conference. In the course of the conference, midway or towards the concluding part of it, a group purportedly calling itself the Bridge Builders  –  which is, of course, a group not known to the conference rules  and which derives membership from the different geo-political tendencies  – came up with a document that is called a Draft Constitution 2014.
Or the document had been prepared even before the conference started. But thanks to the vigilance of the Nigerian media and that of the civil society, before you could say Jack Robinson, the atmosphere of the conference and that of the whole country had already changed.
What was the mandate of the conference? Was the conference a National Assembly?  Even at the beginning, members of the conference were querying its legality and legitimacy because the instrument that should have legally put it in place was not there, and if it was, it was suspect. So how come that a so-called group was bringing confusion on the floor of the plenary and expected the plenary of the confusion to adopt the document? Perhaps, that group was flying a kite. Perhaps, indeed, there was a plot which had been hatched in which some booby traps would be laid and the conference would be turned into a forum for another Third Term agenda.
The leadership of the conference was put on the hot seat to explain how we came about this, because it was a document bearing the insignia of the conference and was circulated not to the entire conference membership but to a select few. And the leadership of the conference had to come out to clear itself. I can quote Dr Kutigi saying that that document was alien to the conference, it wasn’t from its Secretariat and it wasn’t part of the conference’s mandate and he, therefore, dissociated the leadership and the entire conference from it.
That calmed frayed nerves and the conference continued, but not without some of us, coming from previous conferences, keep going forward but are consistently looking backward. We knew the occasion demanded vigilance and, in fact, extra vigilance.  
Towards the end of the conference, that is, immediately after we resumed from break, there were talks in hush tones that the conference might again come up with the document. Again, we had to thank the media for helping us in being vigilant. On the day the conference resumed, when we were to be given the draft report for delegates to peruse and contribute inputs preparatory to final adoption, three bundles were given out.
The first volume was named “Draft Constitution 2014”. The cat was finally let out of the bag. What we had feared all along started coming to the fore. It is the case of the witch cried last night and the baby died the following morning. That jolted, perhaps, not everyone but majority of us. The conference in the first instance, was not a Constituent Assembly. The conference was not an elected body. The conference has not been mandated to write a new constitution. Even in its mandate, it can’t write a new constitution; it can only propose.
From a benefit of hindsight, some of us delegates from the North began to realise there was actually a soft underbelly which we must handle well otherwise it would be punctured. Before some hidden agenda is woven around the conference, we must nip it. We realised we have to shout ourselves hoarse for everybody to hear that there is something playing out gradually which must not be allowed to go beyond a particular point before the country begins to gnash its teeth in anguish.                
The Olusegun Obasanjo Third Term agenda started just like this kind of a joke with the 2005 conference and we saw how it nearly tore this country apart. If history has any lesson to teach, the experience of 2005 should enrich whatever steps we are to take in concluding this conference.
So if there was anything that was a shock to us, it was the emergence of a document called the 2014 Draft Constitution that was unknown to the conference, that was never deliberated  by any committee and was not in any committee report, nor was there a discussion or decision on it at the plenary.   

