room to make the intention of the cads to agree with those of decent people.
In conception, in guidelines and in modalities, this conference carries the seed of its confusion and eventual destruction. I had earlier argued in previous publication that consensus or three-quarter majority is like giving veto power to the minority opinions through the back door. Am however not surprise that within two weeks, the sitting has been adjorned three times. I hope the Chairman, a Retired Chief Justice of Nigeria realises that he is not seating as a judge in court? That to pay 9 Million Naira for three months job is bad enough, not to talk of paying 1.5 million Naira in two weeks for a job not done?
In any event, the chicken is gradually coming home to roost. When some of the members were pushing that they would not defer to the National Assembly by submitting the output of the conference to it. Grand standing that they will directly submit it to the people for referendum, the former Senate President, a delegate to the conference brought out the impotence and the powerlessness of the delegates. He declared on the referendum issue, that “If we listened to President Jonathan on March 17, I heard him trying to persuade the chairman and the national assembly to incorporate the need to have a referendum. We are trying to overreach ourselves trying to impose referendum. We don’t have any legal backing on that. Nigeria is a rule of law state. We are guided by the constitution. This is not a constituent assembly. We are not here to draft a new constitution. Let us be guided accordingly. We should do those things that we are capable of doing. We are not here to draft laws. Someone said we are here to make laws. Who elected you? Who empowered you? So, let us be properly guided.”
Now, the reality should have dawn on the conferees that they are pursuing the nightmare of a man who has put the cart before the horse! This is the same suspected nightmare that made me to reject my appointment into the Technical Committees on Vision 20-20-20 set up by the Yar’adua/Goodluck’s government in 2009. In my rejection letter, I asked the government to tell me just one country it planned to replace out of the 27 countries in Europe, not to talk of Asia or North & South America. Even in Africa the government was and is still not showing any sign of leadership. I did not get a response and did not follow others to chase shadow. Like the fury of an angry storm, the ill preparation for the conference, its unclear motives, its choice of prioritizing political expediency over and above legality, substituting people’s legitimate agitation with this fake and guided version of the original, its doom end is almost certain from the beginning. Some of the delegates are my personal friends whom I can vouch for their patriotism and commitment to the cause of the emancipation of our people and nation. I have high regards for them and other delegates who innocently believe that you can use ‘demon to cast out demons’. Am convinced that they would soon realize that there is no worse cruelty a people can suffer than gathering people who in time past afflicted them with grievous plague to come and be the guiding compass for their recovery. Those who destroyed our present in the past should not be allowed to define our future. Most of the delegates who are on the conference table should be in the prison rooms. If we are too weak to fight them, we should not be weak to tell good Nigerians who now have the misery of sharing platform with them to stop acting like Pontius Pilate. It is freedom or nothing! And not the impulse of our oppressors!
Gbenro Olajuyigbe is an Abuja based Human Security Expert and Rights Activist.
gbenroolajuyigbe@yahoo.com