Sovereign national conference pdf

He lost his battle with cancer on September 5, and is greatly remembered for his human rights activities. In reproducing his speech, we are honouring him and his work.

The full text of the speech now follows. The root cause of our national tragedies is the fundamental defects that have always afflicted the process of determining every constitutional frame-work of the polity.

Our constitutional arrangements since to date have never truly reflected the political, economic, social, cultural and religious realities of the country. Above all, the people of the country have never had the opportunity to make inputs into, accept or reject any constitutional frame-work through a referendum.

Consequently, the masses of our people have always been treated as aliens in all constitutional processes from to as all constitutional flame-works have always been imposed on them whether or not they like them. Principled policies of governments, loss of moral sensitivity. We must pull Nigeria back from the brink and from the precipice with a Constitution made democratically by Nigerians through the SNC and affirmed in a referendum by Nigerians. The alternative to this path of sanity is to continue disastrously to pretend that pious political preaching, posturing and exhortations and the use of governmental power of brute force will contain the mounting crises.

They will not. It is time to call a spade a spade and face the reality of our fate squarely, sincerely and courageously, so as to prevent a disintegration of the country. The Sovereign National Conference being advocated is to rebuild this single sovereign nation from its collapsing foundation, not to tear the country into several sovereign nations. Let us move away from the brink. The answer is the Sovereign National Conference. The only opportunity we have to do this is the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference.

The Sovereign National Conference, which is the only option left to save this country from sliding into disintegration, must be convoked as quickly as possible. The Sovereign National Conference is not to govern the country but to find solutions to all the problems that afflict the polity. All the governments under the present constitutional dispensation should be preliminarily involved in the process of convoking a Sovereign National Conference.

Consequently, the President of Nigeria, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of House of Representatives, all the thirty-six 36 Governors of the states of the Federation and the thirty-six 36 Speakers of the thirty-six 36 state Assemblies must quickly meet jointly to set up the Sovereign National Conference Planning Committee.

The National and State Assemblies should promulgate laws in support of the SNC so that fresh elections are held at the expiration of the tenure of the existing Government in year on the basis of the Constitution that will be drawn up by the SNC and subjected to a referendum of the people.

We recommend that the Planning Committee should comprise 50 members officially selected and 25 non-officials who will be selected across the country based on their track records of patriotism, honesty, integrity, hard work, and ability. By virtue of section 3 6 of the Constitution, there are seven hundred and seventy four local governments in Nigeria. Each local government area will elect a member into the Sovereign National Conference.

But such election must not be on party basis. Each of these groups will in its respective organization elect representatives to the Sovereign National Conference based on its numerical strength.

The modalities for doing this can be easily worked out by the Sovereign National Conference Planning Committee. The import of the recommended composition of the SNC above is that the SNC should not be conceived solely as an assembly of nationalities.

Multiple nationality is just one of the realities of Nigeria as a plural society. Other realities of Nigeria such as religious differences, social stratification, gender subjugation, professional and economic interests must also be considered.

Furthermore, the conference is to receive and deliberate upon all grievances and whether contained in memoranda or letter from individuals or groups within and outside Nigeria. The Sovereign National Conference will be enjoined to discuss and deliberate on everything under the sun with regards to Nigeria and how to preserve the country in which Nigerians will have fulfilment of their hopes and aspirations.

In other words, a Nigeria where every ethnic group will find succour; and where the masses, the neglected, the persecuted, the deprived and the cheated will find solace. In short, the Sovereign National Conference is to rebuild the country called Nigeria from scratch and to establish a new constitutional structure for a new Nigeria. It is perhaps imperative to stress that contrary to the conception of some new organizations and individuals who have just woken up to appreciate the necessity of the SNC, the work of the SNC should not be limited to political restructuring based on ethnic factors.

A key concern of the SNC is economic restructuring. The SNC should discuss and resolve the character and nature of the economic system that can ensure sustained improvement in the material lives of the ordinary people. The SNC should be concerned with establishing an economic system that will guarantee economic rights of Nigerians, whether rich or poor.

The ordinary people must enjoy the right to work or unemployment allowance in the absence of jobs, cost-free housing, education, health, water, electricity, etc. In a restructured polity, access to social services by the masses should he regarded as fundamental rights. An obligation ought to be imposed on all levels of government to provide social services such that citizens constitutionally, legally and politically can challenge the government in the event of non-provision.

