Is The Sovereign National Conference The Answer ?

What’s your take on the Sovereign National Conference debate (SNC)? Can someone help me understand the SNC? I’m starting to think I have the wrong idea.

A lot of people have voiced concerns over the Sovereign National Conference and this has made me consider the players. Do you really think the SNC can solve the problems of Nigeria? is the SNC the answer or is it a distraction? Are we using this tangible interaction as a source of hope, something (anything)we can cling to? 

Please don’t get me wrong. I think theres nothing wrong with citizens of a country coming together for the purpose of dialogue, if it will lead to finding positive solutions.

In fact, I believe the SNC (or at least what I think its intended to achieve) is very necessary, right now

But do we really have the right people with the right mindset who could effectively represent our different ethnic make up without fear that they will be compromised?

For a nation of people, who are easily bribed can we really trust or vouch for an individual to go and represent our individual concerns? … Remember we have representatives in the House of Reps, the Senate…and all the local Governments. and it could be argued that they have failed us, hence the need for the SNC. But are they not our Ethnic representatives? Who’s to say the representatives attending the SNC will be any different or immune from the disease called corruption?

Please read this piece by my friend on www.cicoldblog.wordpress.com

Sovereign National Craziness

Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The widespread clamour in Nigeria for a “Sovereign National Conference” (SNC) surely fits that definition of insanity.

This SNC demand is not restricted to the baying mob of uninformed, but also comes from the chatterati in the media, the usual suspects from the elite with an eye on a bigger slice of the “national cake”, and even the likes of Wole Soyinka, who one would have expected to really know better. He claimed recently that Nigeria needed to bring together such a conference to resolve its problems.

The recent SNC hysteria has been induced by the very serious security threat posed by Boko Haram terror and the regular rumblings across the country about how the nation’s resources are shared. As a result, the argument is that Nigeria’s “component parts” should come together at this conference and decide whether we should be together, and if so, how we can live together. But there are many fundamental issues that Soyinka and his co-travellers on the SNC bandwagon have never coherently addressed in peddling the blinding insanity that any gathering of Nigerians would find a silver bullet to the myriad of problems that afflict the county.

Those proposing this gathering of “component parts” have never really got their minds round who should attend and whose interests they should represent. As I sat in a taxi on the way to Abuja Airport last February, I listened to an SNC advocate on a radio talk show claiming that the different “ethnic nationalities” that made up Nigeria should be represented at the conference. When asked how those reps would be chosen he suggested elections or by the appointment with the “leaders” of those nationalities representing their people.
Well, we already have a National Assembly with senators and congressmen/women purportedly elected to represent their constituents. You don’t need to be Einstein to know that they have failed to represent anyone but their forever-enlarging and bulging pockets. So elections in Nigeria don’t really seem to be a clever way of selecting whoever should truly represent any group of people. The alternative of self-appointed “leaders” attending on behalf of their ethnic nationalities raises a lot of questions about whether self interest would trump group interest. Most of these people do not really have a history of putting their people above and beyond their primary goal of accumulating wealth.
The other misguided assumption made by advocates of an SNC based on the “federating units” that make up Nigeria gathering for a talk-shop is the notion that each of those “units” or groups that make up Nigeria have corporate interests peculiar to each group, which all or at least a majority that belong to the group have signed up to. And these interests can be packaged as a list of demands that could be negotiated at the conference. This notion doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
I am an Igbo man from Enugu State and I would like to know what the interests of the Igbos are, and how those interests set us apart from other Nigerians. In my opinion, most Igbos want to live in safety and peace in whatever corner of Nigeria they dwell in, with their human rights respected. They want decent infrastructure in order to go about their daily business with relative ease. They want public services like education, healthcare, water supply, etc to improve beyond the current dire conditions. They want their votes to count in order to elect rulers accountable to the people and responsive to their needs. I think most Nigerians would sign up to these interests. So why are SNC advocates trying to misrepresent what is a universal pursuit of life, liberty and happiness as ethnic-based interests in which each ethnic group shares some mythical interests that set them apart from the others and can only be ironed out at the SNC?
There are possibly three reasons for this. Firstly, among those who want to see such a conference are self-appointed “leaders” of various ethnic groups who owe their relevance to the pretence that they are championing the cause of their people, while in reality it is just a vehicle for feathering their nests at the expense of their people.
Secondly, you have among the advocates many that despite their education, titles and loads of alphabets behind their names, have never really gone beyond viewing the world with ethnicity-tinted glasses. This group tends to see the problems of Nigeria as usually being the fault of others. “Other” here can be in terms of religion, region, or ethnicity. Among the virulently xenophobic, any Boko Haram-related atrocity is always evidence that the “north” is a problem, Islam is the issue, and the solution is an SNC where we all decide whether we want to “live together” with “these people” who are causing us all these problems. No attempt is made to critically understand the issue or place it in the right context.
The third factor in the SNC notion gathering momentum is just plain old ignorance. Way too many Nigerians do not have the foggiest notion of what is wrong with the country, so are spectacularly ill-equipped to find a solution. Among people like this, the SNC idea gains traction with endless repetition.
I tried to highlight the need for accurate diagnosis in terms of Nigeria’s grave problems in a previous blog entry.
Nigeria’s problems are rooted in our historical experiences and among the most significant are the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate and colonial rule. Historical context forms the basis on which we should try to be looking for solutions to the issues that afflict the country. And issues like corruption can’t be removed from a country that was set up by the British in order for its resources to be plundered. Former oil minister Tam David-West said recently that corruption and not Boko Haram was more likely to tear Nigeria apart.
Problems like terrorism and insecurity in Nigeria are rooted in the desire by the ruling elite to loot the public treasury. No amount of conferences attended by the same looters, ten-percenters, rent-seekers and sponsors of terrorists would come up with any solution that remotely addresses the issues at the core of Nigeria’s problems. Even if they miraculously came up with a solution, there is no evidence that the powers that be in whatever dispensation they come up with post-SNC would pay any attention to the piece of paper the agreement was written on. We already have a constitution that clearly states that issues such as having Sharia law in the penal code is unconstitutional, that the promotion of a state religion is illegal, that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”, etc.
Not surprisingly, the constitution is roundly ignored by those that swore to uphold it when they took office. So any piece of paper from any conference would be just as worthless as Neville Chamberlain’s Anglo-German Declaration with Adolf Hitler in 1938 that was meant to guarantee “Peace for our time”.
It’s insane to think otherwise.