Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

By their last week assault on the sensibilities of Nigerians, both the PDP and its nemesis- APC displayed only instincts of factions with divergent tendencies, who are only interested in power as distinct from true political parties, the 17th century ingenious creation of intellectual elite to espouse vision and mobilize people for development. The president and his party on their part once again demonstrated their contempt for Nigerians by choosing Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum to celebrate what they consider giants steps made in the energy sector at a period most part of the country was in darkness as a result of alleged sudden drop from about 4600MW to 3600MW.

Then as if such display of contempt for Nigerians was not enough, five months after the president dropped 10 ministers nominated by his estranged PDP family members out of his unwieldy cabinet of about 40 compared to less than 20 of advanced economies like USA, Germany and Britain, he is sending 11 nominees as replacement for those whose absence nor contributions were never missed. In the list, the president seems to have special attraction for the enemies of his political adversaries.

And without giving a damn about how we feel, the president followed this up with the appointment of Bamanga Tukur as chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC). And just as none of the president’s advisers was able to tell him Tukur had outlived his usefulness the moment it became obvious, he was prepared to pull down the party along with himself, no one obviously told the president such an insensitive appointment cast doubt about his decision-making process.

If the name ‘Tukur’ is the president magic wand for 2013, the president could just as well go for Tukur junior and allow the old Tukur observe a well-deserved rest after two years tango and thorough pummelling by a gang of seven aggrieved PDP governors, some of whom are not much older than some of Tukur’s children.

On the choice of Adamu Mu’azu, as the new PDP chairman, a group of Human Rights Writers’ Association, HURIWA, has reminded us of his investigation by EFCC for allegedly ‘stealing billions of naira belonging to Bauchi State during his tenure’. But does this grumbling body expect PDP to wait without leadership long after the president has complained he is not to be held responsible for the slow pace at which the wheel of justice grinds in our nation?

And besides those picked on the basis of what appears a strange policy of ‘estranged friends of my political adversary is my friend’ such as Dr Tammy Danagogo, a former loyalist and two times commissioner under Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers, Hajia Jamilla Salik, a one-time associate of Kano Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, and Boni Haruna , a former protégé of Atiku Abubakar, whose renunciation of support for him coincided with his being let off by EFCC that had drilled him in court for seven years over 28 counts charge . It took his lawyers only three days to file a ‘no case’ submission, argue their case and obtain a ‘not guilty verdict’. The icing on the cake was the appearance of his name among the ministerial nominees few days after his court victory. Is there anyone out there who disagrees with the president who like Pontius Pilate insists the wheel of justice which grinds slowly in Nigeria cannot be blamed on him?

Of the nominees, Gusau is the most intriguing. Only the president knows why he wants Gusau so desperately. He has for over 10 months reserved for him the Defence ministry portfolio, a post he resigned from in 2010 when it became apparent the only office eyed by Gusau was the presidency, which he contested for in 2006 and 2010. I am sure the man must be wondering how many security advisers they want to make out of him after holding the position of Director of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and acting Director-General of the NSO from September 1985 to August 1986, the coordinator on National Security from August 1986 to December 1989 and security adviser during most of Obasanjo’s presidency.

What is apparent from the president obsession with Gusau who has been unable to reproduce himself within the state security apparatus after 40 years, and Jonathan decision to lure on to his fold, the estranged godsons of his political opponents is probably a desire to serve self and PDP and not Nigerians. Their confirmation which I am sure APC cannot stop will add nothing to good governance.

It is for the above reason I see APC grandstanding as merely playing the PDP game. And they are doing this by advertising their strategy to give enough ammunition to desperate enemies who fight rough with scant regards for rule of engagement, those who swore they would never allow power to slip from their hands, and those who swore their party would rule for 60 years. If APC is interested in good governance, I think they should show more seriousness than playing PDP game. And if they have chosen to play PDP game even as the nation looks up to them for rescue from 14 years of clueless PDP reign, there are softer areas to unsettle the president apart from the serious issues of budget and defence in an era of economic down turn when the nation is also at war.

Such soft areas include mundane talk about gluttonous consumption of food at the presidency which is costing the nation’s taxpayers billions, diesel for presidential generators when the nation is in darkness, kerosene for the Presidential Air Fleet (PAF) of 10 aircrafts when poor people don’t have access to the product in spite of government’s claim of allocation of billions as subsidy. These are the things that will resonate with the people if APC has opted not to rise above PDP in the popularity test and battle for the minds of the uninformed.