If the provision of social services is made to the the constitutional responsibility of all tiers of government, then national resources will be utilized meaningfully in the interest of the larger society.

Accountability of government to the people will equally be promoted because governance will acquire a focused and definitive character. When a government has so many constitutional responsibilities and the people are aware of their constitutional rights and are prepared to fight for them legally and politically, looting, stealing, misappropriation of public resources will be minimized if not eliminated.

The Sovereign National Conference is not to govern the country. According to the Senate, the National Assembly is the embodiment of the sovereign will of the people.

In that case, anything that had to do with the determination of the corporate existence of the country must have to be decided within the confines of the National Assembly. The clamour for SNC intersects not only with institutional and structural imbalances inherent in Nigerian federal system but also ethnic, class, religion and cultural shades of interests that are embedded with such call.

The ruling class and political elites want to maintain their hold on polity and sustain the status quo while the opponents want restructuring in order to benefit or partake in the sharing of the national cake or resources. Thus seems more of a struggle within the sections of the Nigerian ruling class and elites, who are apt in appealing to ethnic and religious sentiment and propaganda in order to make case or promote their own individual and selfish agenda.

Through this, different sections of Nigerian ruling class and elites will use SNC as bargaining tool to either get what they want or undermine the unity of the country if issue involved is not favourable to their cause and interests.

However, argument for and against SNC is replete with the central issues of national question and structural imbalances that have been extensively discussed above. At the heart of the clamour for SNC lies the struggle for resource control and political hegemony in which different actors—activists, nationalists, NGOs and civil society groups, politicians and ruling elites substituting their respective interest with that of the interest they claimed to be representing, and used that as a ploy or pretext for personal and class agenda.

History of National Conferences in Nigeria The quest for national conferences has been one of the problems brought by the unresolved national questions in the annals of Nigeria political history.

The imposition of colonial rule in and the creation of Nigerian state in was a catalyst that accelerated the agitations by different ethnic groups to have a say in state governance, access to the state power and fair distribution of political office and positions, resource control, protection and preservation of languages, culture and identity within the Nigerian federation.

Most of these issues are being raised by the minority groups who are aggrieved by their exclusion from the regional government and federalism imposed by the departing colonial power. The civil war and the long interregnum of military dictatorship delayed the agitation towards resolution of national questions in the contemporary Nigeria. The return to civil rule in had brushed raw hitherto unanswered questions about the structure of Nigerian federation, state governance and distribution of national wealth.

Mimiko noted that the national question stemmed from the disagreement, sometime violently, over the proper and equitable formula for power and revenue sharing. What triggered the quest for SNC in Nigeria were the presidential elections that were massively rigged to return President Shehu Shagari Mimiko Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was allegedly rigged out of the election has been known to have championed fundamental restructuring of the Nigerian federation to provide a sense of belonging for all ethnic, social and religious groups, to participate actively in a self-determined way on how state should be run, power distributed and resource or wealth shared and control within the Nigerian state.

Unfortunately, it did not take few months before the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida aborted it. Nevertheless, the agitation for the convocation of a national conference began in in response to the unending transition programme implemented by the Babangida administration. Ogunrotifa The annulment of June 12, presidential election added much impetus, as the scale of political conflicts and violence that followed the annulment made clamour for SNC a national agenda and issue.

Even the Abacha coup was insufficient to douse the increasing agitation for such conference. Fortunately, Abacha regime that was suffering from legitimacy crisis conceded to the idea of conference and organised a constituted assemble conference in The conference was inaugurated on the 27th June, by General Abacha.

The conference was called following the spate of political crisis that followed the annulment of June 12, presidential election. Of the total delegates to the conference, were purportedly elected. The total numbers of Nigerians who bothered to vote was a mere , out of about 25 million registered and eligible voters.

The conference consists of elected, and 94 nominated delegates. Each state of the federation elected 9 delegates. Also one delegate was nominated to represent each of the special interests such as the Nigerian Labour Congress, Nigerian Union of Students and the Nigerian Union of Teachers.

There were therefore a grand total of delegates. The conference was chaired by Justice AdolphusKaribi-Whyte From the outset, the regime stated that delegates were barred from discussing or debating certain issues relating to unity and territorial integrity of the country and posited that the outcome of the resolution is subject to review by the highest decision making organs of the regime—Provisional Ruling Council, who will have power to veto any decision the regime finds uncomfortable ibid.