You mentioned the 2005 conference. What would you say are the parallels between that and this 2014 conference?       
Perhaps not parallel per se, but there were certain developments that played out in 2005 and this one. I wasn’t at the 2005 but I have some experiences in conference participation in the past that I can bring to bear on this one. When the 2005 conference was convened, the fault lines there were not as sharp and deep as are there today. Never in the history of this country – even during the civil war – has Nigeria been so divided along religious and ethnic lines as we are today.
Therefore, all people of goodwill who knew how great Nigeria was and what this country has now been reduced to will definitely be on the alert to reject any idea that will further divide this country.  Any attempt in any way to bring through the back door, even through the front door, any document that seeks to give an undue advantage to the present crop of office holders, in distinct contrast to what the 1999 Constitution has stipulated, must be rejected by well-meaning Nigerians.  
There were some people who tried to link the conference to the 2013 elections. But I want to say that this conference is a stand-alone conference, a stand-alone issue while the 2015 election is another stand-alone issue. The 2015 election is a constitutional imperative which must hold. The Constitution guarantees that and the Electoral Act also provides for its modalities.  
But this conference is purely an advisory body and that is why its resolutions were segregated into three basic components. The first component are policy issues that govern the day-to-day activities of government. These can go to the relevant government bodies for immediate implementation if the president so desires.
Second are the issues that require legislative action on laws that operate government conduct and business. The third are proposed amendments to the 1999 Constitution. I said ‘proposed’ because whatever amendments are suggested to the Constitution must go to the body constitutionally empowered, and this is the National Assembly.
I have read in one or two of the newspapers (certainly not the Trust titles) where it was insinuated that the amendments to the Constitution by this National Conference are automatic amendments. It couldn’t have been, and it can’t be. We were only proposing amendments that will go to the relevant body to act on.
To the extent that the Conference’s resolutions were segregated into these three basic components, I will say it has a lot in common with the 2005 conference. But I will also say that the 2005 conference was held under a more congenial atmosphere at a time the country was not divided as it is today; it took a longer time, the debates were deeper, and the resolutions were more far-reaching. I had read the 2005 conference report before we even went deep into the 2014 conference, so I can say that the 2005 conference had made far-reaching resolutions to the extent that if they had been implemented, probably there would have been no need for the 2014 conference. It has always been the case with this country that ideas will just come up, we will prepare voluminous reports, but the reports will just gather dust on the shelves and they will never be implemented.

So what would you say the National Conference achieved?
The conference brought together people of high personal achievements from different segments of the society.  To the extent that the conference brought together these high calibre delegates to talk together, to even vent their anger, to express their prejudices and look one another in the face, the conference has achieved much.
But whether it has improved the quality of the Nigeria state as it is presently constituted, I have my reservations. Well, I don’t want to pre-empt anything. But will the president have the capacity and the political will to implement the segregated issues? Even that will require the necessary will and courage and, of course, the necessary enabling environment which only the government can create.
I don’t think the conference has really addressed the expectations of Nigerians. The anti-climax with which it ended was not promising. Perhaps, if a lot of work had not taken place on the eve of its last day, with well-meaning Nigerians reaching out to a lot of people, reaching out to the conference leadership to make them understand why we Northern delegates were insisting on our position, which is already well-known in the public domain, maybe we would not have ended the conference in the lively mood that we did.    
I can say it was all in the Nigerian spirit that the conference has brought out the fact that though we can appear as divided, where the greater interest of the country comes first, we will always remain as united as a fist. At least, some sort of reasonable judgment has been brought to bear on knotty national issues.
There is the criticism in some quarters that Northern delegates at the conference were more reactionary than proactive on some controversial issues on which their Southern counterparts appeared to have dictated the pace. How do you react to this? How fully prepared on the Northern agenda were the Northern delegates to the conference?
In the first instance, the North never canvassed for this conference. In fact, the North has never canvassed for any conference. When the North was cajoled into joining the calls for a National Conference, it kept up with its own submission. It wanted a Sovereign National Conference.
Two, the North has never had any agenda, especially a divisive agenda. Go back to history; the North’s position has always been one that reinforces the unity, the continuity and the well-being of one united, indivisible Nigeria.
But there were so many other pre-conference conferences by the South-West culminating in what they called the Yoruba Agenda for the 2014 National Conference. There had also been so many pre-conference conferences by the South-East, the Ohaneze, the Igbo leaders, the Massob culminating in what they called the South-East or Igbo agenda for the National Conference. The South -South, South-West and South-East also had conferences culminating in what they called the Southern Nigeria forum or the Southern Peoples Assembly and their Southern Peoples agenda for the 2014 National Conference.
Despite the North’s numerical superiority, the composition of delegates to the conference was skewed against it. Yet, the North did not complain.  We only told Nigerians that in the interest of this entity called Nigeria, we would go to this conference. We said we have no agenda, but whatever agenda anybody brings, if it is not going to serve the good interest of this country, we will shoot it down. And there was quite a number of issues that were divisive, subversive and not the interest of this country that were actually shot down.
What we had exhibited very well at the conference is the fact that there is a united North and that that unity is what will work in the larger interest of Nigeria. We have not been any reactionary, we have not been docile and we have not been caught napping. It is just only that we are not like others; we are not cocoonish in outlook, we are not sectional or regional.  Whatever the North proposed, as we have always done, was intended to ensure that all the issues discussed would rub off on Nigeria’s greater integration.  

