NATIONAL CONFERENCE or \u2018FOOD IS READY\u2019?\u00a0 \u00a0– \u00a0by Gbenro Olajuyigbe<\/p>\n
\u2018—- the man who believes in nothing—and has space for everything has a terrible advantage over us\u2019 \u2013John Lecarre<\/i><\/p>\n
Expressing his reservations, a colleague \u00a0of mine \u00a0asked me whether i knew that the National Conference Committee inaugurated by the President recently was the SEVENTY FIRST (71st<\/sup>) committee he would be inaugurating on one thing or the other. \u00a0Seventy \u2013 One committees! \u00a0I never counted! \u00a0Unlike my colleague, am poor at Historical Mathematics! \u00a0He was surprised at my excitements because it was unusual of me not to do analysis of believability of any declaration; especially from a politician! Anyway, my excitement was drawn from\u00a0 conviction in the desirability of a people \u2013 driven- sovereign national conference. Understandably, i gave MR. President the benefit of doubt, not benefit of history! Not quite some time a stronger force within me started resistance; loudly saying hey, boy! You need history today to reach a conclusion about the future ! I then to listen attentively to the Seventh \u2013 Sense, something Lawyers will call Precedence; and which one of my pastor – friends will refer to as Ancient Landmark! Just as i was reflecting on my doubts, MR President, who loved supporting his confused citizens removed all my doubts. He declared when the Vice- President led others to pay homage to him on Sallah day that \u2018the outcome of the conference will be sent to the National Assembly\u2019<\/i><\/b>. \u2018Gbam\u2019, <\/i>\u00a0then i knew, as usual \u2018FOOD IS READY\u2019!\u00a0 A new journey on an old road has stated. A journey on old road once travelled by Gowon,\u00a0 Babangida, Abacha,\u00a0 and Obasanjo. A journey on a familiar \u2018famished road\u2019 that lead to no where. Sovereign National Conference is not an \u2018almighty formula\u2019 to our problems but if committedly\u00a0 and sincerely pursed, will be an in-road to solution and progress. However, when it becomes cannon fodder to those seeking refuge from volcanoes of a political topsy-tovydon, it carries every undertone of \u2018caveat emptor\u2019- buyers, beware!<\/p>\n Some people had claimed that the President did not state any \u2018no- go areas\u2019 and so, their faith in the conference! Good faith to such people. After sometime, we shall compare notes.\u00a0 For me, \u00a0there is no \u2018 no\u2014go- area\u2019 that is worse than subjecting the outcome of the conference to the mercy and salvation of a Parliament which is itself an output of a incurably defective constitution that ab initio is the \u2018raison d\u2019\u00eatre\u2019 for the conference.\u00a0 Any conference output that does not end in referendum will be as good as the reports of the earlier\u00a0 seventy committees set up by the President.<\/p>\n I have also heard those welting their tongues for the conference saying that the composition should be drawn from ethnic nationalities, based on the fact that they are the platforms that people will return to if the country breaks up. How does this address the questions of what drove us into fratricidal ethnicity. The maladies that destroyed\u00a0 the zeal for patriotism and nationalism. Other climes are expanding the horizon of their citizenship using globalist re-construction model; ours continue to shrink from Nigerianist to tribalist models! This shrinkage of space has constrained our capacity for development. The lost space is now being idealised and converted to violence.<\/p>\n There is ample evidence to show that the seed \u00a0producing violence in\u00a0 Nigeria is rooted in abuse of \u00a0rights, unequal access to\u00a0 opportunities ,pervasive and primordial corruption,\u00a0 hostile and polluted\u00a0 environment, defiled\u00a0 and\u00a0 denigrated citizenship, fratricidal ethnicity and religiosity among others. These \u00a0are the sound of the stale music that defines the dancing steps that set in motion the turbine of \u00a0intolerance and violence that has become the nation\u2019s propeller of conflict and crises. Pains, tears and death of hapless citizens\u00a0 are common traits of dastardly evil \u00a0and fatal greed ascribable to\u00a0 our vicious rulers\u2019 bad – governance. A Conference that is not sovereign enough to frontally address these will get us nowhere.<\/p>\n With epidemy of impunity and\u00a0 lawlessness across the country, Nigeria now provides the kind of example we need to understand the contradiction of\u00a0 a state without citizens; wretched people on rich land; paradox of a cowboy without milk, tale of a clothe maker who walks naked to\u00a0 market, and story of a butcher who eats bone for supper. Faced with the reality but lost in the infamy of denial, the state continue to hunt down some of her people who merely commit the crime she\u00a0 prepares. Those who dare to point out the danger of inglorious contradiction of poverty in the midst of plenty, consequential injustices and the need for structural reconstruction are tagged unpatriotic.