SCEPTICS of the proposed national conference on the intention of the authorities may need to have a rethink, as the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the conference, Dr Femi Okurounmu, has said the report will be subjected to a referendum.
In an exclusive interview with Nigerian Tribune, he allayed the fears being expressed in certain quarters because the authorities had not proclaimed a sovereign status for the conference designed for Nigerians to fashion out how they could strengthen the nation’s unity.
According to Okurounmu, who was a Senator between 1999 and 2003, the overall objective of the current exercise would have been achieved once the decisions of the people are respected after the conference.
His words, “It is not the name that matters; a name does not make a king. If you say sovereign status, what does sovereign status mean? Sovereignty, in any nation, will rest with the people. As long as the final decision rests with the people, that is sovereign enough.
“Once the conference meets and makes decisions, and the decisions are subjected to a referendum by the people, what more sovereignty do we want? So, once the people have approved the decisions at the conference and the decisions of the people are respected, that should satisfy anybody.”
Okurounmu spoke at length on the activities of his committee so far, the modalities of operation, issue of memoranda time frame, role of the National Assembly, as well as other fundamental issues.
The chairman of the National Advisory Committee on National Dialogue/Conference, Dr Femi Okurounmu speaks on the role of National Assembly in the proposed conference, issue of referendum, representation and critics of the conference in this exclusive interview with KUNLE ODEREMI AND DARE ADEKANMBI. Excerpts:
SEVEN days after the inauguration of the committee that you head, how has been the experience?
The experience has been very gratifying.
How do you mean?
I have had a pleasurable experience working with my team. It’s been a team of eminent, committed and dedicated people. People who all believe in one Nigeria and believe that we need to strengthen the unity of Nigeria and that this conference is going to go a long way in helping to strengthen that unity. So, I have had maximum cooperation from members of the committee and we have been working at lightning speed to see that we get our work done within the time limit given to us.
How do you mean lightning speed?
We went to work from the minute we were sworn in, Right from the venue of our inauguration, we went to our working hall and started working. With the exception of break for lunch and dinner, we have been working till very late at night. On Saturday morning, we still worked and some of us stayed behind to grant some press interviews and do some radio and television shows before leaving Abuja on Saturday. So, it’s been a week full of action and work.
Did your appointment come to you as a surprise?
Well, the only surprise there was that I did not even expect the President was going to convene a national conference because we had been agitating for it for a long time and most presidents, including the present President, had appeared reluctant or unwilling to accede to our request. So, the sudden turn around by the President to convene a national conference was very surprising. That was the surprise. My appointment of course was also a surprise.
Why?
This is because as I said, I was not even expecting that a conference would be convened and so my appointment was not expected too. Everything came suddenly- both the decision to convene a national conference and the announcement of me as the chairman of the conference committee.
You have been one of the major critics of the Federal Government and some observers feel your choice was a surprise.
Well, being a critic of government is quite different from being an advocate of a sovereign national conference or a national conference. When we criticise our government, we criticise constructively. The best friends of governments are those who criticise them constructively. If I were a head of state or a president, I would take my useful critics, my intelligent critics, my well-intended critics as my best friends. And I think this is what President Goodluck Jonathan has done. I have been a critic of his but I have never criticised him maliciously. I have criticised him by telling him what to do to endear himself to the people and I think this conference is one of the things he has done to endear himself to the people. So, I have always been one of the advocates of a national conference. For more than two decades, I have been in the forefront of those agitating for a national conference. From that point of view, I think my choice was not inappropriate at all.
But some observers think that since it is not a conference with a sovereign status, you would not accept it because at the end of the day, your committee, which is purely advisory, may make little difference.
It is not the name that matters; a name does not make a king. If you say sovereign status, what does sovereign status mean? Sovereignty, in any nation, will rest with the people. As long as the final decision rests with the people, that is sovereign enough. Once the conference meets and makes decisions and the decisions are subjected to a referendum by the people, what more sovereignty do we want? So, once the people have approved the decisions at the conference and the decisions of the people are respected, that should satisfy anybody.
Subjecting the decision to a referendum is a critical stage that politicians may hijack it because of past experience with referendum on some issues.
Referendum gives everybody a chance to say yes or no.
So, how do you hope to insulate that critical stage from being politicised?
This is going to be the work of the people; the decisions are going to be taken by the representatives of the people. The representatives themselves are part of the people and if they don’t have confidence in anybody, they won’t call the fellow to go and represent them. The same people who chose the members that will represent them are the same people that will say whether they approve of the work done at the conference or not.
Some people don’t believe in government because of past experiences, especially about promises made but not fulfilled, which is why they are saying there is a kind of a hidden agenda in this conference.
