GANI Adams, a leader of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) is, I think, Jonathan’s appointee to the national conference on the platform of the Southwest Geopolitical zone, while Naseer Kura of the Basic Rights Action, Kano, is a delegate on the platform of Civil Society groups. In a short, inconspicuous story published by this newspaper last Wednesday, the two men dared each other; or more accurately, Mr Adams chided and dared Mallam Kura for being obstreperous. Mallam Kura, it was reported, had gone to extraordinary lengths to be heard, struggling for the microphone and shouting on top of his voice, but he was still unsuccessful. When some delegates failed to mollify Mallam Kura’s rage, Mr Adams, exhibiting his essential, sometimes unflattering self, dared him to do his worst. That brief eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation caused a hullaballoo.
Now, tempers will flare intermittently in the packed National Judicial Council (NJC) auditorium of the conference, and be lost now and again resulting in perhaps very unseemly melee, but the public will carefully examine the delegates as a way of weighing the wisdom or otherwise of those who nominated or appointed them to the conference. Already, given the personalities of scores of the delegates, and in the light of their contributions so far, not to talk of their provocative gestures, it is hard not to feel depressed by the appalling depth to which the country has sunk.
No rational person fairly conversant with Nigerian history can fail to notice the huge difference between the patriotism, realism and sobriety of previous conferences on Nigeria, especially those held before independence, and the frivolity of the ongoing conference. Given the decline in quality of leadership, is it a surprise that the list of delegates is of such worrisome complexion and stature?
