Whenever the issue
concerning a call for national conference are mentioned, people at the top, especially the political gainers kicked
against it, as if that when the people sit down to discuss their will be war!!!
National conference to
me will be a forum to discuss the entity
called Nigeria, how to live together as a brothers and sisters, how to share
our wealth, discuss how we want to be
govern, at the same time how to move our great country from her present docile
position to a greater height.
David Mark, a retired Army General and Nigeria Senate
President, on Tuesday said the call for
national conference by certain sections of the country was in order in view of
the discontent in the polity.
Mark, who made this
known while welcoming senators from their seven-week annual vacation, said that
the country could not continue to shy away from discussing national issues in
view of the discontent in the polity and present global realities.
The Senate President
said, “We live in very precarious times, and in a world increasingly made fluid
and toxic by strange ideologies and violent tendencies, all of which presently
conspire to question the very idea of the nation state.
“But that is not to say
that the nation should, like the proverbial ostrich, continue to bury its head
in the sand and refuse to confront the perceived or alleged structural
distortions which have bred discontentment and alienation in some quarters.
“This sense of
discontentment and alienation has fueled extremism, apathy and even predictions
of catastrophe for our dear nation.
“A conference of
Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities, called to foster frank and open discussions of
the national question, can certainly find accommodation in the extant
provisions of the 1999 Constitution which guarantee freedom of expression, and
of association.
“It is welcome.
Nonetheless, the idea of a National Conference is not without inherent and
fundamental difficulties. Problems of its structure and composition will
stretch the letters and spirit of the Constitution and severely task the ingenuity
of our constitutionalists.”
But Mark, saying giving
the sovereignty to an “unpredictable mass” to determine the fate of the country
“will be too risky a gamble and may ultimately do great disservice to the idea
of one Nigeria.”
He said “it would be
unconstitutional to clothe such a conference with constituent or sovereign
powers.”
He said, “Let me counsel
that we make haste slowly, and operate strictly within the parameters of our
Constitution as we discuss the national question.
“Be that as it may, such
a conference, if and whenever convened should have only few red lines, chief
among which would be the dismemberment of the country. Beyond that, every other
question should be open to deliberations.
“The task of nation
building requires patience, faith, scrupulous honesty, diligence, dedication,
sacrifice, toil, labor assiduous application and massive investments in our
future. The heights attained by great nations were not made by sudden flights.
“Our people long for a
country in which our tremendous potentials as a nation are transparently and
equitably nurtured and realized a country in which law reigns supreme, and is
applied evenly and equally to all, high and low.
“For our constituents,
there is no alternative to the democratic project. What they dread, and will
never want, is a nation trammeled by impunity, brigandage, banditry,
insurgency, rampant corruption, and mis-governance.
“These expectations
perfectly dovetail into our core constitutional mandate of making laws for the
good government of our federation, and all of its parts.”
Mark lamented that the
2015 general election was still two years away, some “political jobbers,
sycophants, and hustlers have prematurely seized the political space, and are
being allowed to set the tone of national discourse.”
He described the development as an “unnecessary and avoidable distraction by characters or hirelings who are desperately in search of relevance
No comments:
Post a Comment