The Nation Newspaper

Category: Banji Akintoye

  • Nigeria: Let the truth be told and devil be damned

    President Bill Clinton is the most generous spirit among the topmost citizens of our world. He commands great intellectual penetration to know and understand the pains of the poor and oppressed peoples of the world. But, more importantly, he has so great a share of human empathy that he never turns away from the people who are being brutalized and hurting – he tries to do something about it. Some months ago, President Clinton adverted his attention to the Boko Haram insurgency in our Northern Nigeria, and he came to the assessment that the root of the problem was desperate poverty – the fact that our Northern Nigeria is dangerously far behind the rest of Nigeria in education and, therefore, in almost all other facets of economic development. Most informed Nigerians know that he is right.

    What President Clinton probably didn’t know – or what he did not wish to touch upon – and what the world needs to be told, is that the political leaders of our Northern Nigeria bear most of the responsibility for the horrific poverty of our citizens in the North. These men are capable political leaders but, sadly, they think that their cardinal task as political leaders is to control Nigeria at all costs – to strategize at all times to hold Nigeria down under their thumb, and to successfully resist any change that could rob them of that control. In the process they are hurting their own people abysmally.

    Between 1962 and now, they have been almost entirely responsible for turning the federal government into the sole controller of all power and resources in Nigeria – an accomplishment that has destroyed all peripheral centres of development as centres of development, sapped the spirit of local initiative, wrecked all local morale, turned the federal government itself into a podgy, incompetent, and hideously corrupt establishment, spread corruption deeply all over Nigeria, destroyed the spirit of enterprise among our people, turned even some of the best among us into abject favour-lickers and outright thieves, and handed the lives of the masses of Nigerians to ever-escalating, grinding, poverty.  That is the heritage of the successful centralizing crusade which the northern leadership, as civilian politicians and military dictators, have championed since independence. A prominent northern citizen made the very important statement recently that, in the light of Nigeria’s natural and human wealth, the ever-deepening poverty among Nigerians was paradoxical and embarrassing. Yes, it is embarrassing, but it is not paradoxical. It is a direct outcome of policies that deliberately seek to rob all sections and localities of Nigeria of the power and ability to tackle their needs and concerns in the context of Nigeria. And as long as our northern political and intellectual elite continue to oppose and frustrate decentralization and devolution, as long as they continue to believe that they and the North have vested interests in federal control of all power, resources and assets in Nigeria, the poverty among the masses of our people will only get worse and worse – and Nigeria’s chance of cataclysmic revolts or even implosion will get bigger and bigger.

    Unhappily, the masses of Northern Nigerians have been dished the largest, and disproportionate, share of the contrived poverty of Nigeria. Northern Nigeria is not just the poorest part of Nigeria today, it is one of the poorest places on the African continent. The main cause of this has been the ambivalence of the northern leaders about Western education – their hesitance to promote it as hard as the southern leaders of Nigeria have been doing. The massive prevalence of illiteracy has thus stunted all other facets of socio-economic development among the peoples of Northern Nigeria. But another factor has been the centralizing zeal of the northern political leadership. As northern leaders focus most of their political leadership assets on pushing and pulling all power and resources in Nigeria towards the federal centre, they have tended to show not much confidence in local initiative and development, and given correspondingly little energy to local development. Things were obviously not like this under the first Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, in 1952-65. Under Sir Ahmadu Bello, though the Northern Region started with serious educational deficits, the Northern Region was a credible contestant in the development rivalry among the three regions of Nigeria. But, gradually since 1966, most of the regional strength has been dissipated, and much of the socio-economic gains have been lost. For instance, “federalization” virtually destroyed the main export crops (cocoa in the West, palm produce in the East, and groundnuts in the North) which had been the backbone of the Nigerian economy at independence – because each was robbed of the serious kind of support and encouragement that they had enjoyed in the hands of their regions.  And then, to further worsen the situation in the north, there came a series of prolonged droughts. These devastated the already declining groundnut economy of northern farmers, and decimated the north’s ancient cattle industry. All these became particularly terrible because the government of Nigeria was almost totally focused on petroleum to the exclusion of other economic factors; neither the federal government nor the northern leadership was disposed to give the kind of massive response that was needed; and the petty little states that were being created (for the political purpose of weakening local energy and strengthening the federal centre) simply did not command the kind of muscle that the serious emergency demanded. In the circumstance, the north sank – and has continued to sink.

    What I write today is a message to the ongoing Nigerian National Conference in Abuja. It is also a message to the wider world – especially to such great and concerned leaders of our world as Clinton, Tony Blair, President Carter, President G. W Bush, and President Barack Obama. Unbelievably, at the National Conference today, Nigeria’s northern political elite are still fighting might and mane for the preservation of the destructive status quo that they have been mostly responsible for creating. They do not care that the status quo is destroying their own northern Nigerians even more than the rest of Nigerians.  It does not mean anything to them that one of their own foremost men, Atiku Abubakar, recently Vice-President of Nigeria, has sent a message to the National Conference asserting that over-centralization is hurting all parts of Nigeria, and passionately urging that we should restructure our union with the objective of unleashing the energies of our states and localities, and making our states fewer and stronger.

    A young friend of mine who tried to reach me by telephone from Abuja left this message: “The northern leaders are going around here sir, arrogantly telling everybody that they will not let this conference achieve any change, that they oppose any kind of restructuring or devolution whatsoever. President Jonathan seems impotent. I fear now that our country is going to break up. I have tears in my eyes. Do something sir. Anything”.

    In response, I have written this message. I am not confident that President Jonathan will, or can, do anything to improve the situation. His sole preoccupation seems to be to win re-election in 2015 – at whatever cost. But the world can help. And the world must help. I am crying out about the well-being of 170 million people.

  • Arise Nigeria: Bad news from National Conference

    We Nigerians must rise up to force the National Conference to change a decision arrived at by one of its committees late last week. The decision ignores the current realities of our country and the terrible poverty that has bedeviled our lives, and it must be changed – in the interest of all of us.

    I refer to the decision on the number of federating units in our federation. After examining the various proposals from Nigerians on this matter, a committee of the National Conference decided to recommend that our federation should continue to have 36 states. In fact, from the way the discussion is progressing in Abuja, the number of states could even rise to as many as 42. Here is how. First, the Igbo nation of the South-east, who now have five states, have long demanded one more state – so as to have six states like the South-west, South-south, North-central, and North-east. In all fairness, if we are to sustain the 36-state structure, there is no way we can reject the Igbo demand – and that would lift the number of states to 37. But that is not all. The other five zones of Nigeria are increasingly pointing out that the North-west zone has seven states, and that that is unfair to the other five zones. More and more people are now saying that to be fair across board, each zone should have seven states – and that would raise the total number of states to 42. That is how ridiculous this whole thing can get.

