The national conference
By
THE reason why the military failed Nigerians is because of what has become known as the Nigerian thing. The Nigerian thing made Biafra fail, made Babangida annul the June 12, 1993 elections, made Abacha loot the treasury. The Nigerian thing has to do with compromise, has to do with lack of principle, has to do with corruption. The civilians lacked principle and the soldiers claimed that they were better. One soldier after the other claimed to have principle and one after the other each soldier claimant failed until when we got to Abacha who made no pretence to be better than anyone before him and just did what he wanted to do.
Now, some people have found that if there is a national conference, the Nigerian thing will go away. At no time does anyone ask the fundamental question: how will a national conference end corruption, lack of principle, settlement, 419? And another question that no-one is prepared to answer: what about the people who benefit from the present system which you want to conference into oblivion forever? Have you been able to convince them that what you are going to put in the place of the Nigerian thing will benefit them? Have you spelt it out how it will benefit them? If they do not agree with you that your solution is not obvious to them then they will not participate in your conference. Everywhere when there has been a successful national conference, those who want it have been able to distance themselves from those who do not want it because the government in power had garnered so much disapproval both locally and internationally that it is about changing that government, not just conferencing for the sake of conferencing. Do we wish to replace the present government? Those who want the national conference will say no. What do we want? We want to control our own resources. All of us want this? There are whose who say that the resources belong to everybody corralled into what the British called Nigeria. But is the control of resources the cause of the Nigerian thing?
Let us turn that popular poem by Bretcht upside down. Questions from a worker who reads: The military governments of Nigeria failed Nigerians. Did they fail alone? Did civil servants work with them? Gowon broke his promise to return to the barracks. Did he break the promise alone? Where were his speech writers? Buhari betrayed his pledge: who else made the pledge with him? Babangida annulled the elections. Were there no academics with him? Abacha looted the treasury? Who carted the money away for him and with him?
There are fundamental questions raised by the persistence of the Nigerian thing. Who is responsible for this persistence? Is it possible to allocate responsibilities? I do not think so. Such an exercise would simply deteriorate into witch-hunt and will not achieve a thing. Why is this Nigerian thing persistent in Nigeria? I ask in Nigeria because when Nigerians go to other places where the infrastructure orders their movements and their behaviour they do without the Nigerian thing and make their contribution to the place where they are resident. Why does the Nigerian thing persist in Nigeria? How will holding a national conference, sovereign or not, begin to address the Nigerian thing?
The Nigerian thing is not simply political. It is economic. It is cultural. It is philosophical. The politics of it and of the whole country would not solve it alone. And those who are advocating a national conference are in the same situation as those who thought that the military will solve the Nigerian thing, who thought that one particular soldier, Gowon, Murtala, Obasanjo, Buhari, Babangida, Abacha, will resolve the Nigerian thing. No-one action or person can resolve the Nigerian thing. Soldiers found out. Biafrans found out. Those who are touting a national conference will also find out.
This continuous advocacy without any attempt to deal with the objections of those who do not support the national conference, reminds one, of those days when we were all running around in the rain, washing our bodies, running from one sloping roof to another until one of us excuses himself to go somewhere. When asked where, he says I am going to the urinary. But we have all assumed all the time that when we showered under the rain, we simply peed on ourselves because that is the occasion for such a thing! We cannot pretend that we have all in our different positions made it difficult to do away with what defines Nigeria. We have made it impossible to tease out other alternative values that should define the country.
We have made it impossible to construct an infrastructural environment that would direct our behaviour in such a way that we would not err on the side of compromise, act without principle and maintain the other Nigerian thing. The argument about the waste that accompanies having a ministry of agriculture and setting up an operation feed the nation has been ignored, the waste suggested by having a ministry of information and setting up the mass mobilisation project is ignored. What this means is that we do pretend that one of these institutions will do half the work. If operation feed the nation succeeded why do we have such expensive food items in the markets? If operation mass mobilisation worked, why are we today finding ourselves in distinct ethnic laagers? If the Nigerian thing was not growing stronger and stronger why is it that state governments would abandon the police system and engage the services of armed vigilante groups to help them to keep law and order? If the Nigerian thing was not robust, how would a senior police officer be at once and the same time be a major officer in the ranks of criminals Will a national conference check this?
If the present crop of local council members, members of the various houses of assemblies, national representatives in the house of representatives and senators in senate cannot confer about our national problems including control of national resources, no newly selected, elected, Nigerians can do it.
December 2001