You represented Yobe State at the conference. If you return to your state and you’re asked what you brought back from the confab, what would you tell them?
There are certain things that you need to understand about the workings of the political North. Is there any problem that is afflicting Borno and Yobe today that is not reflected in any other part of the country? If we’re grappling with the problem of insurgency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, the North-West is grappling with the problem of banditry and cattle rustling and the North Central is battling with internal conflict between herdsmen and farmers. The South-East is battling with the problem of armed robbery, kidnapping ; the South-South is battling with all manners of criminality – pipeline vandalisation, kidnapping, armed robbery, cultists conflict; while the South-West has armed robbery and ritual killings to contend with.
Unemployment is as high in any part of the country as you can find in any other. Poverty, even in the face of enhanced revenue earnings, is something which has bedevilled every part of this country. Farming, which is our mainstay in the whole North, has been disrupted, especially in the 2014 cropping season because the forests are no longer safe. This is all over the North. If you kill farming, if you kill animal husbandry, and if there are insecurity and massive poverty in the North, then this definitely rubs off on other parts of the country because the insurgency in the North East has affected farming. Maiduguri which is the capital of Borno State has a distinct border economy because it has borders with Niger, Chad and Cameroon, and has trading relationships up to Libya, through Sudan and Darfur and Chad, down the Central African Republic by land and across the Chad River. If you ask the average Igbo man now, all the warehouses in Aba and Onitsha are full because the goods cannot be evacuated to Kano. If they’re evacuated to Kano, there will be no buyers because Cameroon and Chad and Niger Republic are no longer coming in through Maiduguri to buy these goods.
Even the national economic dimension of the insurgency cannot be neglected. If we can address all these through the aggressive and progressive, value-adding policy-making direction articulated at the conference, then if anybody in Yobe asked me what I returned with from the conference, I would be able to explain them to him. I have advocated that the government should be more responsive so that peace can come back and our farmers could return to their farms, and so that the Yoruba will eat beans, otherwise there will be no beans this year. It is a whole gamut of a national crisis. The crisis is a northern problem, it’s a Borno problem, as it is a national problem. The issues the conference has addressed are beyond local, primordial sentiments. They are of larger national dimensions that should dovetail into local governments, wards and households.

What are the resolutions that should tackle insecurity, poverty, etc?
The committee on National Security came up with quite a number of recommendations that would tackle insecurity. They have strong, novel ideas along this line, because those with security background have agreed that the recommendations are far-reaching. The most important thing is actually to look at the issue of how we got to where we are today, and how we can address the issues on the table. Fundamentally, the issue of winning the hearts and minds of the people is very crucial in winning insurgency.