    The great wonder, the great pity, in all this is that all the Nigerians at the National Conference know that the excessively large number of governments and administrations in our country is one of the most important contributors to our poverty. Apart from the humongous and ponderous federal government, we have to pay  salaries and allowances for 36 governors, 36 deputy governors, hundreds of state commissioners, hundreds of advisers of governors, hundreds of top-level civil servants, tens of thousands of lower cadre civil servants, over a thousand state legislators and thousands of their assistants, etc. In many cases, the so-called states are so small that their crowds of employees have nothing important to do. In many cases also, state employees don’t report for work for many days in the month, and most of those who report for work spend much of the work hourswatching African Magic on television or playing some game. Forced to speak under pressure, most governors have lamented that almost all the money they bring from Abuja monthly goes into paying the salaries of government employees. Some citizens have suggested in the media that as much as 74% of all revenues of the states go into paying salaries. In the circumstance, the state governments have almost no funds left for vital development programmes – like construction and maintenance of infrastructures, or the provision of public services. In most cases, governors that want to be able to show some development resort to borrowing large loans – thereby saddling the future of their states with heavy debts that will be impossible to pay. One Senator cried out in Abuja some months ago that most of our states are on the brink of bankruptcy.

    This is not a mess that should be difficult for us Nigerians to recognize. We have lived in another situation before. In the 1950s we had only four governments – a federal government and three regional governments, and that period was the most achieving and most progressive period in our country’s history. Most of the military dictators who, between 1967 and 1999, broke our country into smaller and smaller states, did not do it in order to serve the best interests of our country. Their principal objective was to make the federal government nearly the sole ruler of our country, and creating small and impotent states was one good means of doing it. They succeeded in their great scheme – and they succeeded in degrading our country into a land perpetually devastated and shamed by a monstrous federal government which enjoys the pleasure of toying around with weak and incompetent state governments, a land of hideous poverty and corruption, of hopelessness, conflicts and crimes.

    But it is not surprising that most of the influential people in the National Conference should want Nigeria’s degradation to continue. It is not surprising that they desire to sustain the framework and structure upon which Nigeria’s degradation has been installed. Their central interest in Nigeria is to be able to continue to enrich themselves by reveling in Nigeria’s corruption, hopelessness and shame. For them, reducing the number of states in the Nigeria federation means only one thing – reducing their opportunities for public office and graft. There are examples in our world for them to emulate, but they will not do it. India is a country very similar to Nigeria in many dimensions – especially in history and ethnic composition. But India is much larger – about 2000 nationalities to Nigeria’s 300; 1.2 billion population to Nigeria’s 170 million; and territorial size of 1.3million square miles to Nigeria’s 357,000 square miles. Yet, when Indians sat down to restructure their federation, they decided to have only 28 states. Indians were motivated to have strong states that could competently promote development and progress; Nigerians are only looking for chances to benefit from the Nigerian culture of corruption.

    It should be shocking that the people at the National Conference would reject the alternative proposal before the conference – except that nothing done by Nigeria’s leaders now surprises the world. This other proposal would give our federation just six regions. The idea is that the six zones that we have been operating with for decades should now become our regions – with minor boundary adjustments here and there for the purpose of preserving the integrity of our nationalities (meaning that no nationality shall be split by any regional boundary). Each region would be a strong entity capable of promoting and advancing development and progress – almost similar to the Nigeria of the 1950s. Each region would have primary control over its natural resources, with the federal government having the power to levy taxes thereon. This would also greatly trim administrative expenses in our country – by cutting the number of state governments from 36 to six. Altogether, this is a powerful development-oriented arrangement which can quickly revive local initiative and morale in our country and quickly lead our country’s economy to new heights of achievement

    And so, what is the answer? The answer is that we Nigerians must respond strongly from all parts of Nigeria as well as from abroad, compel the delegates at the National Conference to junk their unpatriotic decision, and to adopt the latter proposal above. The world is surprised that we Nigerians allow our leaders, over and over again, to heap dung on us. Let us stand up and stop this one.

  • Failings of three largest nations: Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba

    Recently, a group of younger academics asked me to contribute a chapter to a book they were writing together on the travails of Nigeria. After much thought, I decided to write a chapter on the failings of our three largest nations (Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba) – the failings of theirs that have contributed decisively to the failure of Nigeria as a country.

    As I worked on my chapter, I found that I could not make the needed statement conclusively without including the role of the British – the founders and colonial moulders of Nigeria – in the picture. To trace Nigeria’s failure, one cannot avoid an account of how the British designed and built Nigeria to stumble and fall. So, I had to delve into how the four major nations in Nigeria’s history – the British, Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba – contributed to the making of Nigeria’s failure.

    Though the British had ruled Nigeria since 1914, it was not until 1946 (the years following the Second World War of 1939-45) that they seriously began to build Nigeria as one country. And as they embarked on the task, certain powerful conditions directed their choice of policies. The British economy and British cities had been ruined by the war; the cost of rebuilding was enormous; Britain was in heavy debt; and the danger of national bankruptcy was real. Though Britain must prepare for Nigeria to become independent (because of the pressure of nationalism in Africa and the world), Britain must depend quite considerably on help from Nigeria and her other colonies – but especially on Nigeria, her largest and richest colony. In fact, the potential capability of Nigeria to help was greatly being increased by the knowledge that Nigeria was an oil-rich country.

    Britain must therefore find ways to hold on to the Nigerian economy after Nigeria’s independence. And that meant, simply, that Britain must put the control of independent Nigeria in the hands of a “friendly” Nigerian people. The Yoruba and Igbo were too educated and too world-wise to be depended upon for such a role. On the other hand, the Hausa-Fulani were far less educated, were fearful of being dominated by the Yoruba and Igbo, needed British help, and were therefore more amenable for friendship with the British. The outcome was that the British guided Nigeria into a federation of three regions in which the Northern Region ruled by the Hausa-Fulani had more population than the Igbo-dominated Eastern Region and the Yoruba-dominated Western Region together. This easily translated to Northern dominance in the federal parliament, and Hausa-Fulani dominance over the Federal Government. Nigeria’s future was sealed.

    As Nigeria entered into independence, then, the Hausa-Fulani rulers of Nigeria had to be focused on one central mission – to subdue and rule the other peoples of Nigeria. Sir Ahmadu Bello spelt it out succinctly: we Hausa-Fulani must ruthlessly prevent our loss of the control of the Federal Government; we must never let the others unite; we must treat them like conquered peoples; and we must never let them control even their own affairs or their own future. And, for sure, the Hausa-Fulani have made an admirable success of that mission – ruling Nigeria more or less continuously for nearly 50 years, entrenching their men in the Nigerian military and in nodal positions in the federal bureaucracy and judiciary, suppressing virtually all local drive and morale, and successfully selling to most other Nigerian elites the mentality that the Hausa-Fulani are the source of all power, authority, opportunity, and wealth in Nigeria.

