Settling accounts with SNC

By 

Edwin Madunagu

IT is time to settle accounts with the Sovereign National Conference, or SNC, a concept we articulated about a decade ago with much rigour and faith but which, since President Olusegun Obasanjo came to office in 1992, has been systematically subjected to unprincipled revisions, abuses and opportunistic appropriation. While admitting my own contribution to this unfortunate situation, namely, that I did not vigorously oppose certain revisions to the concept when they were made, I have to also state that I have waited for a very long time and with increasing embarrassment for the signal, that is, the ripe situation, to do a fundamental review. The signal came via Odia Ofeimun's article: "Bola Ige owner of the game. Odia managed to ridicule the very concept of SNC. I was embarrassed and angry. But then, the man was right. I should be angry with myself for failing to settle this question, at least for myself, before now. To settle accounts with SNC is to review its origin, concept and development, as well as my views and positions on the subject over time. The final act, of course, is the production of a balance sheet, that is, the articulation of a new position. That is what I ought to do; but with the turbulence, called Nigeria, and its reflection in our brains, I doubt if I can fully succeed.

I take readers back to June 1992: that is, a little less than nine years ago, 14 months before General Ibrahim Babangida "stepped out" of office, 17 months before General Sani Abacha came to power and about two years before the formation of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). That was when I wrote a three-part article on the Sovereign National Conference (SNC): For a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) (The Guardian, June 25, 1992); SNC and flashpoints of discontent, (The Guardian, July 2, 1992; and Organising the SNC (The Guardian, July 9, 1992). This dating is very important because many people believe or pretend that the call for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) was started by NADECO under the regime of Sani Abacha. The campaign started in the first half of 1990 as a reaction to two political events: the retirement and humiliation of General Domkat Bali by General Babangida and the armed uprising led by Major Gideon Orka. When the campaign was started most of the current advocates of SNC preferred the call for "power shift" or "southern president". When it was clear Abacha would frustrate the latter campaign by all means, the campaigners joined the campaign for SNC; but the death of Abacha re-invigorated the campaign for "power shift". When the realisation of the latter through Obasanjo was not satisfactory, the campaigners returned one leg to SNC.

In the first of the 1992 articles cited above I defined the historical conjuncture for a sovereign national conference: "A Sovereign National Conference becomes the only viable historical option, not at all times, but precisely at those points in a nation's history when a crisis, signifying the bankruptcy of a social order or an existing political structure, cannot be resolved by either the existing state or by any other partial coalition of forces". This formulation still reflects my view, although I would, today, introduce some other concepts and illustrations to make it clearer and more robust. The point I was trying to make is this: A Sovereign National Conference (SNC) emerges seriously and legitimately in a nation's political agenda when the incumbent regime is no longer able to govern the way it had been doing, and is unable or unwilling to change course; when the opposition is unwilling to allow the regime to continue to govern the way it had been doing; and when neither of the two sides is able to destroy or supplant the other. If any of these three elements is absent in a political conjuncture, then any talk of a sovereign national conference is either a huge joke or a grand deception.

You cannot continue to support and sustain an existing political and social order, enjoying privileges and concessions therefrom, planning to enhance your positions in an expected future elections within that order and then expect people to take your call for a sovereign national conference seriously. A sovereign national conference is a product of serious national crisis, it is a serious political stalemate. It is not something you proclaim on waking up from a peaceful slumber or after an orgy of drinking. It is not a subject of a routine departmental seminar, or a big lecture by a big individual on a big occasion. One test of the ripeness of a sovereign national conference is the alternative to such a conference. Put differently, the choice is not between a sovereign national conference and a national conference that is not sovereign. The choice is between a sovereign national conference and disintegration (Soviet Union or Yugoslavia) or anarchy (Somalia or Liberia). Put differently, again, if it is practically possible to decide between a sovereign conference and a national conference that is not sovereign, then the call for the former should be considered a joke.

What, in fact, does the word sovereign connote in the concept of sovereign national conference? To answer this question, let me paraphrase the relevant section of my 1992 article: A Sovereign National Conference (SNC) must not be confused with a Constituent Assembly. The latter is normally put in place by an incumbent government under its own rules. On the contrary, a Sovereign National Conference is self-constituted and, while it lasts, it is superior to any other political institution in the land, including the incumbent government. I may now ask: If a Sovereign National Conference is superior to the incumbent government, how can its decisions be edited or revised by the incumbent government? Indeed, one of the necessary products of a Sovereign National Conference is a new government. This makes sense because a Sovereign National Conference is a statement of the contradictory positions occupied by both the incumbent government and the opposition: The incumbent government says: "I can no longer govern but I shall not vacate office for the opposition", while the opposition says: "I cannot allow you to continue to rule the way you have been doing; but unfortunately I am unable to overthrow you". And both sides say: "Let us sit down and talk".

A Sovereign National Conference (SNC), as originally conceived in Nigeria, is not a Conference of Nationalities (CN). It is a conference of Nigerians, first, as Nigerians and then as representatives of social groups of which ethnic nationalities constitute a very strategic fraction. Why is SNC not reducible to CN? Because Nigeria is today not a union of ethnic groups even if was in the past, which I doubt. Apart from the impossibility of resolving the Nigerian population into ethnic components ñ acceptable to all there are thousands of Nigerian institutions which, being truly national, cannot be separated ethnically. Where then do you place these institutions in a Conference of Nationalities which, if sovereign, will determine the fate of all including the national institutions? It pains me that many of my comrades in the marxist movement are involved in this reduction of Sovereign National Conference to a Conference of Nationalities. For the avoidance of doubt I am not saying that a Conference of Nationalities is not desirable although I shall not attend if it is constituted. All I am saying is that there is a world of difference between the two and that a Conference of Nationalities cannot be Sovereign for a simple reason: it cuts off a big section of Nigeria, namely, the Nigerian institutions.

Other questions connected with SNC, such as organisation and structure, mode of representation and mechanism of composition, agenda and tenure, etc., do not concern us here. We are concerned in this article only with the fundamental question, namely, the status of a Sovereign National Conference, and hence its location in the balance of power. If you dismiss this article as unrealistic, then forget about a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) and continue with routine and more "realistic", issues, such as, the politics of re-election and the fake "national conference" being proposed by the federal government.

Madunagu is of the University of Calabar