How was the conference convinced that state police is the answer?
I sat on the committee on policy and governance and the recommendation actually is to come up with what we called second-level policy. The concept of state police tends to be politically emotive, and not without reasons. But if you look at what is happening now, there are states that have put in place state-sponsored security outfits and are doing very well in the act of policing. LASTMA in Lagos, the O-Yes in Osun, the Kano Hisbah, the Civilian JTF in Borno.
There are quite a number of states that have come up with second-level policing which are doing well. If you look at LASTMA, considering the level of credibility, they are by far doing better that the Nigeria Police Force. That is one. Secondly, for a country like Nigeria with a population of 170 million, the United Nations standards required that Nigeria should have eight million trained and trainable policemen. What we have is less than half a million. Out of this number, one-third of them are doing non-police duties. The remaining that are doing police duties are ill-trained, ill-equipped and ill-prepared for modern-day policing. If you are in doubt, go to any police station and have interactions with the face of the modern police  –  the desk sergeants. You will know that Nigeria has no policemen.
But what are the fears? It is that state police, going by the recklessness of some of our politicians, would be abused. Those of us from the North would refer to the era of the Native Authority and the dictatorial manner in which they utilised the police could probably repeat itself. But the dynamics have changed. The second argument is that if Nigeria is to operate a federation, then the issue of state policing should be in the realm of the federating unit. States can have their police and train them and the policemen can effect arrest. Perhaps, they may not prosecute, perhaps, they could. The details could be worked out. There are arguments for and against. But I, as a federalist, would not see anything wrong with the idea of a state police.

The recommendation for 18 more states came as a laughable decision made by the conference. How did you come about that?
You know the constitution has spelt out clearly how states are going to be created. So any state that meets the requirement, even if there are 100 of them, so be it. I have no problem with state creation, but they need to meet the constitutional provisions, and if it is something that can integrate, strengthen and not weaken our country, so be it.    

What is the correct status of local governments? It seemed that now local councils will not be entitled to allocations from the Federation Account, if what the conference recommended is accepted by government?
I want you to stop there. It is still a contentious issue. The conference has not taken a definite stand on it. It is very contentious. The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has spelt out how revenues are to be shared.  Federation Account is defined as an account owned by federal, states and local governments. What we agreed is that local governments are not federating units, but to say that you cannot fund the local governments would necessary have to require an amendment of the Constitution, which has not been done yet. This is an issue on which the conference has not taken a final stand. It is one of the contentious issues which the conference has to decide on before a final report is signed.

In specific terms, how was the tension over the draft ‘New Constitution 2014’ resolved?
Immediately the plenary started, we had a reading of the vote on proceedings. It came by way of a motion by one of the members. The motion, before it was seconded, was amended by another member to specifically to douse tension, to reinforce confidence, that Volume 3 of the report which was called Draft Constitution 2014 be retitled proposed amendment to the 1999 Constitution. This was brought by way of motion, amended and put to vote by the conference chairman, and unanimously passed.

But the content is still the same?
The point is, if you call it 2014 Constitution, there is the likelihood that this would turn out to be a new Constitution and then present office holders would want to latch on it and pretend that they are beginning on a new slate. Mr President and the governors would begin to say they are going for a fresh tenure under a new Constitution and this would spell doom for this country.

Do you think the president would not pass this amendment as a new Constitution through the National Assembly?
We would have to give the National Assembly the benefit of the doubt, because whatever it is, at the end of the day, there will be Nigerians to hold them accountable. I’m not sure that this National Assembly, as it is constituted, would want to do anything untoward. I hope and believe they would not do anything untoward.

What does the tension at the National Conference portend for 2015?
If anything, the National Conference has made everybody to be more vigilant, alert and awake ahead of 2015. In 2015, we must do things right. Elections must hold. Votes must be made to count and be seen to be counted. There must not be any undue attempt to tinker with the wishes and aspirations of the people. Then, and only then, can you talk of a peaceful Nigeria.  
Not very far away from us, Liberia got to where it was because of electoral crisis; Cote D’Ivoire got to where it was because of the crisis of election; Kenya also got into serious crisis on account of elections; what we see in Zimbabwe was on account of elections. Nigerians are more and more enlightened, conscious and determined. We’re a country that has all it takes to be a great nation. But we have suffered on account of paucity of good leadership. If there is anything, the conference has alerted all groupings to be vigilant.