    But, unfortunately, such a mission as that has nothing to do with building a harmonious country; or a politically stable country with democratic aspirations; or a modern country with a modern economy based on modern technologies. Nigeria bogged down into a politically and economically chaotic and obscure country, a land of strenuously crooked and contentious politics, of comprehensive corruption and generations raised in corruption, of poverty, hopelessness, insecurity and vileness. Can this monstrosity of a country change and improve? Well, nothing is impossible. But some things are beyond the power of man to ameliorate – even with the best of good intentions. Unfortunately, even the tiniest rudiments of good intensions are not easy to discern in Nigeria even now. It is always easier to drag down than to raise up.

    The Igbo and Yoruba together commanded the capability to change the situation. Both were led into independence by some of the most educated men in the world. But to effect worthwhile change, they needed to join hands and work together at it – and that they have proved incapable of doing even till this day. In the mushrooming chaos and cloud, the Igbo political and bureaucratic elite developed a nebulous doctrine of “Igbo dominance”, and even promoted the idea of a unitary government for a brief while. Accepting a subordinate placement in the Hausa-Fulani-dominated federal government, in order to outpace their Yoruba rivals, became for them a fanciful existential philosophy. They also fed to the large numbers of simple decent Igbo folks who were spreading out to take advantage of the opportunities in other parts of Nigeria a mindset that, since Nigeria was all theirs, they owed their hosts anywhere in Nigeria no gratitude or even ordinary politeness for any favours. Professor Adiele Afigbo, in my view one of Nigeria’s best historians of our times, took some look at this mindset – and concluded with a note of caution for his Igbo kinsmen. Thus, one of the most outgoing, one of the most modernizing, of Nigerian peoples, rather than becoming a factor for unity and modern progress in Nigeria, became the most painful casualty of the Nigerian disaster.

    The modern Yoruba political elite came onto the Nigerian scene with a solid cultural heritage that could have contributed enormously to the building of a successful Nigeria. Living for over a thousand years in well-ordered kingdoms and cities had imbued the Yoruba with strong sensitivities for orderly governance and leadership. From the late 1940s, their elite came forth with clear ideas that the various peoples of Nigeria, large or small, should be respected, that Nigeria should be organized as a federation, and that Nigeria’s peoples should be the basis for the federating units. In their Western Region in the 1950s, they became the pace-setters in democratic politics. But the Yoruba message has never had the effect that it could have had. And the reason is that, in Nigerian politics, the Yoruba have never found sufficient unity among them to make their great message accepted by others.

    Unhappily, these tendencies continue to direct Nigeria’s life, as well as the ongoing National Conference. The vibrations from the National Conference are that the Hausa-Fulani want to continue to dominate and therefore oppose any change; that though the Yoruba and Igbo basically seek the same lines of change, they shy away from working emphatically together; and that though the Yoruba bring their great message of orderly and progressive federalism, they do not seem to know for sure how to wrap up, in their own ranks, the kind of forceful unity that would sell the message to all. The question must continue therefore to be asked: Is this country a viable entity?

  • Nigeria: Pillars of success

    From my life-long studies of the countries of Black Africa, I want to bring, with all humility, the following thoughts to the benefit of the National Conference. If we really desire to make a success of Nigeria, we must honour certain building pillars and proceed carefully to build upon them.

    The first and most important is an acknowledgement that our country is a country of many different nationalities, and that each of these nationalities, large or small, deserves to be respected by all the rest of us and by the ways in which we manage the affairs of our country.

    The second is that we must show deference to these nationalities in the ways we constitutionally structure our country. Not only must we opt for a federal arrangement, we must be respectful of the identity and sensitivity of each nationality while delimiting the federating units of our federation. We must not split up any nationality with any state boundaries, and we must not nonchalantly push any small nationality into any state. Where some nationalities have to join to form a state or region, they must all negotiate the constitution of their state.

    We must also evolve a culture of respect for each nationality and its culture in all aspects of the interactions and interrelationships in our country. Thus, if boundary disputes should arise between two neighbouring nationalities, there should a federal agency designed to deal with it cautiously and respectfully. And if any citizens go to live and do business in the homeland of another nationality, it must be part of Nigerian culture that they must show respect to their host nation. The kind of noise being heard today from some immigrants to other people’s homeland that they are conquering their host’s homeland must be strictly forbidden in the culture of Nigeria. And it should be part of federal policy to make sure that Nigerians can live wherever they choose in their country – that the other peoples of Nigeria will be encouraged to develop the Yoruba culture of openness, hospitality, and inclusion of foreigners. To these ends, those who are now proposing that Nigeria should establish rules granting immigrants the rights of indigenes should give it up. Such rules arise from the belief that Nigeria should ‘integrate’ us. They are unnecessary and unenforceable; they threaten every nationality, particularly the smaller nationalities, and they are sure to cause our nationalities to become unduly defensive of their homelands.

    Thirdly, in determining the share of development responsibilities, and resources, between our federal authority and our state authorizes, we must make the state authorities the main bearers of development responsibilities, and share powers and funds accordingly, and vest resource control in the natural owners of the resources – with the federal authority having the power to levy tax thereon. For our kind of country, a trim and efficient federal government would be the best choice.

    Finally, we need to prefer a system of government which emphasizes the sharing of responsibilities and the spirit of collective leadership. The excessive control of government by a president or governor is bad for our country. The parliamentary system will serve our country’s interests much better.

    I must now briefly state the thought processes that led me to all the above suggestions for my country. When marriages fail, it is often because one or other partner refuses to accept the other as he or she is –because one spouse is set on changing the character of the other, ignoring the fact that by the time they were old enough to decide to marry, each was already mature in his or her character. As my Yoruba people say, it is impossible to change the shape of a dried fish.

    Almost all countries of Black Africa have, since independence, been going through disastrous conflicts and various kinds of failure. I know virtually all these countries intimately. I have been to most of them – over and over in some cases. Studying these countries is a major part of my life’s pursuit. In fact, I have just finished writing a book on the subject of the almost uniform failure of Black African countries among the countries of the earth.

    Though many causes can be adduced for the failure of these countries, there is always one central, cardinal, cause. And that cardinal cause is a foolish refusal, especially among the dominant political elite of each country, to accept that each of the nationalities whom they have to rule in their new country is an ancient ethnic nationality – with its own ancestral homeland, its own culture, worldview, self-image and pride, its own way of responding to challenges, its own mode of dealing with the rush of changes in the modern world, and its own desires and expectations. Ruling a country with this kind of composition cannot be easy. It requires vary cautious handling, and calls for the best in statesmanship.

    Unfortunately, in none of our multi-people countries in Black Africa have we been able to muster this high level of carefulness and statesmanship. In every country, our rulers came into power at independence believing that they had a ready-made answer – namely, to “integrate” our many peoples, meaning to crush their identities and give them all, together, a new identity.