Gbajabiamila’s theatrics at the floor of the house were in my view unnecessary. One only repeats the obvious when one is not sure. APC should act its numerical strength if it exists beyond mere declaration when vital decisions that require partisanship unfold on the floor of the house. These include state police which everyone except those manipulating the police for political ends know is the answer to some of our intractable security problems, the rescue of the EFCC from the abuse it is being subjected to by PDP and the presidency and engaging the president in psychological warfare by passing a resolution calling for the dismissal of the IGP for using a dead law to abridge the freedom of Nigerians for peaceful assembly and protest.

Femi Falana only recently reminded us the law was long dead and buried by the appeal court. This perhaps will prick the conscience of the president who couldn’t have forgotten so soon that it was not too many seasons ago that the ‘save Nigeria Group’ saved his job of acting President by demonstrating in Lagos and Abuja without being stopped through illegal application of police permit.

But APC must note we are at war. Ordinary poor people bear the brunt of war. Only last Sunday, over 50 innocent people were murdered by enemies of our nation in Borno State said to be under emergency. We have a patriotic duty to support the president. What contributed to Democrats victory in America after incompetent George Bush took America to two avoidable wars was the party’s commitment to America.

And for attempting to rival PDP in its game of perfidy, APC from whom much is expected, has opened the people to further assault by insolent men who have no respect for us. We now have the rosy-cheeked PDP men – sworn enemies of the people, those who presided over the theft of N1.7 trillion, who sold unto themselves the patrimony bequeathed onto us by our selfless nationalists and which we are in turn expected to bequeath onto our children, those who with the military wrecked the aviation, pharmaceutical, textile industries, and who built private universities after destroying the world class institutions they inherited, all now talking of patriotism on national television.

Even when others lose their cool, President Jonathan remains unexcitable. Whether it is about the suppressed KPMG report of massive corruption in NNPC, injustice to Justice Salami, the worsening oil theft that threatens our economy in spite of multi dollar contract to repentant Niger Delta militants to protect the oil pipe lines, or even the ‘Oduahgate’ that has refused to go away, the president maintains that air of imperturbability. It took the leakage of his godfather’s warning letter and that of the CBN Governor to the press after four months before the president decided to react apparently because of the cost of remaining silent.

The only occasion the president gets emotional is either when talking about his dearest Patience, the ‘mother of the nation’ or his transformation agenda which he is very passionate about. And one of such few occasions came during the recent visit of PDP stakeholders from the northwest that have come to pledge their loyalty in spite of the gale of defection from PDP. It was time for the president to showcase what he considered his achievements in two years and eight months. And to the people who only hear of massive unemployment, worsening power situation after the sale of the energy sector by PDP to PDP, dilapidated roads, armed robbery, kidnapping for rituals and kidnapping for ransom (apology to Gbenga Omotoso) and other tales of woe, the president brought good tidings. His achievements within a space of two years and eight months he says remain unassailable.

With radiant smiles and a voice laden with emotion, the President repeated the phrase several times: “this administration is only two years and eight months old”. (It is actually close to five years if you add Yar’Adua unspent time). He thereafter challenged any of his critics to point out any leader in the nation’s history that could rival his level of achievements within such a short period. And from his captive PDP audience came a loud applause. I could not resist musing to myself, ‘shame to the former leaders as conspirators and Jonathan detractors especially those ‘writing letters they should not be writing’, those pretending to be democrat after annulling the most credible election in our nation’s history or those who jailed journalists for reporting the truth but now claims to be on a crusade to save the country with letter writing journalists.’

And to reassure disillusioned Nigerians who may think President Jonathan might have lost touch with reality, his ministers, the power behind the achievements, the president proudly talked about, came out to give account of their stewardship. We were told of near completion of the dualisation of Lokoja-Abuja road, the ongoing Kaduna Abuja fast train project while there was silence on all important Lagos-Ibadan, Sagamu-Benin roads probably because funds are still being sought even after a big flag-off with fanfare. I am not too sure if the finance minister celebrated economic growth which she has always done while remaining silent on development. But each minister’s presentation was greeted with loud applause by the rosy-cheeked and well endowed PDP stake holders in their well embroidered flowing agbada and babarigas.