I agree that many administrations in the past disappointed the people and let them down by not implementing decisions taken at conferences they convened or standing by their promises. But if we say because of that we will not work for any government or that we will not even believe any government, when the good government comes that really wants to do something good, we will not believe in it and we will just let the opportunity go. So, every time the government promises something that is desirable, that satisfies one of our yearnings and aspirations, we must give that government the benefit of the doubt and see if it means well. If it means well, then we have nothing to lose, even if it does not mean well, we still have nothing to lose. The government will only have itself to blame.
President Jonathan has not restricted your committee from discussing certain issues…
The government has assured us that there are no ‘no-go’ areas and we believe the government when it said that because if there were going to be any ‘no-go’ areas, we would have been told at inauguration. At our inauguration, the President did not give us any ‘no-go’ areas.
Don’t you think perhaps the government believes because of the prevailing situation in the country, the conference should be left open-end at this stage?
Whatever the reason may be, if that is the right thing to do and I believe that is the right thing to do, it should be left open-ended. There should be no ‘no-go’ areas; Nigerians should be free to discuss all issues. If we all believe that is the right thing to do, then we should credit government for doing the right thing.
What gives you that guarantee that whatever is arrived at in the conference and you believe represent the views of the people, will be wholly accepted by government?
I am optimistic that our recommendations would be accepted but I cannot give Nigerians the guarantee.
Why?
Because I believe the President himself is serious. He had not always believed that we needed a conference. So, it is only of recent persuasion. Having come to the conclusion that we need a conference, he had gone ahead to set up a committee of respectable, eminent people with respectable antecedents; people who are not easily compromised and who have very strong viewpoint. If the President wasn’t serious, he would not have gone for those kind of people. And then, he has given us the assurance that there is no ‘no-go’ areas. The President’s credibility also rests on the success of our committee and that is why our committee will not let the President and Nigerians down.
You have just six weeks to prepare an agenda for the conference. Do you think that period is enough, given the enormity of the task before your committee?
Well, we shall do our best to complete the assignment within that period. If for any unforeseen reasons we could not finish that assignment within the stipulated time, we shall hesitate to ask for more time.
We listened to you on a call-in radio programme last Saturday and heard the views expressed by Nigerians. From that experience, what do you think is the attitude of Nigerians to the proposed conference?
I have seen that many Nigerians are enthusiastic, hopeful and are even prayerful that our committee should succeed.
Why do you think they have that kind of attitude to the conference?
Because, as I have said, people have been yearning for a national conference for more than two decades to correct what they see as the iniquities and the injustices of the Nigerian polity and system. They have been yearning for a society that will guarantee greater justice and equity and promote social harmony and societal stability. This is something that we have all been yearning for. Nobody likes the state of instability in our country because it is not good for the economy. So, if we can have a stable and peaceful country, a country where everybody has a sense of belonging, everybody will be happy. So, this is why Nigerians are very hopeful and optimistic about the conference and are praying we should succeed.
Where does this proposed conference leave the constitutional amendment process currently being done by the National Assembly?
I have been part of this constitutional amendment process in the National Assembly. I was in the Senate between 1999 and 2003 and I was in the Committee of the Senate that was handling the constitutional review process. All the documents that we gathered, including the memoranda, I still have (all of) them with me.
Every subsequent Senate has gathered memoranda on this same constitutional amendment process, but up till now, nothing has happened. So, it is not for me to criticise what is happening at the National Assembly; it will continue to do its work. And we have our own work to do too.
So, where lies the symbiosis between your committee and the National Assembly members, if any?
Where lies the symbiosis is that we are hoping to go back to the basics. The National Assembly is starting from a ‘given’, that is, given the 1999 Constitution, what amendment do we want to make to it? That is their starting platform. We are starting from the basis that we have no constitution at all. And depending on what the people want, what kind of constitution do the people want? We are starting from the basis that nothing is ‘given’ and everything is subject to examination and review. So, that is the difference.
In view of the multi-ethnic nature of the country, how do you hope to capture the views of all these nationalities in the agenda for the conference?
That is why we have a whole month to go round the country. We are going to all the six geo-political zones and we are making two stops in important cities in each zone and we are seeking the assistance of all the state governments to help us mobilise members of the public and to create awareness and ensure that every member of the public comes and makes his or her views known. Once everyone comes to make their views known, then we shall have access to the opinion of everybody. You don’t have to belong to any organisation; you can come as an individual and make your views known. You can come as an organisation, civil society group, professional body and make your views known. We shall make sure that we incorporate all views in the decision-making process.
What about political parties? How do you hope to carry them along?
This is not a work for partisan parties. All Nigerians, first and foremost, are Nigerians before they join political parties. We want to hear Nigerians as Nigerians.
Nigerians square Nigerians. Full stop! Political parties can always corrode the process and bastardise it and we don’t want to give room for that.
Some people have suggested the need for town hall meetings if you truly you want to get the views of the people at the grass roots.