    Since 1960, we in Nigeria have been foolishly trying to accomplish this impossible outcome. We have been striving to enforce a Nigerian identity on all, and going to great lengths to deny that each of our nationalities has a life of its own. Sometime in 2002, a member of the Urhobo nationality made a statement saying that the land over which the Nigerian federal government was stampeding in the Urhobo homeland was a land of the Urhobo people; that the land had belonged to the Urhobo people for 6000 years, whereas Nigeria was less than a century old. In answer to that, scholars in the employment of the federal government launched out with fiery writings asserting that an Urhobo nation did not exist – that, in fact the various nationalities of Nigeria did not exist, and that the only entity and identity that mattered in Nigeria was Nigeria!

    Of course, the Urhobo man was right and the “federal’ luminaries were wrong. All the best scholarship on the subject agree thatalmost all the nationalities that now belong to Nigeria had evolved into distinct ethnic nationalities as far back as 4000 BC – about 6000 years ago. However, the luminaries had the much bigger voice, and so they were able to proceed from their initial position of folly to construct for us what they called “the Nigerian mainstream”.

    Following these aggressive integrationist paths, and loading our federal government with all powers, responsibilities and power over money and resources, we have relentlessly led our country into hideous poverty, deprivation and corruption, terrible conflicts, and now, very probably, towards total collapse. I believe we can change these trends. That is why I keep addressing these messages to the National Conference.

  • National Conference could immortalize Nigerians

    In human history, the ongoing National Conference in Abuja is the kind of event that confers immortality on some persons. Its story could end up being as follows: The greatest modern country of modern Africa and of the Black race stood on the verge of collapse. But it occurred to one leader to put a National Conference together to save the situation. Some men answered the call of duty at the conference, pulled delegates from disparate directions together, and saved the tottering country and set it on the path to stability, prosperity and greatness in the world.

    Were this the outcome of this National Conference, President Goodluck Jonathan, of course, and his posterity forever, would earn the most precious laurel of all. But there would be many others who would earn laurels almost as precious as his.

    For every one of the nearly 500 delegates at the conference, a successful conference that changed the destiny of Nigeria would be, certainly, the most important historic event in their lives – a proud record for themselves and their families forever. And then there are some who are already eminent citizens, and who are now leading various delegations at the conference. In the souls of such men and women, given the moral mess that Nigeria has become, a titanic battle must now be raging – either to strive hard and sacrifice all in the quest for a great Nigeria, or merely to surrender to base desires like seeking to enrich themselves in Abuja, Throne of Corruption. If they choose the noble path and save Nigeria, the rewards are likely to be dizzyingly mighty.

    I know virtually all of these leading citizens. Most of them belong to my generation, and some are my friends. I am excited for all of them from all corners of Nigeria. But, because of the limitation of space, I will pin-point only the few who belong to my Yoruba nation.

    After President Jonathan set up an Advisory Committee for the National Conference and called for memos, countless meetings followed all over Nigeria – some by leaders of nationalities, some by civil society organizations, some by professional groups, etc. Among my own people, the Yoruba nation, all these finally climaxed in many Yoruba national conferences – in the Palace of Oduduwa at Ife, in Ishara, and then in Ibadan. The final conferences in Ibadan were particularly widely publicized, and large crowds came without restriction from all over Yorubaland.

    Two major things resulted from these conferences. The first is a small leadership team, consisting of Chief Olu Falae as chairman, Gen. Alani Akinrinade as vice-chairman, and Dr. Kunle Olajide as secretary, charged with the task of guiding the whole exercise. Successive conferences accepted, endorsed and validated this little working committee for the Yoruba nation. Around it there also coalesced other prominent leaders – among those who finally made it to the National Conference, old warriors like Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi and Dr. Tunji Braitwaite, and younger warriors like Hon. Wale Oshun, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Otunba Gani Adams, and others.

    The second thing from the many Yoruba conferences is what we call the Yoruba Agenda for the National Conference. We Yoruba, of all political persuasions, have, since 1949, been proposing clear ideas about how to organize Nigeria, a country of multiple nationalities, into a harmonious and workable federation. Central to these views has always been the idea that our various nationalities should be respected, and be made the basis for structuring the Nigerian Federation – that the large and sizeable nationalities should each constitute a federating unit, and that smaller and contiguous nationalities in various parts of Nigeria should join to constitute federating units. Another important idea is that the federating units should be strong constitutionally and materially, so as to be competent centres of development. In recent years, the latter has meant that the excessive powers and resources perversely loaded onto the federal government by the military regimes should be returned to the federating units. This whole package is now called “Regionalism” – because it proposes six strong ‘Regions’.

    All these ideas have now been condensed into the Yoruba Agenda for the National Conference which is therefore the MANDATE for all Yoruba persons at the National Conference. In fact, the decision was taken at the Ibadan Conferences that anyYoruba delegate who betrays the Yoruba Agenda at the National Conference should not return home to Yorubaland. It is that binding.

    At the National Conference, then, we have a Yoruba leadership and a Yoruba Agenda, both broadly backed by the Yoruba nation. Furthermore, back home in Yorubaland, and among the millions of Yoruba people in the Diaspora, there has solidified a consensus that we Yoruba will contribute our very best to the reviving of Nigeria (and therefore to the success of this National Conference), but that, if resistance to change and improvement in Nigeria should continue to be impossible to overcome, then we would not continue to be part of a chaotic, corruption-ridden, poverty-generating, and blood-drenched Nigeria.

    So, the Yoruba delegates at the National Conference are fully aware of their duty – and of their enormous support from home. Therefore, we all have the right to expect that they will do their duty to Nigeria, and thereby, to their Yoruba nation. And if they do that diligently and help Nigeria to make a resounding success of the National Conference, they would become some of the immortal heroes from the successful National Conference.

    Similar stories are true of most of the nationalities of Nigeria. The hope, therefore, is high that Nigeria will begin to experience very important changes soon – and begin to grow and prosper.

    Happily, the news from Abuja is that the Yoruba delegation is working hard towards its destiny. They have been meeting regularly and building cohesion. Not surprisingly, there are some of them who were inclined initially to promote partisan or sectional objectives, and who were cool initially towards some features of the Yoruba Agenda – such as regionalism, or the replacement of the presidential system with a parliamentary system. For various reasons, they would have wanted significant parts of the status quo in Nigeria to remain. But, fortunately, they are few, and they have gradually yielded to the logic of the Yoruba Agenda.

    Even more importantly, the Yoruba delegation is stretching out its hands towards other delegations. Days before the National Conference opened, the Yoruba leaders, and leaders of the South-south and South-east, had met for two days in Asaba and agreed to a common agenda very similar to the Yoruba Agenda. The delegates of these three zones continue to meet in Abuja, and making contacts with delegates from the Middle Belt and the far North, and the chances look good now that the Asaba accord could serve as the instrument for restructuring our federation and setting our country on the path to stability and progress.