Richard Akinjide, Shagari’s attorney general, whose daughter, the Minister of State for Abuja territory is gunning for governorship of Oyo State appeared on a Channels television programme on Saturday probably to show that all the talk about deteriorating power supply, massive unemployment, suffocating corruption in government, general insecurity, sinking PDP that is prepared to pull the country down with itself, have been greatly exaggerated after all. The chief awarded President Jonathan 80%. For him by the time the history of the country is written, Jonathan would probably turn out to be the best president to have ever emerged from Ni geria. The president, his truculent advisers like Doyin Okupe and Ahmed Gulak, Jerry Gana, Emmanuel Iwuanyawu, the ‘transformed’ Ebenezer Babatope, and all others who swear by the president’s name may be right. It may turn out that the critics of the president have been too much in a hurry to write him off. After all, he still has a whole year and four months to consolidate the gains some critics and cynics still maintain are only visible to the president, his ministers, courtiers and advisers. After all it is a known fact that one day in politics can define the fortune or misfortune of a politician.

But what worries me in the whole exercise of self-assessment and endorsement by those ex-president Obasanjo said have shielded the president from reality is the absence of the people and the total disdain for public opinion. Unlike Aristotle, Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama and others who give pride of place to the people in a democracy, Jonathan like his godfather, Obasanjo sees himself like the Plato’s philosopher king, demonstrating at every point his disdain for the people and their opinion.

In an interview with Tell magazine, he said; ‘I am not moved by public opinion so easily, because in most cases, the public opinion may not be quite right’ This seems to have defined President Jonathan who once said he didn’t give a damn about those pestering him over non-declaration of his assets as set out in the constitution. The president for instance did not think it right to apologise to the public for imposing petroleum tax in the name of subsidy on Nigerians when he discovered he had been misled by those who presided over the theft of N1.7 trillion under the fuel subsidy regime.

President Jonathan who said it isn’t his fault that the wheel of justice grinds slowly in our nation similarly ignored public opinion over the plight of Justice Isa Salami who was visited with injustice for ruling against PDP mandate thieves. ‘Oduahgate’ on the other hand has been in the public domain for over two months. The president has not only ignored public opinion which weighed heavily against her continued stay in the cabinet as minister for aviation. Before Oduahgate, the president ignored the public demand for the implementation of the House Committee report on the fuel subsidy theft and chose to implement the report of his own appointee, Aigboje Aig Imokhuede.

Beside outward demonstration of disdain for public opinion, I think the president need to know that even if the prevailing public opinion appears to represent the views of his political adversaries, it will be foolhardy for any government that plans to succeed to ignore them. It is not self-assessment that determines the success or acceptability of government policies; it is the opinion of those for whom such policies are formulated that ultimately count.

If President Jonathan doubts that public opinion represents the will of the nation, he should just look back at how public opinion paved the way for the collapse of what the public perceived as Buhari’s tyrannical regime, Babangida fraudulent transition, Obasanjo third term agenda and even Jonathan becoming acting President when the National Assembly was forced to succumb to the pressure from the public. The irony today is that Jonathan respects neither the opinion of the public nor the resolutions of the National Assembly.

We have no choice than to cut off your index finger and that of your wife since your family refused to play ball by paying the N30 million ransom. The two of you will have to live with that scar for the rest of your lives,” And the index fingers of the 84 year old pa Azun Asoya and that of his 55 years old wife were accordingly chopped off. Relishing such cruel and bestial act, the sick abductors of an octogenarian taunted: “Old man, it is like you don’t have enough blood in your veins. I expected to see lot of blood gushing out but it is just a little quantity. I guess you don’t eat well”.

This is a chilling true life story of 2013 Nigeria. The scene was in Okpanam, a stone throw from Asaba, capital of oil rich Delta State. Even if these young men were on drug, one would have expected them to become sober after a day. But these misguided young men who were bent on reaping from where they did not sow were under the influence of something worse than drug- loss of human feeling arising from deprived proper parental upbringing. Otherwise, how does one explain that after this sordid act, these young men without any thought about their own parents, went ahead to keep an 84 year man and his wife in the thick Delta mangrove forest for another 14 days without the luxury of having a bath, going to toilet or changing their clothes?