There are layers of meetings in which we are involved and we have advertised this. We are going to go round and make two stops in each geo-political zone. Before we go to any zone, the people in the zone are at liberty to call town hall meetings so that their communities can take a decision and come up with a position that they will present when we get to the zone. Nothing stops any community form calling preliminary meetings to sound out the opinion of members of that community.
The opinion of some people is that the problem is not actually with the Constitution of Nigeria but with the operators of the document.
The problem can be both.
How?
There is a problem with us as a people and definitely, there is problem with the operators of the constitution. The Americans operate the presidential system of government as we do but they don’t have as many problems as we have as a people. But there is also a problem with our constitution. It is a mixture of both.
What is the problem with our constitution?
It is not for me to start telling you what the problem is with our constitution. It is for me to hear from people.
Many commentators have blamed the 1914 amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Protectorates for administrative convenience by the British authorities as the beginning of the country’s woes. Some are even speculating that the document signed during the amalgamation has a clause that gives any component part the freedom to dismember from the country after 100 years, which Nigeria will clock next year.
People who have the documents can confront us with that view when we come to their area. And when we are confronted with such view, we will go and check it out. Those who believe our problems started in 1914 should express such view when we get to their zone.
As a Nigerian and not chairman of a national conference committee and given your wealth of experience in politics, do you think the country’s problem started in 1914?
Given my position and responsibility, I should not be found projecting my personal views and opinions. It will not be right. I should give Nigerians the opportunity to project their views. But we shall do exactly what Nigerians want to be done.
It all couldn’t have been rosy in the last seven days. So, what are the challenges that you have faced?
So far, we have heard no problems at all. We have terms of reference and we all agreed on the goal and the means and that is why we are going round the country to hear from Nigerians. Part of the terms of reference is to draw out an agenda for the conference and I cannot just sit down and draw out an agenda from my own experience, even if such as agenda is representative, people will not accept it. We need to hear from the man in Sokoto, the Kanuri man what they want to be in the agenda and we shall build all these into the agenda proposed by Nigerians.
How many memoranda have you received so far?
We have received several memoranda. Right from the moment we were inaugurated, we have been receiving memoranda from many people.
What is the nature of the memoranda in terms of contents?
That is not for me to start revealing.
People have raised the issue of representation at the conference, which is very fundamental. How will your committee address the issue?
Well, it is part of what we are consulting Nigerians on. The Yoruba people will tell us what they have in mind concerning this; the Igbo people will tell us how they want to be represented and the Hausa people too will do the same. Professional bodies like the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) can tell us how they want representatives to the conference chosen.
Some political leaders have been very critical of the proposed conference and calling it a diversionary exercise. One of them is Senator Bola Tinubu who said the recommendations of Obasanjo’s National Political Reform Conference be adopted instead of organising a fresh conference.
When you quote Tinubu, I don’t know which quote of Tinubu I should take, whether what he says this year or what he said last year or two years ago because they are very different. So, which one do we take as the real Tinubu? Is it the one that is talking today or the one that was talking last year? This is why we don’t want practising politicians to distract us. When politicians speak, they speak from the perspective of immediate political advantage and we don’t want to get involved in practical politics. We want to concentrate on what is good for Nigerians and the future of Nigeria. Full stop.
But don’t you think people like him and others could make the work of your committee challenging, especially in the South-West where he has political control of most states?
We are not asking political parties to come and present memoranda.
But you are asking state governments to mobilise members of the public to come and present their opinions for your committee. The state governments in the zone have the resources but if somebody like him directs non-participation of the governments of his party, that may pose a serious challenge.
I am sure the people of the South-West are not fools. They know that if they lose this opportunity now to have what they have been agitating for, for more than three decades and other parts of the country go ahead and a successful conference is implemented, they are the only ones that will be the loser because they cannot keep agitating after that. By the grace of God, we are going to have a successful conference, where we will have had the input of Nigerians. So, whoever says people should not come and give their views will have himself to blame. We are not inviting APC, APGA, New PDP, Old PDP or any other party. We are inviting Nigerians. If any governor decides to boycott the sessions in his zone, he cannot tell the citizens not to attend the hearings. That would amount to dictatorship. Is he going to use the police or the military to say the people should not attend? It is not possible.
The Babangida regime banned some old breed politicians. Yet, they were still able to influence the political process during the military era.How are you going to ensure that politicians don’t hijack the current process?
I have told you that we are going to the level of the ordinary man. No matter how strong a political party is, they cannot tell a man what to think in his house, in his bedroom. They cannot tell him what to say to his wife when he gets into his house. So, everybody has his own opinion. We are inviting people to come and tell us their mind about the items included in the terms of reference of our committee. This has nothing to do with their political parties to which they belong.
Do you have a time frame in mind when the conference should take place?