    In summary, then, I can see the probability that some men and women of my Yoruba nation could soon count among the front-line immortals who saved Nigeria. For the rest of us Yoruba people, our duty is clear – support and encourage our delegates, and never leave them alone until victory is won

  • National Conference: Respect for nationalities (large or small)

    There are some Nigerians who think that the way to build a “Nigerian nation” is to destroy our various distinct nationalities and their cultures. Since independence in 1960, this has been the dominant direction of the policies of those who control our federal government. They have engaged in all sorts of manipulations aimed at depressing and gradually eliminating our various nationalities.

    Their master strategy has been to build the federal government into the controller-in-chief of every minutest detail of public policy, resource control, and administration in our country. In that, they have succeeded considerably. And from that intoxicating mountain top, they have gradually eliminated the teaching of our indigenous languages, history and cultures from the curricula of our schools, subdued our state governments to implement the federal educational policies, and generally tried to raise a new generation of Nigerians with no roots in any of our indigenous nationalities or cultures – a new generation of culturally (and ethically) mangled, confused and opaque “Nigerians”.

    Those who have allowed themselves to fall into this kind of thinking about the future of our country need to look more carefully at what they are doing and promoting. Any kind of folly can be romanticized and made to look attractive, but, in the final analysis, folly is folly. This aggressive integrationist approach to the building of Nigeria (or of any country) is folly unlimited. It will not only fail to “unite Nigeria”. Some influential Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Kanuri, Ijaw, etc of today may, for various reasons of their own, accept and promote the federal integrationist agenda for their nationalities. But if they succeed, they cannot thereby create a united Nigeria; what they are very likely to create would be something like a repellently monstrous Nigerian society – a Nigerian society in which Nigeria’s currently evolving character of the amoral, the greedy, the corrupt, the comprehensively disloyal, etc, will be ruthlessly dominant. From the vortex of this kind of society, there will almost certainly emerge someday a new generation of Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Kanuri, Ijaw, etc, that will embark upon reviving and recreating their authentic indigenous cultures and nationalities.

    In short, the experience in our world is that indigenous nationalities and their cultures are near impossible to destroy. Men and women who find themselves in the position of leading and guiding a young country like Nigeria ought to look around them in the world – need to try and understand how certain things have evolved in older countries that are similar to our country. In the world, there are very many countries that are, like Nigeria, multi-ethnic – countries in which different nationalities live in their ancestral homelands. Many of these countries have existed for hundreds of years, and yet in none of them have the nationalities died out or fused into one integrated mixture. It doesn’t happen.

    Let’s take the example of Spain. Spain has existed since the mid-15th century (that is about 600 years) as a country consisting of Spaniards, Catalans and Basques. The Spaniards have been the overwhelming majority since the beginning, and that, coupled with general mixing of the various peoples over time, has helped Spanish culture, especially the Spanish language, to spread quite strongly among the smaller nationalities. In fact, Spain came under a dictatorial regime in the first half of the last century, and the regime tried ruthlessly to suppress the identities, especially the languages, of the small nationalities – and declared their languages illegal. It didn’t work. In recent decades, the Catalans and Basques have revived their cultures and their languages very successfully. Both now want separate countries of their own out of Spain.

    Britain (or the United Kingdom) has been a country consisting of the English, Scotts, Irish and Welsh for about 500 years. Because the English have been the largest nationality from the beginning, the English language has spread in the homelands of the other nationalities. Each of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales has large numbers of citizens from other homelands. Even so, each homeland belongs to its nation. In fact, every one of the Scotts, Irish and Welsh have been strongly reviving their cultures in recent times. Most of Ireland broke away in 1921 and created a separate Republic of Ireland, and the Scotts are now about to do the same. The smallest nationality, the Welsh, are now doing everything to revive their language, in order to make it the language of their own separate country which they hope to have soon.

    Like Nigeria, India is a British-created, third-world, country, consisting of hundreds of nationalities. Fortunately for India, after the northern provinces broke away soon after independence, India’s political leaders agreed that the best policy was to respect each nationality and encourage each culture. It has worked wonderfully. An eminent Indian scholar and statesmen, S.D. Muni, sums up its effect as follows: “The elaborate structure of power devolution has combined with the linguistic basis of federal unity (the use of the linguistic nations as the basis for the states of the federation) to facilitate the management of cultural diversity in India and to help mitigate pulls towards separatism and disintegration”. Muni adds that both at the federal and state levels, Indians are dedicated to “a consciously followed approach to preserve and promote the cultural specificities of diverse groups” – that is, the federal government respects and encourages every culture, and each state that consists of two or more nationalities carefully respects and encourages the culture of each nationality. He concludes that these approaches have helped every nationality to identify happily with India.

    Unfortunately, to worsen the Nigerian situation, some people are said to intend to propose that the National Conference should include in the constitution a provision granting any Nigerian the rights of an indigene anywhere he chooses to go and live in Nigeria. In one of Shakespeare’s plays, two ministers of a king are worried about something that their king is proposing to do. One shakes his head sadly and says, “This will drink deep”; the other answers, “No, it will drink cup and all”. A provision like this in the Nigerian constitution can become a major wrecker. All over Nigeria, our nationalities are most likely to begin to protect their homelands from take-over by new artificial indigenes. Whoever imagines that any people will easily let themselves be robbed of the emotional and mystical ownership of their homeland is thinking dangerous thoughts.This law will result in greatly increased difficulties for those who already live outside their own ethnic homelands and those who intend to.

    Such a provision is unnecessary any way. Already, any Nigerian can go and live and do business anywhere in Nigeria. And the electoral laws include residency qualifications. We should just leave things at that, and let the passage of time do whatever with the rest. What Nigeria needs is manifest dedication to the protection of each nationality and its culture, and the promotion of a consciousness whereby those who go to live in other people’s land respect their host nation, and desist from misinterpreting their land ownership rights for ethnic territorial ownership rights. The homeland of each of our nationalities is theirs. Nothing can change that.

  • National Conference: Use this lesson and save Nigeria

    As the National Conference is now taking off in Abuja, I consider it appropriate to repeat some things that I recently wrote in this column. Nigeria could soon break up – if anybody thinks otherwise, as things stand today, he is deceiving himself. Anybody who is conversant with the strong feelings of most Nigerian peoples can easily see it.

    But I believe that Nigeria can be saved – that Nigeria can survive, and go on from there to prosper in the world. The country called India offers us a very useful lesson. If we learn that lesson and use it, we can save our country. This is the historic task facing the National Conference as it sits in Abuja.

    India was, like Nigeria, created by the British. It was the largest British protectorate in Asia – in the same way that Nigeria was the largest British protectorate in Africa. Both Nigeria and India contain very many nationalities (otherwise known as “linguistic nations” in India) – Nigeria contains nearly 300 nationalities, India about 2000. At the independence of India in 1947, India was a “federation” designed by the British overlords. The British had created the Indian Federation merely for “administrative convenience”; the states or federating units of the federation were arbitrary blocks of territories based on administrative convenience – without any deference to the nationalities. The nationalities were grouped or split irrationally.

