Continued from Yesterday
THE POLITICO-ELECTORAL PROCESS. We are all living witnesses of the problems, the dilemmas that surround the entire politico-electoral process: party formations that bring together strange bedfellows of different ideologies; fairness in the registration or non-registration of some political parties; voter registration of doubtful fairness to all eligible voters etc. If the government and the political leadership have a blame in our problems, the electorate cannot go totally blameless. No form of rigging is possible without cooperation of the people. But when we sell our voting rights and, ipso facto, our consciences for a mess of potage, what do we expect? Poverty, yes, poverty may be at the root of it all. Or how else do we explain a story which goes thus: I once wanted to be kept abreast of the political situations during the preparations for the presidential primaries. So l asked the head of a village this question: ‘’Baale, ewo ni ilu nse o?’’ (Head Chief, in which political direction is the village going?) His answer: ‘’Professor, titi di agogo mewa ale ana, ti Falae ni ilu nse; sugbon nigbati o ma a fi di agogogo mefa owuro yi, o ti di ti Yar’Adua’. (Professor, as of 10 pm last night, the village was for Falae, but by 6 am this morning it is for Yar’Adua). I then asked an obvious question: ‘’Why?’’. He gave a straightforward and uninhibited answer: ‘’Owo Falae ko to o pin. ‘’ (Falae’s money is not enough to share.)
THE STRUCTURALISTS. The rotation of presidents among the different geo-political zones and the restructuring of the nation compete with each other as the most talked about issues, going by the headlines of our national dailies. Restructuring or redesigning the nation has been so much discussed that we are more or less made to feel that the very continued existence of Nigeria depends on it. Whichever ways we interpret restructuring, the structural arguments more or less assume the following order: a form of unitary or near unitary system; a true federation; a confederation, perhaps some people’s interpretation of a loose federation; a total break-up of the country into different countries, ……God knows how many.
Those who argue for the first option feel convinced that the states as we now have them and which may well increase in number, are no more than appendages of a central government lacking all that it takes to be a federating unit. A return to a true federation of the type we once knew and practiced before the 1966 military takeover, seems to be considered worth aiming at. However, with the number of states that we now have and as earlier mentioned, a return to pre-1966 system is more or less already foreclosed since the states can hardly be of the status of the erstwhile regions. The place of the zonal arrangement of groups of states forming administrative areas will still need a very serious examination in the on-going debate on the constitution. So much is the cloud that those arguing for a true federation are being accused of being too shy to call a spade a spade – their spade is a confederation. Whatever the merits of a confederation, it is seen by some as a step towards the disintegration of the nation which is the last option that we should not pray for. If anybody can vouch for a peaceful parting of the ways, then we may pray for it. But even then, how peacefully can we live as neighbours thereafter? Can the advantages of the new nations outweigh the lost potential of one strong nation? The more pessimistic ones will quickly add the Yoruba proverb ‘’Igbawo ni Maku ko ni j’oye baba re?’’ (When will a child named ‘’Never Die’’ not die just as his father before him). And they will draw attention to the political disintegration that started in Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 1990s and which still continues till today.
We may now return to our dilemma, the national question. If we stay together without resolving many of the underlying dilemmas, we have a problem. If we agree to disagree, we have a problem. Or as a Yoruba adage goes ‘’O d’iwaju o d’ejo, o d’ehin o d’aso’’, literally meaning, forward leads to litigation and backward leads to grumbling. Should we then not continue to talk it out democratically knowing fully well that failure to do so could lead to (endless wrangling) fighting it out . And when does fighting or any form of violence become inevitable? That may happen when we are no longer able to talk to each other in a rational way as we are doing now and when to be reasonable then becomes unreasonable.
A SOVEREIGN NATIONAL CONFERENCE. As a means of resolving many of these nagging issues or dilemmas if you like, a Sovereign National conference (sovereign in the sense of having some form of final authority) is being suggested. But which government would like to preside over the disintegration of its nation, if it has cause to believe that a Sovereign National Conference, as presently being canvassed, may only lead to questioning or renegotiating the sovereignty of the nation which to it is absolutely non-negotiable? So we are left with no alternative than to pray and hope for a truly representative people’s assembly to emerge leaving all else in its hands, especially if the ongoing debate on the Constitution fails to adequately take care of the big issues.
Perhaps there is a light at the end of the rather long tunnel. If there is one, it is probably still dim and distant. But let us not give up. Let me end on a note of cautious optimism. Whether Nigeria breaks, bends or stands as solid as the rock of Gibraltar depends on all of us and ultimately on God who has been ever so kind to this great nation of ours.
POSTSCRIPT
Now that in 2013, fifteen years after delivering my lecture, another attempt is being made to resolve the national dilemma through a National Dialogue/Conference, let us hope that we are indeed close to the end of the dark tunnel! Our prayer should now be for: a successful deliberation by the Dialogue/Conference Committee which should suggest an unequivocal name for the proposed confab; the president to be able to implement the Committee’s recommendations; the National Conference to conclude its assignment without rancour, and finally, the president to faithfully and fearlessly implement the outcome of the Conference within allowable ambit of the country’s laws. God bless Nigeria.
•Concluded
• Biyi Afonja is a retired Professor of Statistics.
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