And to think they chose to place a ransom of N30m on an old man not known to have been part of Delta’s past administration led by those a British court described as ‘criminals in government house’ or known to have been a PDP contractor, defies logic. Even within the culture of barefaced looting of our resources by those in government which has come to characterize our society these past 14 years, it is still hard to imagine that these misguided young men did not see anything immoral forcing Pa Asoye’s struggling children to borrow N3.5m before securing freedom for their parents.

This is a signal to descent to state of nature where life is ‘nasty, brutish and short’. The circumstances whereby criminals who openly boasted they work hand in glove with the police kept their kidnapped victims for 17 days, a stone throw from Asaba, the seat of government with the police as in other kidnapped cases remaining clueless, is a clear indication of government gradual loss of its rationale, which is the protection of life and property for which we traded our freedom.

Yet we amuse ourselves insisting “We have reorganized the Nigerian Police Force and appointed a more dynamic leadership to oversee its affairs; improved its manpower levels as well as funding, training and logistical support; increased the surveillance capabilities of the Police and provided its air-wing with thrice the number of helicopters it had before the inception of the present administration”. But shouldn’t it be a source of concern to a government that throws money at every problem that the more money we pumped into the police, the more complex our security challenges become? For instance if we stop playing the ostrich of ‘kidnapping started in 2006 before the advent of the present administration’, what we discover is that the 63 kidnapped cases reported for 2006 and 2007 paled in significance to about 475 in 2011 and 500 in 2012. And for first half of 2013, even with almost half of the cases unreported, the Economist of London has claimed Nigeria had the most kidnapped attempts in the world followed by Mexico and Pakistan.

In a recent lecture, Charles Soludo, the former CBN governor reminded us that ‘Over the last 20 years, every new Inspector General of Police (IG) has launched one special ‘operation’ or the other to signal his zero tolerance to crime. Over the same period, the size of the police force has more than tripled, its budget ballooned, and yet the state of insecurity worsens.’ Quoting from different sources, he says in spite of these huge investments, Nigeria is ranked the “kidnap-for-ransom capital of the world accounting for 25% of global kidnappings’. The Global Peace Index ranks Nigeria the sixth most dangerous African country to live in; KPMG ranks Nigeria the most fraudulent country in Africa; while the Economist Intelligence Unit ranks Nigeria the ‘worst place to be born’ in 2013. The US Fund for Peace has, for three consecutive years, ranked Nigeria as the 14th failed state in the world (out of a total of 178 countries).” Soludo maintains that ‘Insecurity of life and property is at the heart of these worsening indices’.

If the dividends of investment on the police is more crime as Soludo seems to aver, there is obviously much more fundamental problem with the police. The inference one can draw from the lamentation of Soludo who also told us he had as CBN governor forced The Bankers Committee to procure about 25 armoured personnel carriers for the police, arranged foreign training for officer in the US, Israel and UK, is that we are just moving in a vicious cycle by refusing to accept that what is required is decentralization of the corrupt and highly politicized Nigeria police as presently constituted. Let us for a moment imagine the possible effect of a Delta police command answerable to the governor and manned by Delta indigenes who are masters of their own language and custodians of their people’s culture on the 17 days travails of Pa Asoya marooned in a jungle not far from the state capital.

But beyond the police, the Asoya case questions the new culture of reaping where people did not sow that today defines activities of some leaders and youths of the Niger Delta who justify oil theft, stealing by leaders and non execution of contracts under the usual excuse “it is our oil money”. For instance embedded in most of the works of J P Clark, poetry and plays is the theme of hard work. The culture of reaping where people did not sow is a new creation of Delta elite that has failed to prepare the youths for the challenges of adulthood.

It is on record that the political and intellectual elite of Niger Delta armed, lionized and groomed the youths to become parasites since 1999. Today many of the half educated Niger youths with no visible trade receive free money from government. They like the political and some intellectual elite live like parasites. It is obvious those who subjected Pa Asoya to such indignity see no difference between leaders’ looting of their common wealth and youths raping of private individuals.

Death penalty or arrest of traditional leaders for the sins of kidnappers is merely attacking the symptoms. It is a battle of the mind. Youths must be made to know they have to invest in their own future through hard work. As the Yoruba will say – hard work is the therapy for poverty; the common theme that runs through most of Pa J P Clark’s literary work-poetry and play – is a culture of hard work among the various nationalities that make up the Niger Delta. Clark in spite of a privileged background went fishing in the Niger Creeks with his uncles. He literarily raised himself up through hard work.