The proceedings of the conference was without rancour especially when contentious issues of resource control, power sharing, revenue allocation, federal character and political succession were raised and debated. However, what really sent jitters down the spine of the regime was the declaration by a delegate—Gen Shehu Musa Yardua that the conference should fix 1st of January as the terminal date for Abacha regime to leave office, and it was unanimously adopted5.

Following the official protest from the regime and harassment of the delegates by the security agencies, the resolution was reversed and new resolution was passed. The aftermath was the arrest and detention of Yardua on phantom coup plot against the regime. The draft constitution provided in addition to the offices of President and Vice President and Ministers, the Constitution provides also for the offices of 5 Newswatch 8 May cited in Agbu , pp. Furthermore, Section 8 : "Any political party which wins not less than 10 per cent of the total number of seats in the National Assembly or of the total number of votes cast at the election, shall, subject to the provisions of subsection 7 of this section be entitled to representation in the Federal Executive Council in proportion to the number of seats won by the party in the National Assembly".

Unfortunately, it was aborted due to pressing political criticism by the pro-democracy activists. Apparent unwillingness of the military to relinquish power and return to civil rule couple with excessive corruption, violation of human rights, repression of pro-democracy activists and opponents, suppression of press freedom, banning of political rallies engendered the continuous call for SNC that will address the fundamental problem facing the country.

However, the death of Abacha in June marred the promulgation of draft constitution of into substantive constitution vis-a-vis military decree.

The new military regime rejected the draft constitution and dumped its entirety into rubbish heaps of history. This however led to the convocation of Conference of nationalities by Campaign for Democracy in December Ogunrotifa None of these groups has anything to do with Nigerian nationalities, except that they are constituted mainly of people southern ethnic origins.

It is safe to state first, that the conference was hardly national, and second, that its focus appears to be more on constitution making than on instituting genuine federalism in Nigeria. Moreover, the conference like its predecessor—constitution conference of, ushered little or no impact, as most of its recommendations were consigned to the backwaters of history, while the idea about SNC, resource control, true federalism and effective government were completely suppressed through the jackboot authoritarianism of Nigerian military dictatorship until May However, following the return to civil rule, the clamour for SNC gained new currency in the Nigerian political space as various interest groups, sectarian organisations and ethnic associations intensified its call to address the age-long problems of political, economic, social, cultural and religious injustices rooted in the Nigerian state.

The Obasanjo capitulation towards national conference was decried by critics as a ploy to extend his rule in the botched third term project. Prior to the commencement of the conference, President Obasanjo had set up Mohammed Makarfi Committee to produce a background paper for the new political reform committee.

The Makarfi committee outlined areas to be discussed by the NPRC and fashioned it into 18 points agenda for debate. The Conference is free to strengthen, update, and refine these in their recommendations; nothing should be done to undermine our national integrity and sovereignty or weaken our national cohesion.

The conference consists of about members. The conference had a time frame of three months and not more than 50 members appointed by the President Tenuche On the total number of participants, six persons are to be selected from each state so that, as much as possible, ethnic compositions from each state could be covered.

However, the court ruling did not stop Hon. Nevertheless, the conference began on 21st February, and ended on controversial circumstances on 11th of July, The NPRC received memoranda from the public and made recommendations out of issues deliberated to the federal government that was submitted in a six-volume report.

But there was no agreement on two of the recommendations - the sharing of the oil wealth and the tenure of the president and state governors - leaving the federal government with a choice on the majority and minority reports on the contentious issues.

Other recommendations are the restructuring of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC , participation of Nigerians in the Diaspora in future elections and review of the existing formula for sharing the revenue from the federation account. The end of the confab recorded two adjournments when the South-South delegates walked out of the proceedings over disagreement on the issue of derivation percentage. Accessible atwww. Ogunrotifa they would not have anything less than 25 per cent; the North insisted that the 17 per cent given by the Elders Committee and adopted by the plenary session would remain.

The report of the Conference was finally submitted to Mr. President at the Banquet Hall of the State House at a ceremony, which was boycotted by the delegates from the South-South. President hurriedly dumped the recommendations of the Conference on the National Assembly—who had viewed the Conference with suspicion throughout the period it lasted. The initial agenda of Obasanjo regime as to have a favourable constitution like tenure elongation was frustrated while the key recommendations of NPRC conference was consigned to dustbin of history by the National Assembly under pretext of botched third term agenda.

