As Nigeria’s proposed National Conference draws nearer, individuals are looking at areas that the 492 delegates to the conference should focus on, as they are relevant to the development of the nation with huge deposit of natural resources.
The Director General, West African Institute For Financial Economic Management, Professor Akpan Ekpo and the former president Nigerian Institute of Architecture and African Union of Architect, Mr Charles Majoroh, held a conversation with Channels Television on Saturday, on expectations of the National Conference.
They pointed out that the number of participants should not be the issue to worry about. “The issue should be the essence of having the conference,” they said.
Professor Ekpo suggested that the conference should focus more on issues relating to the decentralisation of power in Nigeria in order for all the regions to witness needed development.
He said that the conference was coming at the right time, insisting that Nigerians need to discuss how they should be governed.
“Since the amalgamation 100 years ago, it is about time we sit down and say what are the challenges and also look at how we can make this union work?
“What should we do to make it work? That should be the core of this conference.
“The three-month period is good enough. Once you agree on the principles and how to make the system work, I am sure that every other thing will fall in place,” he said.
National Unit And Exclusive List
Professor Ekpo stressed that Nigeria’s federal structure was not properly implemented and that it was a deviation from the true Federal System of Government.
“The core issue that we want to be together, how do we make it work?” He questioned.
The issue of national unity has been ruled out of the discussions by the government, but Professor Ekpo said that it would be indirectly looked at, as it was necessary for the federating unit to agree that they should stay together.
“Years back, there were regions, and the regions worked. It will be discussed in a way that it will remain one. We don’t discuss that Nigeria should break. People only want to opt out when they feel deprived. The issues should be how to make these things work.”
He explained that the exclusive list of the first republic had fewer items than what Nigeria had currently.
“The centre is too strong and discussion should centre on how power should be devolved to the federating units so they can operate on their own. People want to see development in their area and what we have now cannot do that.
“If you look at the time where regions were competitive and building on their own, look at the north, and the west, you will see what they achieved during that era with revenue generated from non-oil resources,” Professor Akpo insisted.
National Conference Institutionalisation
Mr Majoroh called for the institutionalisation of the National Conference.
“The issue of conference should be institutionalised. Every 10 years, Nigeria should meet and have a discussion.
“It should be either in the constitution on the way we should be doing things. Let the expectations be limited knowing that the discussion will hold in 10 years.
“At every conference we will look at what agreements that was reached in the last conference and look at the achievements.
“We need to have a National Conference Commission that is totally apolitical, that will plan the next national conference and in five years they will value what we have done now and see how to build the next 10 years.
“The minorities, who feel abused and aggrieved, will know that they will be able to ventilate their grievances in the next 10 years. A lot of ethno-religious crisis will die down if people know that they are going to talk,” he explained.
He also pointed out that the three-month period was enough for the conference to hold and reach agreement, insisting that the information needed to execute the conference was already available.
“Most of the facts that are going to be used in the conference are already available in the archive. It is just that People are lazy in searching. If we search, all that needs to be said about the grievances, the multi-lingua and ethnic issues have already been documented,” Mr Majoroh said.
Fiscal Federalism
He called on the delegates to also consider the issue of Fiscal Federalism, insisting that “there is need for a serious look at the monthly division of money that takes place in Abuja”.
“People go with the begging bowl every month to be doled out money. There are many other areas of revenue that can be tapped by the states that have been left untouched just because of the easy money that is coming from oil. Therefore, there is anxiety from the oil producing areas that in 40 years’ time they will have nothing to do. Their environment is polluted, there is flaring of gas and nobody is saying anything about that,” he further pointed out.
He urged Nigerian politicians to stay away from the National Conference and focus on their campaign ahead of the 2015 elections, as serious issues that were affecting the nation would be discussed.