\u00a0 Except for pretence, even toddlers know that poverty and insecurity are old time allies. There is no way we can steer this country away from danger, mop the corridor of conflict \u00a0without starving \u00a0the poverty often created by unjust wealth to death. Unless we sweep the sky that has become dumping site for political\u00a0 toxicants,\u00a0 economic irritants and\u00a0 socially demeaning brand of \u00a0ruler – ship with soft spot for injustices, Nigerians will not be able to see clearly, hope and future that abound in any strategy targeting\u00a0 one nation, one destiny.<\/p>\n The coast for peace can not be cleared as long as creek people continue to fish in troubled waters. Laboring in vain, casting net in order to catch fish that have been assassinated by trespassing unkind oil and lethal pollutants. Unless waters flow in and unto the Savannahs, the Sahel and the near desert parts of the country to quench thirst for social and human development, the climate for crises will always be rive. Anger cannot be pacified without battling hunger that has become trademark of most Nigerian children, youth and the aged. The Nigeria crisis has gone beyond what parochial strategy can curtail. No matter how relentless and intensifying, fashioning deception and thoughtlessness into semblance of conference will not solve the problems. The best it can achieve is corrupted hope that will \u00a0postpone the evil day.<\/p>\n Every volley of bullet that goes out, from the state or citizen, even if it hits and kills its target, has sad message for the future. It is not only the enemy that goes down with it; both the future and generations yet unborn are victims. It defines and delineates the deadly game our children will play in future. Nigerians \u00a0cannot afford to be trapped by \u00a0their rulers political innuendoes and \u00a0error of threading the \u00a0old road of deceit. We cannot and should not go the same old road. A better way to go is to come together as a people, deciding together our destiny. Setting standards for our existence through genuine and hold-no-bar dialogue that can remove cottons from the ears of the deaf and wools from the eye of the blind.<\/p>\n \u00a0Pushing it to our governments that people come before constitution. That democracy is a trash; and will crash without the people. That instead of hankering for loots and booties in office, our governors and officials should sit right and prioritize people as the first and only reason for government and society; and so, acknowledging their sovereignty.<\/p>\n A conference whose\u00a0 outcome is determined by any \u00a0motivation different from the sovereignty of the people will produce more miserable citizenry. The ultimate outcome from such cannot guarantee anything beyond the gross darkness that people are already groaning in. We will only emerge blinking into a new culture and a new Nigeria when we have a Nigeria, where the vote of Adamu, my road side vulcanizer count as that of Jonathan, my President. When the daughter of Ukpong, the Palm wine tapper from Ikot-Ekpene has equal access to opportunities like the daughter of Mark, the Senate President from Benue.<\/p>\n A conference whose outcome will not produce schools that will equally be attended by \u00a0children of both the rich and the poor, health services that will make seeking medical salvation abroad \u00a0history, will just be another figure seventy \u2013one of Jonathan\u2019s committees according to my colleague. Like Danjuma\u2019s Technical Committee that did not produce technical result in President\u2019s hand, Orosanye\u2019s Committee whose end result did not merge even two parastatals, Ministerial Committee on UNEP Report of Ogoni Oil pollution; Ribadu\u2019s Petroleum Committee, Boko Haram Amnesty Committee and many others. This may just be another. And for the professional \u00a0jobbers who might find themselves in this \u2018Baba \u2013 Put\u2019 cafeteria , FOOD IS READY!<\/p>\n \u00a0By:\u00a0 Gbenro Olajuyigbe`<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Human Security in Conflict & Emergencies\u00a0 Manager,<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0ActionAid Nigeria,<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ABUJA, NIGERIA.<\/p>\n E-Mail: Olugbenro.olajuyigbe@actionaid.org<\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NATIONAL CONFERENCE or \u2018FOOD IS READY\u2019?\u00a0 \u00a0– \u00a0by Gbenro Olajuyigbe \u2018—- the man who believes in nothing—and has space for everything has a terrible advantage over us\u2019 \u2013John Lecarre Expressing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n