Resource control jams national conference

Resource control jams national conference

The request for Resource Control and the demand for the convocation of a National Conference recently received disparate government responses. President Olusegun Obasanjo first gave his attention to the former by declaring in Yenagoa, capital of Bayelsa State, last April that Resource Control variables were the genesis of the Nigerian Civil War (July 6, 1967 — January 12, 1970).

This presidential declaration of Yenagoa, unnecessarily contains a veiled threat of the use of force. In actual fact, he has introduced what, in logic, is called the argumentum ad baculum to the resource control debate. The first citizen has subtly resorted to the threat of the use of war again in the land as was done between 1967 and 1970 to contain a rebellion, if ultimately, a similar rebellion becomes the last resort of the newly accentuated resource control pressure. Such threats usually expose the threat-giver as being at his wit’s end.

Albeit, the declaration that resource control struggles were the root cause of the Civil War is only correct to a degree, not all the way. For example, the agitation for the creation of the Mid-Western Region was speedily heeded in 1963 by the central authorities because bulkanisation in order to weaken the opposition Western Region was considered a desirable deed. Even though, a similar agitation for a Niger-Delta Region to be carved out of the defunct Eastern Region was not only speedily put down, its lead-proponent, the late Isaac Adaka Boro, a brilliant former University of Nigeria Students’ Union leader, had to be charged with treason in 1965. The agitation he led was seen by the Federal Government as a ruse to take-over the control of the great crude oil deposit of the Niger-Delta. Because as easily as the West controlled her cocoa resources, the North her groundnut, the East the palm oil and the Mid-West her rubber, Isaac Boro’s Niger-Delta would have had the control of the crude oil resources constitutionally. Mr. Boro eventually fell at the battlefront of the Nigerian Civil War. But resource control agitations continue to date.

The truth of it all is that many grievances combined to cause the Civil War. The most undeserving of extenuation being the January 1966 coup, followed by a counter-coup six months later, with the attendant pogrom and the retreat of Easterners to their ancestral tents where the consciousness of a large deposit of crude oil, bolstered the resolve for separatism and secession. But there remains a common denominator – the resource control. It has vicariously devoured Isaac Adaka Boro, plus a million Biafrans and lately Ken Saro-Wiwa with several fellow minority rights activists. Yet the high casualty rate, rather than diminishing the pressure for resource control has only heightened it. Activism and advocacy are on the ascendancy. The Odi massacre is a testimony. The problem has not been solved. It cannot be wished away in a fit of self-delusory escapism.

At the end of the day the numerous containment tactics devised and unleashed repeatedly only portend radicalism of the social psyche, thereby breeding a radicalism, in the broader sense, of a disposition to challenge established views in any field whatsoever, not just as concerns resources.

Then enters the Mother of all Agitations – for a National Conference – and, commendably the President has dropped his opposition to its convocation: that we may debate the basis of our continued existence as a nation. The military had done their bit by fashioning a Constitution with which the democratic journey could begin. Unfortunately, the 1999 Constitution may not be able to do much more than that because it has been found to be riddled with so many contradictions that have rendered it unsuitable as the vehicle to the promised land of a united, prosperous and peaceful country.

One of its greatest failings is that it has spawned a unitary system that denies the constituent parts of the requisite autonomy that qualifies Nigeria as a Federation – as enshrined in the Independence (1960) and Republican (1963) Constitutions. This expurgation of autonomy by makers of the Military Constitution of Nigeria 1999 will forever favour the largest constituent part to monopolise Abuja, leading others by the nose, for better, for worse, which indeed has made the 1999 Constitution Nigeria’s greatest recipe for endless agitations and instability.

The position, stridently affirmed by the National Assembly and the Presidency that talks on the nation’s future would trigger crisis in the polity is unfounded. It is sweeping the genuine desires of the people under the carpet that prepares the ground for a grand unmanageable national upheaval. The claim that the 1999 Constitution has conferred sovereignty on the elected representatives which is sacrosanct is simply self-serving, and must be dropped. Because the 1999 statute book on which they hang their hope, does not claim its authority from the people of Nigeria by the fact that it was enacted by a few privileged military men who came to power by usurping the rights of the people.

In all fairness, that Constitution has served a good purpose by being the vehicle through which the military midwifed the Obasanjo Transitional Government. However the authority of this military Constitution wanes by the further we move away from May 29, 1999 and gradually approaches the limit of its legal value. Therefore to foresee and arrest the real crisis with unmitigated disaster for Nigeria, it has become inevitable for the people of Nigeria to come together for a National Conference and agree democratically on a Constitution by the people and for the people of Nigeria.