9th December, 2013
ADEMOLA ADEGBAMIGBE
The Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue is expected to submit its report later this week to President Goodluck Jonathan.
But the Senator Femi Okunrounmu-led body has failed to reach a consensus.
A minority report will therefore be submitted to the President by a member of the committee, Chief Solomon Asemota, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
His disagreement with the committee is noted in his separate letters to President Goodluck Jonathan and Professor Ben Nwabueze (Asemota replaced him on the committe when, as a result of ill health or old age, he did not participate).
In his letter, dated 6 December, 2013, Asemota told Jonathan that he had to forward the report to him because it was rejected by the committee and was not intended to be included in the report.
“I am not in any doubt that the committee’s jurisdiction does not extend to rejection of a minority report and the issue would not have arisen if the Chairman was willing to take the opinion of a senior lawyer in the committee into consideration”, he wrote.
Also in his letter dated 2 December to Nwabueze, Asemota complained that all his attempts to make the Committee listen to his viewpoints failed and only some some experts ideas were accepted.
In fact, he said the Committee chairman never raised the matter of his (Asemota’s) Draft Bill. And when Asemota said he had changed his position from representation on zonal to senatorial district, he was ignored.
“As a result of these developments, I came to the conclusion that some of us were invited to promote viewpoints that are contrary to my conscience and learning,” Asemota complained.
Worse still, when an experts’ list was being compiled, Asemota nominated Professor Onigu Otite but he was dropped. When Asemota volunteered to bear the cost, Otite was accepted but frustrated by the committee.
Asemota further said he submitted the report in order to provide an alternative viewpoint, that those who speak for ethnic nationalities are true representatives of the people and not agents of some godfathers, to stop the violence of what he called “the invicible power bloc” and to satisfy his conscience.
As reported by Vanguard today, the majority report (Okunrounmu’s) contains certain steps to be taken.
First, President Goodluck Jonathan is to nominate 120 members to the conference. If senatorial districts are used, there may, according to the report, not be more than 300 elected delegates as the committee had already recommended nomination of 120 by the President.
On the other hand, if federal constituencies are used, there will be 580 delegates to be elected.
Another aspect of the majority report is the recommendaion that Jonathan should forward an executive bill to the National Assembly for constitutional amendment to allow the incorporation of referendum in the constitution “to enable issues and outcomes of the proposed National Dialogue be subject of a referendum.”
However, the Asemota report presents some alternative positions.
On the matter of referendum, he writes that it has been suggested to the Advisory Committee by experts that except for situations as may arise in section 8(1b) and 8(3b) of the 1999 Constitution, referendum defined “as action taken when people in order to make a decision about a particular subject rather than voting for a person”, cannot be used without further amendment to the Constitution.
He puts his foot down: “I find it difficult to accept this view point; rather it is my view that referendum can be used without amending the Constitution.”
Sovereignty, as he submits, belongs to the people under Section 14 (2) of the Constitution and it will be wrong to suggest that the people’s decisions cannot be sought in a referendum except permitted under the Constitution. “This suggests that sovereignty belongs to the Constitution and not the people.”
On whether in the draft bill, it should be stated that decisions of the conference shall be subjected to referendum, some members have suggested that the question of referendum should be left for the conference to decide and thus the law should be silent on it. He argues: “I find it difficult to align myself with this view because several meanings could be read as to why this aspect was omitted and this will not be helpful to the Conference.”
Asemota, in his minority report, argues further: “One is opposed to universal adult suffrage proposed by the Majority Report notwithstanding the fact that the proposed Conference is intended to produce a democratic Constitution. The fact remains that the committee did not articulate who should nominate the delegates and with the challenges which INEC presently has, it would be unsafe to saddle that body with a nebulous function of electing members to the National Conference.” The question of referendum is, according to him, easy in that Nigerians as a whole, as registered voters, would be called upon to answer a Yes or No question in order to approve a new Constitution.
“In any case, if the National Assembly refuses to pass the Bill into law, or decides to tinker with the conclusion of the committee, then it behoves the peoples of Nigeria to demand that they must have the final say,” he maintains.
On the matter of nomination, Asemota favours that ethnic considerations must be brought to bear.
The President, according to Asemota, may be asked to consider these nationalities while considering his nominations to the Conference specially because while some Ethnic Nationalities will have as many as 45 members in the Conference, some 42 other Ethnic Nationalities will not be represented. The more logical thing to do, as he put it, “is to reduce the number of the big three to accommodate some of these nationalities.”
He actually emphasised the importance of ethnicity if Nigeria is to move forward.
In his words: “Ethnicity has defied various negative acts designed to eliminate it such as Indirect Rule (British bluff), tripod mentality i.e. (Nigeria regarded as being built on three Nationalities, Hausa/Fulani, lbo and Yoruba) and the act of promoting violence among Ethnic Nationalities such as the case of Ijaws and Itsekiris. It must be pointed out with respect to Indirect Rule that traditional aristocracy has never been oriented towards the productive aspect of social life; they only emphasize the distributive dimension and promote the use of ethnicity and ethnic conflict to divide minorities in Nigeria. As a man is born into a family so is he born as a member of an ethnic group and this membership is unchangeable unlike citizenship that can be changed at will. Therefore, nobody should plan to wipe out any Ethnic Nationality.”
He argues further that although indirect rule weakened ethnic groups, it also helped to preserve Ethnic Nationalities’ corporate existence. Indirect rule, as he put it, divided the Ethnic Nationalities and helped to weaken their solidarity in order to ensure that they were more effectively subjugated. In his words: “In spite of this however, in almost all the centres visited, Ethnic Nationalities trooped out to demand that the conference should be Ethnic Nationalities based. No one should deny them this opportunity.”
On why he favours selection, Asemota said in most Nationalities of Nigeria, selection processes are conducted to choose rulers and representatives and in any case, elections in present day Nigeria are fraught with corruption. “Members of the same family know themselves, so too members of the larger family (Ethnic Nationalities). Selection by the listed Ethnic organizations in the Draft Bill is preferred. As a result the best of Ethnic Nationalities representatives are most likely to emerge.”
Among other things, Asemota says it is wrong to say that Nigerian unity is “not negotiable.’ Nigerian unity, according to him, is not only negotiable but must indeed be re-negotiated for it to stand or survive the test of time. The reality over the years remains that in spite of the best efforts of all our leaders past or present, Nigerian unity is not guaranteed. It is simply, at best, an aspiration and not yet an achievement, said he.
Then he sounds a note of warning: “Many Nigerians are losing the dream of a united Nigeria because of the obstinate resistance of a few to any idea of reform or restructure of the country. This indeed is dangerous to Nigeria’s survival as one nation. However, history teaches us that those who make reforms impossible make revolution inevitable. Many Nigerians love their country, but forced to choose, they would choose their liberty/freedom.”