Like Pa J P Clark, many other successful Nigerians once followed their parents to work in their farms. And today many of them have unemployed youths who would not hurt a fly. It is time the Delta parasitic political elite who gave their youths the illusion they also can live as parasites to see the assault on Pa Asoya and many other self-made men of Niger Delta origin as a call for a new orientation for current youths who have no secured future.

That non implementation of an agreement government voluntarily signed with ASUU way back in 2009 following three years of negotiation has led to a strike action now in its fifth month only confirms the fears of most Nigerians- absence of governance and usurpation of power by smart alecs who in the opinion of our God-fearing president can do no wrong. This perhaps explains why the current ASUU crisis has defied solution in spite of intervention of the president, vice president, the federal executive council, the council of state, all of whom we were told had expressed sadness about the state of our university education and canvassed for a radical change.

But opposed to change is a powerful group made up of the president’s confidants consisting of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the all powerful minister of finance and the coordinating minister of the economy, secretary to government of the federation, (SGF) Anyim, Pius Anyim, Nyesom Wike, the president’s man Friday and leader of Niger Delta militants fighting the president’s war in Rivers who also doubles as supervising minister of education. We can also add Gabriel Suswam, the chairman of implementation committee of NEEDS Assessment Report.

Before ASUU embarked on the ongoing strike on July 1, the body, according to Professor Festus Iyayi, late former ASUU president and a patriot, who unfortunately lost his life on his way to Kano in search of solution to the crisis, had written over 200 letters to government. There was also a warning strike in December 2011 which was apprehended by Anyim, who after a meeting in his office, dictated a Memorandum of Understanding to the effect that “instead of N1.5 trillion for the 24 federal universities that had been captured in the 2009 agreement, government will instead provide N1.3 trillion for 61 public universities, covering both federal and state universities.” The said Memorandum also indicated that N100 billion was immediately available, and that N400 billion will be provided for each of the three years beginning in 2013 and ending in 2015″.

Iyayi also revealed during his last interview before his tragic end in the service of the nation that the NEEDS Assessment exercise was the brain child of the SGF. The report which confirmed how “students use kerosene stoves instead of Bunsen burners in their laboratories, how students excrete into polyethylene bags and throw them through the window, how students stand under trees to receive lectures, evidence of laboratories without water” was later presented to a crest-fallen federal executive council presided over by President Jonathan.

Again, on the directive of the president, the same embarrassing report was also presented to the National Economic Council chaired by the Vice President, Namadi Sambo”. Arising from this, a technical committee set up with Governor Godswill Akpabio as chairman later presented its report to the Federal Executive Council and the recommendations were approved and then endorsed by the President who directed they should be implemented. That was in February of 2013. The presidential order was ignored by those he has delegated the running of the country to.

When ASUU finally went on strike on July 1, the government set up a committee headed by Governor Suswam. Others members like the SGF and minister of finance were no strangers to the crisis. But these government officials demonstrated their lack of commitment to the future of our nation by frustrating all ASUU’s patriotic crusade to force government to start rebuilding the educational structure destroyed by the political class during the Babangida, Abacha and Obasanjo years. This self-serving mafia tries to demonise ASUU for pointing out that it is the primary responsibility of the ruling class to lay a solid foundation for education as it is in Europe since the 1600s and old Western Nigeria since the 1950s.

But tragically, Suswam, Iyayi said was “trying to be a contractor instead of implementing the NEEDS Assessment Report”. Anyim, was said to have “ridiculed the memorandum of Understanding he dictated in his office” On her part, Okonjo-Iweala, the all powerful minister of finance, was reported to have said “I have cash; 30 billion naira cash, I am putting it on the table, take it or leave it. If you don’t take it you can be on strike for the next two or three years”. She talked down on patriotic ASUU leaders and refused to implement a directive fully endorsed by the FEC, the Council of State and the presidency.

But it is on record that this is the same minister of finance who supervised the deployment of huge government resources to electricity generating firms that have since been sold to members of the political governing elite including leading light of PDP; who had no objection to government expenditure of about three trillions on bail-out of banks that were later sold to some of those who wrecked them; and who approved government expenditure of about 500 billion naira as bailout to the airlines as well as N100 billion for the textile industry, expenditures government recently admitted had gone down the drains.