That is part of what we are going to recommend to the President.
Some have pointed out that the government should have waited till after the 2015 elections to organise any conference. What’s your reaction to this?
Those who say so know better; they are just pretending. This is because, to have a conference of any type, whether sovereign or not, depends on who is the President. We have had several presidents in the past who did not even want to hear about conference. So, if now for any reason, we have a President who is ready to convene a national conference and we say we want to wait until the next President, what makes us think that the next President will even be ready to listen to us about a national conference? What is the guarantee that the next President will even listen to it at all? If you have been looking for something and you finally get it given to you, you have to cease and hold it. That is a principle of life.
Does that mean that President Jonathan is interested because he is from the ethnic minority group?
I don’t know. All I am saying is that he is a President who is ready to listen to the yearnings of Nigerians. Now that Nigerians have been given the opportunity, they should cease it.
Don’t you think those who nurse the fear that the conference might lead to the break up of the country have justified fear?
Why should the conference lead to Nigeria’s disintegration?
The argument is reinforced by the problems everywhere in the country, especially the insurgency in the North of the country.
The national trend of conflict is that conflict ends at a conference. A hot-fought war, no matter how long the war is, by the time it is going to end, it has to end through a conference. Look at the Arab and the Israeli conflict. Now, they are beginning to get together to talk. Without talking, they will continue fighting. The only time you can end conflict is when you sit down and talk. Talking does not lead to conflict; it ends conflict. Nigerians talk of so much instability and unrest and the way to end it all is for all of us to sit together and discuss. There is no reason why anybody should think that talking will lead to greater conflict. Talking can only end the existing conflict.
What is your committee going to do differently from the past committees of similar nature?
Our predecessors have not had the opportunity of having a conference. They only did what government directed them to do. The only time we have had conference was before independence in 1960 where we really sat down as Nigerians to talk. Since the military took over in 1966, we have not had any conference by the people of Nigeria.
What about the National Political Bureau set up by IBB in 1986 and which received more than 27,000 memoranda from the various ethnic groups in the country?
Are memoranda what make a conference?
Some of the recommendations of that body were implemented.
Of course, yes. After the military took over, they introduced a unitary system of government. Did we have a conference before they did that? The military changed our federal system which we had up to 1963, to unitary system unilaterally. They didn’t consult us and since then they, as well as all other conferences since then, have assumed that that unitary system is ‘given.’ The Obasanjo/Murtala conference of 1978/1979 merely formalised the unitary system into a constitution and since then, all other administrations have assumed that a unitary system to be given and that we can only amend it. Why did we go from a federal constitution to a unitary constitution?
Some even say the conference is to prepare the grounds for the President in 2015 elections. Are you not concerned about this view?
Look, I have told you I am not concerned with the intention of the President. What has gratified me about the President is that he has decided to give to Nigerians what they have been yearning for.
It is being said in some quarters that a representative of the youth should be on the committee to give it a good spread.
Which spread are you talking about? How do you define a youth?
Someone who is 40 and below.
We have young men in our committee who are between 40 and 50 years of age. I don’t think Senator Kaurat Abdurasaq is more than 50 years of age. I don’t think Senator Yadudu is more than 50 years, even Tony Uranta Are these not young people? Or are we to go and take primary school kids?
What should Nigerians expect from your committee?
They should expect a good, thorough and decent job, a job by dyed-in-the-wool patriots who want the best for Nigeria and Nigerians.
What do think Nigerians deserve from their government?
They deserve everything good from their government. They deserve a good life economically, politically, good governance, security, employment.
But from 1999 since the country returned to civil rule, do you think Nigerians have had it so good in terms of the qualities that you have enumerated?
That is why there has been this crusade for a national conference. Now somebody has given us the opportunity for sit together and talk and we are still complaining. When will Nigerians be satisfied?
Did you receive calls asking you to reject the appointment given your political inclination and antecedent?
I didn’t receive any call like that. Rather, I received many calls from people who supported the whole idea of a conference and they commended my choice and expressed the hope that the committee would definitely do a good job.
Don’t you see this appointment as the greatest achievement in your life so far?
It is the greatest sense of fulfillment that I have had.
How do you mean?
It is a sense of fulfillment when something I spent four years in the Senate crusading for is now a reality. I have a sense of fulfillment that it has come to pass.
Has your view about President Jonathan changed now that you have the opportunity of being close to him?
I don’t work with the President; I work with the committee. I am happy that he has been one President who has listened to the masses of this country. We have many presidents who don’t listen to the people. He has shown that he is a listening President and that is one of the most important qualities we need in a president- he must be a listening president. President Jonathan, even though he was originally against the issue of a national conference, having listened to the cry and yearning of the people, has now come to agree to give the people a conference to discuss. This is the virtue of a listening President Jonathan and on this, I commend him.
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