    Like the India of 1947, the Nigeria of 1960 (at independence) was also a federation designed by the British for administrative convenience – without deference to the nationalities. The nationalities were grouped arbitrarily into three regions, and some nationalities were split up along the boundaries of the three regions. When many nationalities cried out against this irrational treatment, the British rulers answered that they were not willing to change anything – and that Nigerians themselves could tackle the problem after independence. Since independence in 1960, the Nigerians (civilian politicians and military dictators) who have controlled the powers of the federal government, have just followed the example of the British – by creating states for administrative and ulterior political considerations, and by irrationally grouping and splitting our nationalities. Therefore, the Nigerian federation of 2014 is, unfortunately, still almost exactly like the Indian federation of 1947.

    Worse still, as Nigerian rulers have created smaller, weaker and poorer states, they have reasoned that these states are too weak to hold much power or responsibility, and they have consequently grabbed all power, all resources, and all resource control in our country, and heaped everything in the hands of the federal government. The federal government has therefore become a sick and unrestrained monster, mud-swimming insanely in limitless power and money, barging into everything and anything according to its whims and caprices, dragging all efficiency down, generating corruption, distorting electoral and judicial processes all over our country, and breeding hideous poverty. With the poverty grew crimes, insecurity, various species of conflicts, and now, terrorism. Today, most Nigerians have had enough – and Nigeria is about to implode.

    Parts of India (the far northern provinces which became Pakistan and Bangladesh) broke away soon after 1947. After that, the rest of India continued to shake; many nationalities wanted to break away. Today, Nigeria is shaking, and many nationalities want to break away. But Indians took action and saved their country. We Nigerians can save Nigeria too – simply by doing what the Indians did.

    Here is what the Indians did. Many Indians began to advocate that their federation should be restructured in such a way as to show respect to the nationalities, and make the nationalities happy to be members of the Indian federation. Most of the biggest politicians opposed this, claiming that it would only lead to the breaking up of the country. The Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, threatened that if it was adopted he would resign. But the proposal grew more and more popular, more and more intense. Finally, by 1953, the country accepted it. Nehru and other powerful politicians humbly bowed to the will of the majority. A National Commission was set up to look into the matter and to advise the country.

    The Commission recommended the following: First, that the nationalities and their different cultures should be respected, and that no nationality should be split by any boundary in the federation. Secondly that the larger nationalities should each form a state. Third, that the small and contiguous nationalities in various parts of India should negotiate among them and form states (no nationality was to be pushed into any state; the nationalities that agreed to form a state would negotiate the constitution of their state). Fourth, that a lot of powers should be devolved to the states from the federal government, to make the states strong, and that, in revenue allocation, the states should receive much more than the federal government.

    The process of devolution resulted in the following list of powers for the states: public order; police; education; local government; roads and transport; agriculture; land and land revenue; forests; fisheries; industry and trade; state public service commissions; and courts (except the Supreme Court of India). It also laid down another list on which the states and the centre would both have power to make laws – namely, criminal laws and their administration; economic and social planning; commercial and industrial monopolies; shipping and navigation on the inland waterways; drugs; ports; courts and civil procedures. The federal (or union) government was given powers over such subjects as defence, foreign policy, inter-state commerce, the Supreme Court, etc. In revenue allocation, the states were given a percentage much larger than that of the Federal Government. Today, it is 85% for the states and 15% for the federal government.

    An Indian scholar and statesman, Dr. S.D. Muni, has described the effects of this careful restructuring as follows: “The elaborate structure of power devolution has combined with the linguistic basis of federal unity to facilitate the management of cultural diversity in India and to help mitigate pulls towards separatism and disintegration”. Muni adds that both at the federal and state levels, Indians are dedicated to “a consciously followed approach to preserve and promote the cultural specificities of diverse groups”, and that that “has helped such groups identify with the national mainstream”. Finally, the health of the whole structure has been greatly helped by the fact that Indians have consciously remained loyal to the integrity of their democratic institutions and to democratic politics.

    That is it. Surely we Nigerians are able to take these same steps and save our country. The National Conferenceshould restructure our federation along the same lines. We should also establish effective measures for upholding democratic politics in our country, the integrity of our elections and courts, and the handling of our public accounts. These steps will surely benefit our country, our states, our nationalities, our institutions, and all of us Nigerians. They cannot conceivably hurt any Nigerian nationality or group. Therefore, hopefully, no Nigerian nationality or group will, at the National Conference, put up a resistance to them. I fear that if any nationality or group resists these measures at the National Conference, Nigeria might quickly evaporate on the spot. We must all join hands to prevent that.

  • National Conference: Nigeria’s game changer

    On Monday in Abuja, President Jonathan finally declared open the long-expected and much- debated National Conference. It was just a ceremonial day of inauguration. But even then, the nearly 500 delegates gathered from all corners of Nigeria must already have started to feel the enormous gravity of what history has called them out to do. And for the rest of the 170 million of us Nigerians who are staying home and at our jobs (if we have any jobs), the finality that this National Conference represents will gradually become plain in the days to come.

    Simply put, this conference promises to be Nigeria’s game changer. Given the low level to which Nigeria has fallen in all directions, and given the very high expectations of Nigerians today, the possibilities are very high that this conference could change Nigeria radically for the better – could start Nigeria on a totally new path of orderliness, generate a radically new level of integrity in the processes of state, and point Nigeria onto a vibrant new path to prosperity and greatness in the world. But, at the same time, certain well-known factors lurk over and among the conferees – factors which, if they surface seriously in the conference, could result in the total and sudden disintegration of Nigeria.

    Whatever happens, President Jonathan would seem now to have set the record straight about his true intensions for this National Conference. There have been doubts about what he really wanted. I have been among those who have asked whether he was calling a National Conference only for the purpose of strengthening his bid for re-election in 2015. I have also been among those who have asked whether he is aware that the National Conference could change the political terrain in ways that could eliminate his chances of being a candidate at all in 2015. I have asked, “Would President Jonathan want to be president again from 2015 if the National Conference results in a much weaker federal government, and a President controlling much less powers and much less money than now?” And I have asked, “Is President Jonathan willing to accept the possibility that the National Conference could abolish the presidential system and replace it with a parliamentary system, and conceivably remove him completely from top leadership running in Nigeria’s political life?”