Four months into the ASUU strike, the president took time off his tight schedule of foreign trips and managing his PDP family’s vicious war over 2015 to once again intervene in the crisis. Curiously, the intervention led to a 13 hours meeting with ASUU. We will never know what the president discussed for 13 hours but it was obvious it could not have been about a new deal as what came out at the end was not different from existing ASUU 2009 codified agreement with government.

But if Nigerians had expected the president to descend heavily on those who defied his directive, they were in for a surprise. It is ASUU got the raw end of the president’s anger for demanding proper documentation of the agreement arrived at during the 13 hours marathon meeting. Miffed that ASUU would not take him for his words, our angry president has decreed the university teachers call off the strike, resume work or count themselves sacked with effect from December 9.

If the president momentarily forgot he is an elected president and not Jerry Rawlings of Ghana who he probably envies for shutting down his country universities for a year, or despicable dictator like Abacha who insisted his words must be law, one would have thought those paid through the public purse to prevent the president from becoming a threat to himself and the state, would come to his assistance. But sadly they are in fact the ones fuelling the crisis that was about to end.

A Wike, acting minister of education, who as a round peg in a square hole is not expected to give what he has not got, predictably merely dusted up the strategy he had successfully used to mobilize ex-Niger Delta militants and workers of his dissolved LGA to prevent Governor Rotimi Amaechi, his former benefactor from ‘sleeping with his two eyes closed’. He is trying to adopt the same strategy to force university professors and their vice chancellors back to work. For good measure, he has been deploying the language of militants to get his message across. Had Wike been able to rise beyond being just the president’s ‘man Friday’, he would have shielded the president by allaying the fears of ASUU. His sole objective would have been getting ASUU to call off the strike.

Then Dr Doyin Okupe was brought in to do what he knows how to do best, boasting, blowing hot and cold, and verbally assaulting the president’s perceived enemies with his caustic tongue. Were Okupe to be competent, sincere and not an accessory to federal government politics of subterfuge, his objective would have been getting the information he claimed to have to ASUU, leaving it with no choice but to call off the strike.

And finally if we are still looking for evidence of absence of governance in our country, the president himself provided that. He woke up one morning and in one fell swoop sacked 10 ministers including that of education sector which remains the only key to our future. Three months down the line, the president carries on as if to confirm the fears of Nigerians that our nation is managed by a small group of conmen who have by their antecedents demonstrated they care for anyone but themselves.

He have passed through this way before. It is often the last resort of our past deceitful leaders. Motivated often by predilection for perfidious politics, they often come up with the idea of a national conference as a diversionary measure. It is a weapon freely used by Babangida, Abacha and Obasanjo not to enrich constitutional development, but to commit fraud. The nation got little joy from the conferences of 1988, 1994/95 and 2005. It is not therefore difficult to understand why President Jonathan, confronted with five months ASUU strike, facing local and international criticism over his corruption-ridden administration, and an intra-party PDP crisis that threatens his 2015 ambition, he has after four years of initial resistance to a call for a sovereign national conference to resolve the national question, suddenly changed his position without explanation.

And for now the debate about the composition of delegates has pitched credible Nigerians with genuine concern for the health of our nation against government apologists and contractors. While Wole Soyinka has for instance suggested only elected representative of the people should be delegates, Dr Fasehun, leader of OPC militant group wants government and political parties exempted. While Ohaneze, the umbrella body for the Igbos wants equal representation of ethnic groups, the Arewa Consultative Forum has rejected the suggestion saying ethnic groups are not equal. While the Convener of the Yoruba Assembly, Gen. Alani Akinrinade (rtd), has suggested the adoption of the Pro-National Conference Organisation (PRONACO)’s 18 nationality region-structure for drawing the list of delegates, others have said the conference will be enriched if we have representative of NADECO, a body that is responsible for our current democracy.

And still to tie the hands of President Jonathan who has publicly claimed he is never moved to action by public opinion, and who is known for tucking reports such as the Uwais electoral reform report and the Ribadu report of monumental fraud in the oil industry, that he and his party cannot exploit for political advantage, under his locker, others have suggested the involvement of United Nations representative, Britain, our ex-colonial master and other lovers of our country like ambassador Omowale Walter Carrington.