These two PRONACO organisers Enahoro and Soyinka declined official invitation to join the government's political reform conference, in protest against the mode of selection of participants. Their position is that any conference to be organised at this point in time in the history of Nigeria should be sovereign, while representation should be by election. The four major grievances of PRONACO against NPRC conference are: first, all the delegates were chosen either by the federal government or by the state governments, they were all seen therefore as hand-picked government appointees or supporters who could not be trusted to address the country's political problems and come up solutions that would be acceptable to the majority.

The second issue is the non- representation or incomplete representation of the ethnic nationalities. The third reason was gross under-representation of womenfolk—who was seen as constituting more than 50 per cent of Nigerian population. The final issue was the fact that the federal government was not prepared to submit the outcome of the conference to a referendum.

In other words, government was seen as intending to impose the conclusions of the conference and its own will on the people. The two-day mock conference came up with resolutions on the structure, composition, agenda and time-table for the national conference, and later established six committees to make recommendations in the areas of government's geo- political structure, fiscal arrangement, and system of government, security forces, citizenship, and human rights.

However, the conference started in April and its delegates are chosen from more than participating organisations—nine political parties, civil society organisations and ethnic nationalities-based groups.

Participants also canvassed the replacement of the three tiers of government with four tiers viz : federal, zonal, state and local governments. Observing that the Federal Government has assumed too much of power, delegates canvassed the need to prune the power of the Federal Government to such an extent that it only performs few roles such as foreign relations, defence, monetary and currency issues while the bulk of government responsibilities including transport, employment, agriculture, commerce, housing, health care, education, industry and commerce will shift to the regions But the fundamental question is that how national referendum would be conducted without imprimatur and participation of Government of Nigeria?

Independent organisations cannot organise a sovereign national conference for the country that can be free from legitimacy, legal, methodological and structural problems. The PRONACO conference and its recommendation are more of wishful thinking that does not have basis in methodology and state structurality as far as Nigerian situation is concerned. That explains why the conference recommendation has been neglected by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Apart from the economic and political interest of certain groups who are favourable dispose to the status-quo who may undermine or frustrate its convergence, the calls for SNC seems more of hot airs, while official attempt at addressing the issue and convoking the conference looks more superficial, unrealistic and unworkable due to the methodological and structural problems that are likely to undermine its convergence.

These problems would be critically espoused in the next section. SNC in Nigeria: Methodological and Structural Problems Sovereign National Conference like many other serious-minded socio-political and national platforms has to be convoked in an organised manner if its outcome is to be successful, and resolutions acceptable and legitimate on the overwhelming majority of Nigerians. Organising SNC requires a particular logic of method that will help to provide conducive environment where all ethnic nationalities, civil society groups, interest groups engage in important national discussions, dialogues and debates without any form of ill-feeling and suspicion from any of the participants, and the appropriateness of such method over others.

Methodological problem stem from whose idea is the conference? Where does it derive its power from? Who are the organisers? Whose interest does SNC represents? How are ethnic nationalities identified and represented? What will be the sitting arrangement? Would it be by elections? Or would delegates be chosen on the basis of ethnic groups or professional bodies? In the event that the delegates would come in through elections, which body would organise the elections?

And who determines who represents who? Would contestants go for representation on the basis of their political parties? Who have the mandate of ethnic nationalities to represent them at the conference? What is the mandate of the conference? Who is going to fund the conference?

How sovereign is the conference going to be? What is the class interest of the participants? What are the issues to be discussed at the conference?

These issues represent a significant problem that have to be well-thought out at the outset, as they are crucial in determining the legitimacy of the conference, how is going to end up, and how resolutions would be accepted and implemented. It is quite plausible to think that organising SNC in Nigeria as far as the methodological posers outlined above are concerned, is unlikely to be undertaken given the peculiar nature of Nigerian factor.

Second, another methodological aspect of the problem that may arise is the lack of conceptual scheme to articulate fundamental issues that formed the basis of discussion, debates and deliberation at the level of SNC.

The agitators for SNC—who are mostly lay folk have not demonstrated how issues to be addressed can be articulated within the conceptual frame of reference and espoused correctly. How are such issues defined and conceptualised? The terms are empty phraseology and just too bogus that explains nothing as far as serious discussions like SNC is concerned.

They have to be defined, break down and correctly conceptualised and operationalise in a workable pattern; its components, features, indices and variables have to be spelt out and articulated in a convincing way that can stand the test of arguments, debates and disagreement.

The conceptual scheme illustrates the intellectual component of issues and questions that different ethnic groups may want to put forward. These charters of demands must be defined in a less ambiguous way and place on the table for all participants to peruse and discuss.