    I can say now that we Nigerians have received our answer to these troubling questions. President Jonathan will let the National Conference take its decisions, as it sees fit, in the interest of Nigeria. I was highly impressed when he said in his speech to the inaugural meeting of the National Conference: “Let me again repeat what I have been saying that Goodluck Jonathan has no personal agenda in convening this National Conference”. After the passing of our late President Yar’Adua, many of us intellectuals abroad, who do not belong to Jonathan’s ethnic nationality, chose on principle to support him for president, and have continually supported him – without even desiring to be known personally by him, not to talk of expecting any personal benefit from him. We reasoned that having a man from a minority nationality as our president could do some great good to the image of our country in the world. And we also calculated that a president from a minority nationality, especially from the Delta, would greatly increase the chances of needed restructuring of our federation. In the past three years we have watched in increasing agony as he seemed to attach no importance to the restructuring of the federation. Now, I can say that the agony is over, and that, if President Jonathan does indeed see this National Conference successfully to the remaking of our federation, he could become one of the greatest Nigerians, one of the greatest Africans, of our times.

    But there still remains another factor that could destroy everything. In the past year or so, as the debate over restructuring has grown, the political leaders of our Hausa-Fulani North have insistently said that they oppose any kind of restructuring – and that the status quo is sacrosanct. In a visit of leaders of the Arewa Consultative Forum to the Yoruba Unity Forum in December 2012, the Arewa North leaders stated emphatically that they considered the existing structure of the federation as settled, and that they rejected any idea or suggestion that matters that have been settled be reopened. There have even been significant Northern voices that have threatened that any attempt to change the status quo, or to modify the resource control situation, would provoke a war.

    In the same vein, a conference of the Northern Elders Forum, held on March 10-11, adopted the following stand: “The planned National Conference has no constitutional basis, or any form of legitimacy or authority to speak for the people of the North or other Nigerians. Its proceedings, conclusions and recommendations are therefore of no consequence and will not be accepted by the people of the North”.

    If such positions as this were to surface in the deliberations of the National Conference, there seems to be little doubt that Nigeria as we know it could fizzle out instantly. A Yoruba diaspora think-tank organization, Oodua Foundation, has responded to this statement of the Northern Elders Forum. Their answer goes as follows:“We must express serious shock about the statement credited to the Northern Elders Forum meeting of March 10-11 (concerning the National Conference). In the interest of all the peoples and citizens of Nigeria, we must urge the Northern Elders to reconsider this very damaging statement of theirs. In the history of the constitutional development of Nigeria, the present National Conference is perfectly in line with all previous Nigerian constitutional conferences, and it is by no means inferior to any in legitimacy. These are no times for irreconcilable stonewalling, or for hard postures designed to intimidate. No Nigerian people can now be intimidated. The way matters stand today, we either all join hands and sort out the colossal mess that Nigeria has become, or we separate”. From all over Nigeria, and from among Nigerians living in various parts of the world, people are speaking up to endorse and support this response by Oodua Foundation.

    The chances are good for Nigeria to change, reform, and go on to prosper. But the chances are also strong for Nigeria to self-destruct quickly. Which it will be is in the bosom of the National Conference which was inaugurated on Monday. This National Conference will change the Nigerian game – either way. The world is watching.

  • Warning against election rigging in the South-west

    The virulent disease that is killing Nigeria is the belief by those who control the powers and resources of the federal government that it is their right and prerogative to control all things and all choices in all corners of Nigeria. Whoever is President lives in the deluded belief that he simply determines and does all things in Nigeria – takes all decisions, authorizes, countermands, or stops, the smallest pieces of infrastructure, decides who will hold all public positions, and dictates who will win elections anywhere in Nigeria.

    The symptoms of this destructive delusion showed up immediately at independence in 1960. At independence, an alliance of the NPC (the party ruling the Northern Region) and the NCNC (the party ruling the Eastern Region) controlled the federal government. A third party, the Action Group (the party ruling the Western Region), formed the official opposition in the federal parliament. In the perverted thinking of the NPC-NCNC allies, it was utterly unacceptable to them that they were not controlling the Western Region too. They were not prepared to wait until the next western regional election to try and win the Western Region; they were obsessed with using federal power to grab the Western Region immediately. And so they embarked upon plotting to disrupt the Western Region in order to destroy its government and appoint their own nominee as ruler there. From 1962, they achieved their purposes over the Western Region – shut down the elected regional government, enthroned a sole administrator, and blatantly rigged the elections. In those insane actions, the Federal Government of Nigeria at independence established the pattern for the political future of Nigeria – and the path to Nigeria’s ultimate destruction.

    Every Federal Government of Nigeria has trodden that path since then. The military dictators of 1966 to 1999 did it very atrociously. Since 1999, every presidency has done it. The Jonathan presidency is doing it totally mindlessly now.

    Officials of the federal government have always commanded unlimited financial resources, have always enjoyed unrestrained freedom to use such resources without accountability, and have always blatantly used the money to “settle”, subvert and emasculate enough influential citizens in any part of Nigeria. Consequently, they never lack enough eminent citizens to assist them in their crimes against our country, and against our people.

    State elections are due in Osun and Ekiti states of the South-west soon – before the end of this year, probably hidden under the shadow of the National Conference which is expected to commence soon. Already, the cry is up that the federal agency responsible for elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is already manipulating the registration of voters for these two elections. We heard this kind of distress cry in Anambra State recently, when a gubernatorial election was on there. The Anambra election was rigged – so badly rigged that the international community had to take notice and even raise voices. The elections in Osun and Ekiti states will be rigged too – unless enough resistance is mounted by those who want democracy in Nigeria and the world. The resistance starts now.

    But, first, a note about identities. Gbogun Gboro does not belong to, support, oppose, or represent, any Nigerian political party. That has always been obvious in this column. Gbogun Gboro springs from the accumulated, and by now enormous, Yoruba Diaspora, with great and rising influences in all parts of the world. Because many of the most educated Nigerians have had to flee the Nigerian mess in recent decades and seek opportunities in other lands, almost every Nigerian nationality now has a very substantial Diaspora across the world, each dedicated to the well-being of its own people in Nigeria, and to an orderly and stable Nigeria in which every citizen, and every nationality, can thrive. From intensive researches by an intellectual section of the Yoruba Diaspora, we are confident that the Yoruba nation owns great cultural assets that can give the Yoruba nation a decent, progressive and prosperous society in the modern world. We have no doubt that being part of a chaotic country like Nigeria is seriously hurting the well-being of our Yoruba nation (and of other Nigerian nationalities). We are resolved to resist the destructive effects of Nigeria on our Yoruba nation, and to contribute dedicatedly to the making of an orderly, stably democratic, and prosperous Nigeria (in which our Yoruba nation and the other nations can prosper together). Above all, and urgently, we are committed to reviving and re-energizing our Yoruba nation – in the context of Nigeria if possible, out of Nigeria if Nigeria’s resistance to change and improvement should make that necessary.

