BY SONI DANIEL, REGIONAL EDITOR, NORTH

NOW, all eyes are on the opening of the 2014 National Conference, which has been dubbed by some Nigerians as “Jonathan’s” Confab. But it does not really matter what  appellation it is given, what is of paramount interest to most Nigerians is what it is out to achieve.

Expectations are high that the delegates can use the forum to change some fundamental aspects of the Nigerian constitution and put the nation on a better legal footing.  Many have dismissed the confab as a sheer waste of time and resources and a calculated plan by President Goodluck Jonathan to buy the delegates for his re-election next year.

Although Jonathan has not formally declared his intention to run for a second term in 2015, all indications point to the fact that he has begun the groundwork, using his nationwide consultations with key natural and religious leaders and mass rallies to prepare the grounds for eventual declaration of his political interest.

It seems also clear that although many Nigerians, who support Jonathan’s re-election don’t see anything wrong with the appointment of most of the delegates by the Presidency and some governors, the action does not speak well of a democratically elected President.

Many argue that the path taken by Jonathan in the selection of the delegates deviates substantially from established democratic norms that have shaped other democracies around the world.
It is even said that the late General Sani Abacha regime considered as the most despotic in the history of Nigeria, selected most of the 371 delegates to the 1994/95 National Constitutional Conference via keenly contested election.

A member of the Abacha Conference, Prof Ango Abdullahi and former Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, says he had expected that the delegates to the present conference would emerge through an election to broaden the base for the various ethnic nationalities to be fairly represented.

Abdullahi, who is the current leader of the Northern Elders’ Forum and his Deputy, Dr. Paul Unongo, disagree with the selection of most of the delegates by the President and his associates, saying that the conference would only do the bidding of Mr. President to the detriment of the wider issues affecting the nation.

The NEF leader said: “The implication of selecting the delegates instead of allowing them to be elected is that we don’t have a true representation of the people of Nigeria. We are only going to have a meeting of people selected by Mr. President to act his script and whatever the script we will know when they finish and write their resolutions.”

Beyond the selection of delegates by the Presidency and governors, the timeframe of the conference has also been pegged at three months while the Abachi conference lasted for a year.
The time constraint, according to another delegate to the Abacha confab and former Minister of Petroleum, Prof Jubril Aminu, is that not much of the fundamental constitutional issues affecting Nigeria can be tackled.

Late Sani Abacha

“I think that the proponents of the current conference also know that it cannot possibly have the same significance as some of the preceding ones, where people were elected through election and given one year to deliberate on sundry issues of national importance.

“So, I don’t think it is logical to expect a three-month conference with no election and limited time to be able to accomplish what an elected one could do. If you look at the previous one, there were no restriction and they had a whole year to work, but in the current one, there are no-go areas and the time is just three months to do the job,” Aminu noted.

Again, while the Abacha conference did not constrain the delegates to certain issues, the Jonathan’s confab has already restricted the delegates to certain areas and warned them not to discuss the issue of Nigeria’s unity.
In other words, those who had been nursing the idea of Nigeria’s break-up into regions or federations have been shut out of the confab and they cannot even raise the issue because a red flag has already been placed on it by the convener of the talk shop.

This is also one of the major reasons the President rejected outright the advocacy of the Sovereign National Conference, which has the force of law of some sort. The outcome of the current talks is expected to be subjected to the endorsement of the National Assembly; a development that many believe may lead to the rejection of the recommendations.