And my sympathy lies with the last group. History is on their side. In the absence of the colonial master with a big stick, we have in the last 53 years proved incapable of producing an acceptable constitution to manage our affairs. And I think the time to stop hiding under sovereignty that died long before the age of globalization, the god the world worships today, and admit we need help is now.

The starting point is to examine where we are coming from. Let us remember that at the height of our nationalist struggle to take over from the colonial masters, Britain had warned that it was their presence that guaranteed a measure of stability and that their departure ‘would mean for millions, a descent into the turmoil of warring sects’. This has long become a self-fulfilling prophesy. We have fought a civil war. We are currently engaged in another with Boko Haram. We are under the assault of ethnic irredentists’ sponsored militants. We are daily assaulted and assailed by armed robbers, kidnappers and thieving government ministers and lawmakers, all taking the form of warring sects as predicted.

We can also note from insight that the golden era of our constitutional development was between 1946 and 1959. That was when the colonial masters held a big stick to ensure we behaved ourselves. The 1946 constitution which heralded in regionalism provided for unity in diversity and opened the way for participation of the nationalists and traditional rulers. The 1951 Constitution which they supervised created House of Representatives of 136 elected members, 68 from the north, 31 elected members and three members of the House of Chiefs from the West, and 34 elected members from the East. There was not just parity between the north and the south, provision for a bicameral legislature for the West and the North, was made, while the East was contented with a unicameral legislature.

Similarly, with the supervision of the colonial masters, the 1953 London Constitutional Conference was without rancour as it allocated specific powers to the centre leaving the residual list for the regions. The 1957 Constitutional Conference paved the way for self-government for the West and the East without posing a threat to the North that was not ready. At the end, the British gave us a written constitution patterned after their own unwritten constitution that has endured only on convention for centuries.

The question is why our written constitution collapsed in less than five years. The fault, we will discover, is not in our stars but in the character of our leaders like Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, Awolowo some of whom were motivated only by greed using their ethnic groups as cover.

Of the three dominant groups, that have been used by the political elite to hold the nation to ransom since independence, the west and its true leaders have remained faithful to its preference for a federation of ethnic nationalities where each group can develop at its own pace without posing a threat to other federating members or to the overall health of the greater Nigerian nation. As for Ahmadu Bello and Balewa, the North would only be part of a federation where they could control 50% of member of the House of Representatives and the north remains unrestrained from imposing feudal control over areas conquered during the early 19th century jihad. They got everything they wanted under the British.

The East and its leaders have remained the most ambivalent. Zik first canvassed for a unitary system. After becoming a late convert to federalism, Zik and the political elite from the East against the spirit of the 1951 Constitution attempted to take over the West through NCNC. After the first coup of January 1966, the East and its leaders attempted imposition of unitary system through Ironsi and when that also failed, it demanded a confederal arrangement with the East controlling the oil rich minorities.

It was the greed of northern and eastern political elite to hold on to claimed conquered territories or areas mischievously regarded as ‘no man’s land’ that brought them into coalition in the first republic. It collapsed over sharing of booty from their adventure into Mid-west following NCNC’s takeover of the new region, which was followed by NPC dumping of NCNC as a coalition partner in favour of a fringe political party also from the same Mid-west region. It is the same greed that informed their coalition in the Second Republic which also collapsed over sharing of resources that rightly belong to others. It is the same greed that has sustained the East and the North in PDP in the last 14 years.

From the discussion so far, it is obvious Nigerians don’t trust President Jonathan, the convener of the new conference, who has continued to behave as if he is elected to serve PDP.

And what Nigerians have for their legislators who according to the president will decide the fate of the conference, is disdain. Widely regarded as the highest paid legislators in the world, Nigerians think they serve none but themselves.

Cynical Nigerians think without the threat of a big brother, the outcome of the conference will be more of the same. And some have even predicted if the list of nominees for the proposed conference comes out tomorrow, it is likely going to be peopled not by Nigerian national icons like Soyinka, the Nobel laureate sought after by great nations of the world to proffer solution to mankind problems, Emeka Anyaoku, the world respected former Secretary General of the 53-nation Commonwealth, and our highly principled Col. Kangiwa Abubakar. In their places, they predict we will likely have entertainers like ubiquitous Ebenezer Babatope, Ojo Maduekwe and Jerry Gana.

Why then should we be ashamed to seek help after groping in the darkness for over 50 years (1963-2013) – those who believe we need the help of Britain have asked. If you ask me, I will say why not?