On Babangida’s Doctrine of Nigeria’s Settled Issues

By

Nasiru Suwaid

nasirusuwaid@gmail.com

This is what I referred to as Doctrine of Nigeria’s Settled Issues. Number one, I don’t want every one of us to tamper with anything to do with Nigerian unity. Number two, republican constitution is also a settled issue, more or less. Number three, the states are the federating units of this country and number four, we are a capitalist country.”--- General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida

   As I went out into the city of Kano, I could see in the eyes of its inhabitants a sense of fear, foreboding and a feeling of abandonment. For a population that has never witnessed the devastating ills of war, objects of wanton destruction like bombs are only seen but never heard, except, may be in the much maligned genre of American films. Thus, when such a people encountered an invasion by a group of faceless individuals, it virtually left the city on its knees, petulantly gasping for breath as to who or what is a Boko Haram. Meanwhile, the streets became eerily quiet, as people like me who have never hidden their disdain for the extortion activities of the Nigerian police, for once, fervently prayed for such harassment to become my fate, indeed, even the counter-productive permanence of Federal Road Safety Commission marshals, those seat belt enforcement warriors suddenly became invisible in the public space, as such, it is only in their barracks and roads leading to the fortresses, could I make the sighting of our constitutionally required protectors.

   It is also within this period of extreme un-certainty, a consensus is seemingly coalescing into a tangible agreement, on the necessity and desirability of Nigerians finding a common forum for discussion, about the terms of our co-existence as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious entity, which is able to satisfy the yearnings and aspirations of its mutually contradictory populace. Perhaps, because of the evident reality staring everybody on the face, that the Nigeria project is glaringly not working, as every segment of the society is crying over the inadequacies of the imperiled union, from the fringe elements and individual groups barely acknowledging the legitimacy of Nigerian state, to those that question the legal existence of the much harangued amalgam with insurgency activities. Yet, even the establishment figures known to have benefited from the system and who would most likely be more comfortable with the maintenance of the status quo, have suddenly joined the bandwagon and could easily be mistaken for petulant reformist activist.

   Indeed, it is within the premise of this expectation that I jumped for joy, when I heard that the Minna uphill General has finally accepted the necessity for a National Conference, on which he pledged his participation in the epoch opportunity for a holistic national discussion. However, as with everything with the only military president in the checkered history of Nigerian political leadership, he set up certain barriers upon which such talks must meet, appropriately calling them the Doctrine of Nigeria’s Settled Issues, which are areas that should not be questioned or examined in the conference, as the citizens of this country have already settled on those issues. Thus, areas like Nigerian unity, republican constitution, states as federating units and capitalism as the only viable economic model of governance, should not be subjected to an enquiry on their applicability in the Nigeria union. Meanwhile, it is during the period a consensus seems to be forming within the country, calling for regionally combustible groups to take the option of a National Congregational Talks, to seek relief for their various causes, as the avenue of such an assembly should be adequate to satisfy the uncontrollable craving for a reform of the system.

   It is on the premises of such a mindset, the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference seems imminent, with all the delegate parties being men and individuals of violence, adopting and maintaining absolutist positions, which is having my way or the nation should go to the blazes. For the Boko Haram, it is about the adoption of the supremacy of Sharia Legal System, from the arid fringes of Northern Nigeria down to the dense creeks of the Southern Nigeria. The Niger-Delta militants believed in the essential context of derivation, which is a hundred percent fiscal devolution of powers to the regions, while the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, could not fathom the fulfillment of the dream of a South Easterner, within the expansive canopy of the Nigerian state. The Odua People’s Congress believes in the absolutist plot of the attainment of a true federation, where the centre would be a very weak entity as in the first republic, virtually deriving its functions and powers from a varying disparate regions, indeed this concept of federalism does not foresee the existence of states as the second tier of government. For my Middle-Belt brethren of the North-Central of Nigeria, their conference begins and ends with the minorities attaining full rights against ostracism.

   But, the concept of a Sovereign National Conference, indeed, any Delegates conference proclaimed to provide an avenue, for a holistic discussion on the terms of existence of various component parts of a nation, requires an atmosphere of calmness, upon which each component unit makes it just demands on the union. While the other segment component units, try to agree or counter the demand proposal, which finally coalesce into either an agreement on a re-structured union or an agreement to disagree, on the need for the component units to continue to live as a single national entity.