Since President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the national conference three weeks ago, one controversy or the other has dogged the conference. Among them is the issue of what happens to the recommendations of the conference. Some federal lawmakers are of the view that the conference is a mere talk shop and the National Assembly will eventually have the final say. During an interactive session with journalist, human rights activist and legal luminary, Chief Femi Falana (SAN), who is a delegate at the national conference, insist that Nigerians at all level must be part of the confab process and the resolutions of the conference should be ratified by Nigerians through a referendum. Assistant Editor, MIKE ODIAKOSE, was there for the Nigerian Pilot Sunday. Excerpts:
The National Conference appears to have run into a hitch. How do you see this development and what does it portend for Nigeria?
The way and manner the meeting has been managed so far has given room for this seeming confusion but I think the committee has been set up. My only worry is that quite a number of people in the committee have fixations; they have preconceived positions on how Nigerian should move forward. It is also interesting to note that quite a number of them, with profound respect caused some of the problems we are here to address but there are people in the committee who have open minds and who are prepared to influence majority of the members to arrive at decisions that will be acceptable to the house.
For instance, I cannot see the basis for this problem and for me I think what has emerged is the fact that we try to put the cat before the horse. We are not likely to vote until when the report of the committees are brought in and when we and those committees are going to work at close quarters, as smaller units, which should provide the opportunity for us to reduce tensions and allow the superiority of ideas to prevail so that when we come out from those committees to the larger house we are likely to have known ourselves the more and be availed of superior reasons. But with the way we are handling it some people have their fears borne out of preconceived notions and that is why it is a bit problematic.
Where does that take us to?
From the information at my disposal the committee that is consulting with the chairman is likely to arrive at a decision that will be acceptable to the house. For me, I would have wanted us to look at issues one by one. In any of those contentious areas we will need to convince ourselves before we can meet either simple majority, not to talk of two-third or three-quarters. In the areas of massive corruption in the country, infrastructural decay, unemployment, insecurity of life and property and lack of access to education, health and the rest of them I can’t see problems. I can’t see it. If people are committed to get this country to take our rightful place in the committee of nations there shouldn’t be any area of friction in those areas. The cost of governance has become enormously unbearable. We claim to have copied the American presidential system but the United States government doesn’t have more that 15 ministers or Secretaries of State,
they don’t have this unprecedented number of Special Advisers and Personal Assistants and the rest of them.
Earlier in the day there was this decision by the conference to call for memoranda from members of the public. Do you buy the idea?
I am fully for the involvement of the Nigerian people in the management of the conference. We must get the Nigerian people to own the process. In each of the countries where the idea of national conference succeeded, particularly in the francophone countries, conference nationale, it was a serious business. The people own it and that was how each of them acquired sovereignty. It didn’t acquire sovereignty ab initio. It was the profundity of the recommendations, the relevance of the message of the conference that made the people to embrace those ideas and that is what we are trying to do to involve the people and that is the idea of calling for memoranda. The only thing which I suggested to the secretariat, don’t make it an elite affair by saying those who have ideas send them electronically. How many Nigerians have access to the internet? You must get the ordinary people, the illiterates, the disabled, and the disadvantaged people. If they have
information for us pass them through your local governments at the rural areas so that we can involve the people and when we also finish we must take the message back to the people.
What is your reaction to the comments of the Lamido Adamawa that his territory transcends Nigeria and he will move to part of his kingdom in Cameroun if Nigeria disintegrates?
That is his personal opinion. I also know some Obas in Yorubaland who can say that their territory goes beyond Lagos because you have some Yoruba people in Benin republic and even in Cuba, in Brazil and rest of them. I don’t think it is important matter. Even in your village somebody will talk of so and so kingdom. Where are those kingdoms- they existed in the past but we still claim them and that is why a traditional ruler in Nigeria can say ‘my territory’ in those day, not now. Your territory in Cameroun is no longer in Nigeria but in those days the emir could be right just like you have an Alake Ketu of Ketu in Benin republic, those was part of the old Oyo empire. But if the Alafin of Oyo now says that my territory goes beyond Nigeria we simply laugh over it.
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