NIGERIA WHICH WAY

 NPSG, STATESMEN, LEADERS OF THOUGHT, EMINENT NIGERIANS UNVEIL AGENDA OF NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL CONFAB ON THE FUTURE OF NIGERIA

Professor Patrick Utomi

Being the text of a press conference held by national organising committee led by prof. pat utomi on the multi stakeholders' national political reforms dialogue on the future of nigeria scheduled to hold on thursday, 12th may, 2022 in abuja

Gentlemen of the Press,

Let me begin by appreciating your taking the trouble on this public holiday to join us as we try to provide some more information on the very important constitutional reform dialogue we are convening in Abuja on May 12.

Nigeria is at a crossroads. Some are warming up for 2023 elections. Others believe the Nigeria project has collapsed for all intents and purposes. Even for those running for office many do not seem to have their hands wrapped around the issues of how we can continue to live together in a way that advances the common good.

The patriots' challenge here is to stimulate rational public conversation by stakeholders on the issues that affect the constitutional future of Nigeria so that those who seek power, confronted by the extant existential challenge between life and death may see enough light to choose life that we may live..

The journey to this dialogue began more than two years ago on October 1 when we convened a dialogue to heal the wounds of Nigeria, and invited seventy accomplished elder statesmen from Alhaji Ahmed Joda, to Chief Mbazulike Amaechi, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, Chief Edwin Clark, Mallam Tanko Yakassai, Prof Ango Abdullahi and Professor Isawa Elaigwu to reflect on the Nigeria journey and suggest answers to the Quo Vadis question as Sony Okosuns more clearly put it in song ‘Which way Nigeria. I want to know. ‘ 

The fact that the virtual dialogue was a watershed conclave flowed from the point that we invited 70 and ended up with nearly 120, as many concerned statesmen called to say they wanted to lend their voices to the call for national rebirth through a reworking of the grand norm, which seemed so fatally flawed.

The tone was set by Alhaji Ahmed Joda’s opening keynote which tracked the evolution of how we have lived together from colonial times to the current dysfunctions that make the current state a  drag on progress.. From Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, Dr Uma Eleazu, Falalu Bello, Dr Judaid Mohammed, Dr Kunle Olajide , Kema Chikwe, Hadjia Inna Ciroma, Dr Kalu Idika Kalu, Prof Attahiru Jega and others added their voices to the urgent need for constitution making dialogue to begin, lest the worry about equity, fairness and Justice result in withdrawal of support for the Nigerian social compact.

Last year we at the NCF in conjunction with the NPSG set up a committee to go to work on drafting a new constitution to place in the public arena for debate. With leadership from Olisa Agbakoba, Hakeem Baba Ahmed and Rev. Fr George Ehusani and Senator Mike Ajegbo, we have hoped to provide hope to a people on the verge of despair and give our country a chance to rise up again.

As I prepared for this press conference, yesterday, I spoke with Chief Emeka Anyaoku  who is currently out of the country but wanted me to know of his full support of this future of Nigerian constitution Dialogue, he reminded me that since 2000 up till his last public remarks a few week ago at Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi’s launch of his autobiography,  he has continued to track Nigeria’s underperformance and failed dreams to the challenged constitution the system is made to operate. 

Our primary goal is to hear the voices of all, President, Vice President, opposition, faith leaders and royal fathers, youth and the grassroots. National unity in shared goals is the prime driver of our motives.

There is no question now with the state of anomie that we have been plunged into, the economic reversals we suffer, which have made unemployment our emblem and poverty capital of the world our title, about the imperative of carrying  out surgery on the document and agreement of how we associate. The urgency of constitutional reform cannot be overstated. 

Even those who failed to act because they coveted the personal advantage from state capture in operating the flawed Grand Norm, can see from where they are now trapped that they too have become victims  Who can want their watch to be seen as total failure. None I would dare say. It is ultimately a lose- lose paradox that only truth and a sense of Justice and fairness can make sustainably positive.

This has been obvious for a long time but those who arrive in power under the steam of the extant document,  even when they campaigned to reform it, find the allure of State Capture too tempting for the benefits of abuse of institutions of government for personal gain to remember the truth they spoke the day before. They then conveniently turn a blind eye to the truth they earlier professed,  They thus live in untruth. Sadly, our national crisis now is a crisis of untruth. 

This untruth has become an open sore upon which gangrene is about to set in. To avoid the amputation that is consequent upon the next stage of this disease we must apply the only medicine that can heal it, which is the truth. Just like Conscience is an open wound and only truth can heal it,  Nigeria’s existential crisis of now can only be healed by truth seen from the prism of the dignity of the human person and the purging from all of a willful desire to dominate others which is the root of fascism..

The search for truth as elixir demands, for example, that we ask questions about how we structure policing to checkmate the descent to the state of nature, where life is brutish and short. 

2. It will be foolhardy to seek progress without rethinking LGAs as the level of government closest to the people. Many like myself have argued they should be structured as economic development areas and not political drain pipes. That we enthrone

3. A general spirit of devolution of powers and greater accountability that should make public office the domain of sacrificial citizen action to advance the common good rather than the terrain of graft, goal displacement in which private goals shuffle out public ones, and the place of unbridled narcissism . We learn from one of the finest political scientists Nigeria has produced, Peter Ekeh, how this phenomenon manifests in his seminal essay, the two publics. And

4. Where we are agreed that democracy is our way, our conversation should ensure an electoral commission that is selected in a way that assures its fairness and making sure that the tyrannies of majorities are checked in minority rights protection, basic fairness and accommodation of one another, respecting the universal and inalienable dignity of the human person held sacred and codified into the document of transfer of personal rights and Liberties we call a constitution.

So, we plan to bring to the public view, work that has been ongoing, by reviewing the output of previous political reform conferences. With inputs from eminent stakeholders, many of who have affirmed participation, we can get a draft to the Nigerian people for use to question candidates running for public office in this election cycle. 

Our hope and prayer is that the healing of truth will stir our country from its presentlyfallen state and cause dry bones to arise and walk.

Signed

Patrick Okedinachi Utomi Prof)

Chairman, National Planning Committee for the Nigerian Political Summit Group, and Chairman of NCFront