On A Nigerian Sovereign National Conference And The Permission Of The National Legislature By Leonard Karshima Shilgba, PhD

There are facts that only a few
Nigerians, against the unrelenting
witness of their conscience, can
either ignore or dispute:

Fact number 1: Not all ethnic
nationalities are represented either
at the state level or national level.
And there are some ethnic
nationalities that have no elected or
selected representatives at even the
local level. Take, for instance, the
Etulo people of Benue state, where I
proudly come from. That great
ethnic group faces the threat of
extinction, not least because they
are subsumed within a Tiv-
dominated local government area,
Katsina-Ala. They have no voice at
the local, state, or national level.
Almost all Etulo people speak Tiv
language without an accent. There
are many such ethnic nationalities
in Nigeria. I am a Tiv man, but it is
saddening to see a situation such as
I have described. If members of
Nigeria’s national assembly claim
that they are the only ones that can
approve or write a new constitution
for Nigeria, what about
representatives of ethnic groups
such as the Etulo (who may emerge
through any process of their
choosing)?

Fact number 2: Nigerians did not
approve the decree 24 of 1999 that
created the 1999 constitution,
which set up the bicameral
legislature that is so expensive,
unwieldy, and very ineffective (one
evidence is that for more than
twelve years the national legislature
has not been able to effect
amendments that will bring about
social justice and prudence in
government expenditure). The
national assembly does not possess
either the courage or capacity to
carry out the “amendments” that it
may claim it is their responsibility to
do. For instance, can the national
assembly make an amendment to
scrap the Senate, leaving only the
House of Representatives,
composed of all ethnic nationalities,
and whose members will serve part-
time and be paid accordingly? Can
the national assembly amend the
constitution to scrap the huge
number of government
departments wrongly called States
that cannot even pay their workers’
salaries without allocations from the
federation account? Can the
national assembly either scrap local
government areas in some parts of
the country and create some in
other parts of the country or remove
local governments from the list of
levels of government that can
partake in revenue sharing in order
to bring about social justice? Can
the national assembly bring
revenue derivation to at least 50 per
cent in order to provoke productivity
at the state level and competition
among states?

Fact number 3: The second chapter
of the 1999 constitution, entitled
Fundamental Objectives and
Directive Principles of State Policy
provides great benefits for citizens
of Nigeria even as it encourages
waste through provisions such as
the requirement that at least one
minister from each state of the
federation should be appointed into
the central government.
Unfortunately, section 6 of the same
constitution absolves government of
responsibility in the failure to
provide those benefits to Nigerians.
Can the national assembly correct
this? For instance, can the national
assembly either reduce the number
of states to about six (according to
geo-political zones) while increasing
derivation to at least 50 per cent for
local communities and the six states
[See my article—Re-Engineering
Nigeria, part 1, 2010; available
online]?

Fact number 4: There are 68 items
on the “Exclusive Legislative List” of
the 1999 constitution which inhibit
rapid development at the state
level. For instance, the Odua rail line
was to be built between Lagos and
Ibadan and completed in 2006
(Odua consists of the Yoruba states
of the south west of Nigeria). The
Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC)
stopped this because the matter
was and still is on the exclusive
legislative list (item 55). The
chairman of the NRC (he died
shortly in a plane crash in 2004)
stood against this, relying on the
1999 constitution, which in more
ways than one is a document that
has impeded development in
Nigeria rather than facilitate it. Yet,
we have a national legislature that
has refused, failed, and neglected to
amend such chimerical provisions
that are deleterious to Nigeria’s
development.

Fact number 5: Many of Nigeria’s
legislators have deliberately made
themselves inaccessible to their
constituent members. At the risk of
sounding immodest, if someone in
my position cannot reach my
supposed representatives on phone
then what is the argument that a
legislator such as Senator Abaribe
(Chair of the senate committee on
information) making when he urged
Nigerians on Channels TV to rather
send their views about constitution
amendment to their legislators than
insist on a sovereign national
conference? I looked up the phone
number of my senator, Chief
Barnabas Gemade on his website
during the fuel subsidy protests; I
could not find a single contact
phone number to use. And Mr
Gemade is not the only senator that
has placed himself in an island of
isolation. In 2010 I wanted to reach
a senator, Suleiman Nazif (a former
student of mine) to discuss with him
some ideas I had about national
renewal. I tried to use a phone
number he listed on his website as
a constituency office contact phone
number. It was a dead number! I
even sent him an email using an
address I found on the website of
the national assembly; I have not
received any responses since then,
not even an acknowledgment from
a secretariat staff or an automated
message. How can the national
assembly accord itself the sole
responsibility of writing a new
constitution as the “representatives
of the people” when it is not
accessible to the same people it
should represent? I am not a
registered member of any political
party in Nigeria. But does any
Nigerian need to be a party member
to have access to their
“representatives”?
I must state unambiguously that we
the people do not derive our powers
from the national assembly; rather,
the national assembly exists by our
grace. When we talk of the people,
technology has afforded us a simple
way of gauging the mood and mind
of the people. Our social network
sites and the numerous responsive
comments made by Nigerians on
websites of our newspapers provide
clear evidence that the Nigerian
people do not have confidence in
the ability of the national assembly
to lead in the efforts towards
national renewal or rebirth. With
more than 112 million Nigerians
reportedly living below the poverty
line and the ineluctable continued
state of insecurity in Nigeria, the
national assembly should be careful
about their continued resistance to
Nigerian people sitting and talking
about methods and principles of
forging a more perfect union.
Legislators should not mortgage the
future of Nigeria on the altar of their
limited mandate and selfishness.
We the Nigerian people are not
begging the national assembly to
allow a sovereign national
conference; we are demanding and
we shall have it. Has power ever
conceded anything without
unrestrained demand? If the
national assembly continues in its
state of unbridled obduracy and
self-confessed knowledge of what is
best for the country, very soon they
shall have neither the luxury nor
safety to sit in plenary at Abuja. And
failure to sit for at least 181 days as
required in section 63 of the 1999
constitution shall lead to a state of
emergency that must call for a
sovereign national conference willy-
nilly. So, a sovereign national
conference, whose decisions shall
be subjected to a national
referendum item-by-item, is a truth
no one can stop. President Jonathan
cannot stop it. By the way, is the
Niger Delta not clamouring for a
sovereign national conference? A
man must have questions to answer
when he returns home soon having
ignored and even frustrated the
central issue agitating the minds of
his people.
We of the Middle Belt Alliance are in
support of a sovereign national
conference. We are not afraid to sit
and talk with our Nigerian brothers
and sisters across the aisle. We do
not believe that a sovereign national
conference shall precipitate the
dissolution of Nigeria; rather, we are
of the view that the fear to talk is
ominous.

Leonard Karshima Shilgba is an
Associate Professor of
Mathematics with the American
University of Nigeria and
President of the Nigeria Rally
Movement ( http://www.nigeriarally.org).
He is also the Chairman of the
Middle Belt Alliance (MBA).
TEL: +234 (0) 8055024356
EMAIL: shilgba@yahoo.com