In fact, for proper SNC, the idea and submission of different actors and ethnic nationalities has to be clearly thought out, and present to the organising committee before the conference starts, while the organising should be able to share all memorandum or charters of demand to all participating interests, so as to be kept abreast of different issues to be discussed and offer robust response.

The idea of any group refusing to disclose their grievances, share their conference proposal and demands until the conference open is tricky and unworkable. Structural Problems The sovereign nature of SNC at least in theory requires that the conference is supreme, autonomous, and has unrestraint authority and power to exercise and make decision over any national importance and state matters without any form of external influence, internal manoeuvring and administrative impairment.

However, SNC in practice is likely to be faced and undermined by structural problems. The structural nature of the problems to be confronted with resides in the institutional structures of the state mechanism— executive, legislative and judicial institutions or structures.

First, SNC has to be established by either military decree or act of the parliament in order to make it legitimate and possess supreme powers. In the military clime, the SNC bill may be approved by the highest decision making organs of military echelon for example Supreme Military Council or Armed Forces Ruling Council and be channelled to appropriate agencies for implementation and organisation. It is unlikely that military regime will want to subject its authority and power to the dictate of SNC and its resolution on how government and state of a society like Nigeria is been run or want part of its organ to be suspended or stripped of its illegitimate powers.

Nevertheless, Nigeria has since return to civil rule and the agitation of SNC has to be subjected to the democratic structures and organs of the government.

Under democratic government, the SNC bill may have to be sponsored by the executive arms of government as executive bill so as to have governmental backing and effect. Though, it may be sponsored as private bill by member of the national assembly but may not carry necessary legal weight compare to that of the executive.

If the executive is sponsoring the SNC bill, they will ensure that certain provisions, clauses, sections and sub-sections that will undermine its hold on the country, expose its shady deals, relinquish its electoral mandate, and truncate their interest and that of their personal authority are not included in the final draft of the bill. In this regard, the actions and interests of actors in the executive organs of government will determine and dictate how final SNC bill looks like before it is eventually sent to national assembly for approval.

However, it is unlikely that executive will kowtow or submit to the agitations for SNC and grants the demand of its agitators. Second, if the bill is under consideration by the legislative arms of government National Assembly either as executive sponsored bill or private member bill, it will still face critical and thorough scrutiny that may water down the key provisions, clauses, sections and sub-sections at different stages of law making processes.

It is possible that the bill may not see the light of the day by being thrown out at the first reading on the floor of the parliament. If it scales through the first reading, it may be because of the rising pressure from the society especially mass demonstrations by the labour unions, civil society groups, student movement, extremist and nationalistic groupings and other associations of ethnic nationalities.

By moving from the first through the second reading involves referring the bill to the standing committee of the house who will examine the legality and illegality of the bill critically. The legislators at the committee level may even water down more clauses, provisions, sections and sub-sections more than what the executive have done.

Nevertheless, the recommendation of the committee will be presented to the whole house at third reading stage where clause-by-clause consideration will be undertaken by all the lawmakers.

Whichever way it is, the outcome may not be favourable to the agitators as SNC bill passage may mean removal of clauses, provisions, sections and sub-sections that may pose threat to the executive and legislative arms and the interest they represent in government, and ensure that structure of Nigerian state remain unchanged. Third, the structural problem that may undermine the SNC act if passed by the legislative is the judicial interpretations of the bill. The first issue that may warrants judicial review is the interests of judiciary itself and what roles they may play in the SNC process.

Ogunrotifa and prestige of the judicial arms and its judges, they will not hesitate to strike down such the entirety of the act as unconstitutional. Though, judges cannot independently declare any sections of the constitution or law passed by the legislature as null and void unless it is being considered as a legal case under its jurisdiction, it is possible that entire judicial arms or certain judges may collude with groups who are aggrieved with the SNC act, to bring forward such legal case to be considered for adjudication.

Therefore, use that medium to declare the act unconstitutional. The second issue that may warrants judicial review is that certain groups and interests who are not favourably disposed to the act may challenges its legality in court. The methodological and structural issues facing the idea of SNC is intertwined with the problem of legal framework that may undermine its convocation in Nigeria.

This stemmed from the fact that SNC must derive its power either from constitution, act of parliament, referendum or military decree. The legality of SNC should be clearly worked out alongside methodological and structural problems before agitation for the conference should take place.