    This is why we are focused now, among other things, on the issue of elections. For about 1000 years, we Yoruba have operated a monarchical political system in which selection of rulers (kings, chiefs and other leaders) by the people have been the rule and the practice. We attach great importance to fairness and integrity in the selection of our rulers. We know that, when selections are handled without integrity, the usual result is conflicts and troubles in the community. In our history, there were instances when whole towns broke up because of these kinds of conflicts and troubles. As a nation, we do not play games with the selection of our rulers. And when, in the 1950s, the British introduced ballot-box elections to Nigeria, we Yoruba in the South-west brought our traditional integrity into the new system. No Yoruba leader or party tried to rig elections. Even our most powerful political leaders had serious opponents who gave them good fights at elections. In the federal election of 1954, the opposition party in our region beat the party in power in the region. We heard stories of tampering with elections in some other parts of Nigeria, or of the power of government being used there to harass and frustrate candidates, but we never had such things in our region. We were a confidently growing democracy.

    When the controllers of the federal government launched the attack on our Western Region in 1962-5, they immediately struck down our democracy and introduced truculent practices of election manipulation. At last in late 1965, we could no longer tolerate it. We exploded in a big and stubborn revolt which went on until some elements of the military had to step in and destroy the civilian government. However, even after this, the rigging of elections did not go away. But, each time elections have been rigged in the Yoruba South-west, it has provoked our people into serious reactions – often leading to the violent deaths of many of our youths.

    Let the notice be sounded therefore that there are quite formidable forces in the wider world now that will rise and fight any attempt to rig any more elections in the homeland of the Yoruba in Nigeria. And the most powerful forces in the international community will be roused too.

    And let it be repeated that this is not about any party or politician. It is about preserving the qualitative cultural assets of the Yoruba nation for the benefit of the Yoruba nation in the world.

  • What Nigeria expects from President Jonathan

    From all appearances, President Jonathan strongly desires to win re-election and have another four-year term. All his actions and political manoeuvres point indubitably in that direction, and there is no systemic reason why he could not seek re-election. The constitution of the land allows it. Those who are threatening that they would respond to his candidacy with mayhem are talking nonsense, and the rest of us must tell them so. As I have repeatedly said in this column and other places, those who do not want Jonathan to win a second term have only one legitimate recourse – to organize and campaign to beat him at the polls. One group called APC is already doing just that and knitting together a huge political machine with which they hope to defeat President Jonathan and the party he belongs to at the polls. That is the honourable way to play the game. Terrorist threats are not part of the equation.

    However, from the perspective of a nation builder, there is a problem with President Jonathan’s intention to bid for re-election. President Jonathan has raised a lot of hope by initiating, and planning for, a National Conference – and he owes us the duty of considering what most of us Nigerians hope and expect from the National Conference.

    Long before President Jonathan became president, our country had been virtually wrecked. He inherited an all-controlling and unrestrained “federal” government that had become an agency for disorder, confusion and corruption, and a manufacturer and dispenser of poverty, insecurity, and conflicts. Because he hails from the Delta, the homeland of the leading armed warriors against the excesses and destructiveness of the federal government, most of us naturally expected that his presidency would be a historic turning point in our country’s history. Shockingly, for more than three years he did nothing towards change. He even seemed to be arguing for a preservation of the hated status quo. But, happily, a few months ago, he suddenly showed a change of heart – as Shakespeare might have put it, “consideration, like an angel, wiped the offending Adam out of him” – and he began to take steps about a National Conference.

    For us Nigerians, this is the long-needed, long-awaited, opportunity to do something to straighten up our country, to put her on a sound footing, and to steer her onto a new path of order, sanity, and progress. No doubt, for some of the representatives going to the National Conference in Abuja, this is just an opportunity to go and live in what they see as the Sodom and Gomorrah of modern Africa for a few months, and to revel in, and benefit from, its intoxicating corruption and dissipation. No doubt also, some representatives see their going to the National Conference as a chance to go and serve partisan political purposes of their own or simply to help the 2015 electoral bids of this or that party or presidential candidate. But such folks as these are heading for a shattering disappointment – because most representatives are going to Abuja for a very serious business of national reconstruction, and most of the 170 million of us who will remain at home in most parts of Nigeria will be watching intently and pushing irresistibly for the changes that we have long desired for our country. No matter what President Jonathan originally intended the National Conference for, it is important that we all must now recognize that the National Conference has acquired a life, a momentum, and gravitas of its own, a life, a momentum and a gravitas that can beautifully remould Nigeria and restore hope to Nigeria – or that can, God forbid, break Nigeria.

    In such a circumstance as this, what President Jonathan owes his country is clear. He owes us the duty of giving all his attention and energy to the National Conference, with the patriotic and sincere objective of seeing it through to the fulfilment of its mission. Side by side with this patriotic and historic duty, President Jonathan’s personal political ambition – his quest for a second term – pales into insignificance. What we are urging him to do is to recognize and accept this, and to bow in utmost loyalty to this call of duty.

    Another presidential term of four years for President Jonathan, as long as the present conditions of our country prevail, can add nothing of real value to our country, to the quality of the life of Nigerians, or to the place of Nigeria in the world. It has no foreseeable chance of changing anything. By 2015, President Jonathan would have been president for six years. Sure, he is legitimately entitled to seek one more term of four years – which would then, if he wins, make him president for 10 years. But how can anybody sensibly choose those four more years and turn away from the chance of becoming the master architect of a new Nigeria, away from the chance of acquiring an immortal name for himself, his posterity, and his Ijaw people, for pulling Nigeria back from the throes of death and giving her a new lease of vibrant life.

    Two choices, then, face President Jonathan. I am sure that most who really support him expect him to choose the infinitely bigger one. Many Nigerians abroad and at home, since the door opened to the presidency for Vice-president Jonathan (after the passing of President Yar’Adua), have supported him out of principle, without any partisan considerations, and without any desire for personal gains of any kind, and in spite of his foibles and vacillations. When the question was raised about who should succeed Yar’Adua, many patriots insisted that there was no question at all, and that the constitution must be adhered to. After he became president, they welcomed the fact that a citizen from a minority nationality had at last risen to the highest office in the land – a major step forward for our country. They also welcomed him because, as I said before, they were hopeful that, being an Ijaw man, his presidency would mark the beginning of greatly needed changes in the structure of our federation. And now that he has initiated a National Conference, we all expect the best for our country from it, and he can be sure of very dedicated and resolute support in this welcome path. On the other hand, if President Jonathan tries to play down or defuse the National Conference, or to manipulate it to serve the ends of his electoral politics, he risks titanic losses of support in this country –losses so massive as to drown his electoral chances and political future. He also risks the dissolution of Nigeria on his watch.

    President Jonathan’s people, the Ijaw people, own the credit for being, since independence, the front-liners of militant demands for a rational federal structure. They must not now let their voices become muted in the struggle – simply because they want to support their son in his desire for a second term. No. They must give him the right counsel and support. They must remain stoutly in the struggle and ultimately earn the honour that they deserve in the history of Nigeria and of the Black race.