*Insists the concept of ‘oil producing state’ is a misnomer
Dr. Usman Bugaje was a member of the House of Representatives and a former National Secretary of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). He offers a perspective on the on-going National Conference.

Our fears are confirmed
The sordid origin of the President’s National Conference is too well known to warrant any further commentary. As if to confirm all our fears, the President’s nomination has not only dominated the membership of the conference but it has shown clearly his preferences and his proclivities. If anybody was in doubt where the heart and mind of the president is, the list of the conferees provides the evidence.

Perhaps, since the Nigerian independence, the North has never faced the kinds of challenges it is facing today. In the last 15years the North has been systematically impoverished, its legitimate share of the federal resources diminished, its teeming population, especially its youth, abandoned to their devices, its economic activities paralyzed in the face of increasing insecurity, its presence in the Federal services pruned, its region increasingly

garrisoned and now invited to participate in a National Conference, whose outcome would appear to have been predetermined by a leadership that has made, to quote one of the leaders of the North, “tribalism and nepotism state policy”. This indeed is a MOMENT OF TRUTH for the North. The North will have to decide either way; there is no room for neutrality, not anymore.

National Conference is illegal
The intended National Conference is illegal, illegitimate and funded by a violation of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is illegal because there is no act of the National Assembly establishing or authorizing it. The executive arm is certainly free to establish committees to advise it on any matter but they must not pretend to convoke anything more than a mere administrative committee with no powers to take any decision, only recommendations to the president.

So if we reduce the conference to what it is, it is simply a presidential committee and we should be able to see it as such and have the courage to strip it of all pretences. Indeed in the responses of both the executive and the legislature to public criticism of the conference, they have made the point that recommendations of the

conference will eventually be brought to the National Assembly for consideration. So why the conference in the first place? Wouldn’t citizens be right to suspect some diversionary tactic here? Given the dearth of trust between citizens and their governments where can citizens find the benefit of doubt to give the governments?

Illegitimacy
The intended National Conference is illegitimate not only because conferees were simply hand picked and didn’t have any mandate to represent any constituency but also because the conferees did not even have the honor and dignity to elect their own leaders. That the leadership of the conference and therefore the rules and procedures of the conference would be determined largely by a leadership handpicked by the president further

denies the conference of any trace of legitimacy. For the avoidance of doubt let us ask the simple question: who would the handpicked conferees claim to represent? The President or Governor who hand picked them? Or who exactly? It certainly cannot be the over sixty percent of the poor citizens of this country who live below a dollar a day, sweating and struggling to keep body and soul together.

By implication, any decision taken by this Conference is not implementable as it lacks both the legal authority and legitimacy. In fact, the delegates/conferees are not representing the legal constituencies in Nigeria as enshrined in the Constitution.

Funding challenge
We don’t know much about the funding of this conference beyond the report that the president is allocating some seven billion Naira for the national conference. But what we know is that, there is no money appropriated by the National Assembly for this conference. More importantly, section 80, (2), (3) and (4) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has made it explicitly clear that no monies shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation without an act of the National Assembly.

So where is the money going to come from, if we may ask? Are we borrowing from the IMF or Paris Club? Or is it going to come from the missing or hitherto unexplained $20 billion? We can’t fail to see the seriousness of this fundamental breach of our grand norm!, we cant ignore a constitutional violation of this magnitude! We can’t be neutral in matters unconstitutional!

Duplicity
If truly the object of the conference is to discuss the vexing and urgent national issues, the existing Nigerian Constitution, under which the President holds his chair and exercises the powers he wields, has prescribed all the structures and institutions – both political and legal – capable of generating the representatives of Nigerians that can discuss anything and promulgate all the needed laws and policies to address the problems and challenges of the Nigerian federation.

These existing structures, institutions as well as the representatives of the people are intact and in operation. These representatives of Nigerians are elected in conformity with the law of the land, and no matter how imperfectly they emerged but the process conform to the historically universal principles of representation since ancient times contrary to the President’s reckless and vacuous way of producing the delegates of the Conference.

North should participate in the illegality
Despite all these, and given the level of impunity in this government, the chances are that the conference may still continue; after all how many such violations have taken place. The general rule of while hoping for the best we must prepare for the worst would appear to apply here. The North may have to participate, even as it is illegal, illegitimate and funded by constitutional breach.

It is not because much can come out of it but perhaps because being an instrument of propaganda and intimidation, the North must be there to stand up to the grandstanding and empty threats of people who have made Northern bashing a state policy.

Opportunities
The North may wish to use the opportunity to educate many of the ignoramuses that have been lined up, who know nothing about the North, not even the country itself as many of them are like the proverbial fish out of water. In other words the North should participate only to appropriately respond to political propaganda largely directed against it, which are founded on a historical and unscientific structure of the Nigerian State and

to lay down the facts on the dynamics of the Nigerian social formation before the propagandists, their mentors and apologists. The ARDP particularly believes that the North has never articulated any particularistic agenda to put any part of the country at disadvantage. Our position is that the North should prepare to discuss issues in a fashion of a national discourse on a national stage and indicate willingness to discuss, negotiate, and renegotiate all issues relating to the corporate existence of Nigeria in a sovereign and constitutional framework.

Issues to confront
The ARDP is of the opinion that some of the key or broad issues that may come up in the Conference, and which the North MUST appropriately respond to may include the following:

• Structuring the Nigerian federation along the principles of the so-called “true federalism”. Here, it is being erroneously inferred – either out of political ignorance or political maneuver or both – that the 36 States of the Federation are “federating units” and should therefore operate and derive their powers and functions on the classical meaning of federalism, as in the case of the United States of America. Unlike the US where the States

were formally independent and sovereign polities that decided to come together to form the USA, in the case of Nigeria the existing 36 States are historically and structurally administrative units created, at different times, by the Nigerian State. The political reality of the 36 States of Nigeria only confers them the status of “federal units”, which have largely been created to promote unity in diversity. No matter how one could shout out the

concept of the so-called principle of “fiscal federalism” it doesn’t confer States any inherent power(s) over anything Nigerian. But the North should be ready to renegotiate the political restructuring of Nigeria on its terms: either Nigeria operates the proper true federalism that guarantees all political equitable access to national resources or any other new arrangement on mutually agreeable terms.

• The Institutionalization of the Principles of Resource Control in the allocation of resources, or what is also referred to as operating the principles of fiscal federalism. Here, it is also erroneously propagated that fiscal federalism is equivalent or at least presupposes the principle of “resource control” by which the so-called ‘oil producing States’ should have greater share of the Nigerian oil revenues if they are “denied” complete control

over their God-given resources. But it only requires an elementary understanding of the concept of fiscal federalism to appreciate the fact that it refers to principles by which tiers of government of a country appropriate common resources on the basis of fiscal responsibilities of each tier of government as enshrined in the constitution. On the other hand, the very conception of “oil producing states” is not only a misnomer but

inherently illegitimate. The only oil producing state in Nigeria is the Nigerian state itself, which alone made all the investments in oil exploration and production since its discovery till today. The North should also reject and call for the scrapping of Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and the Niger Delta Development Corporation, both cannot legitimately be appropriating federal funds while their functions are for the benefits of a section of the country and the other sections do not have similar corresponding federal agencies.

• Citizenship Rights. Here, the North does not have any problem with the promotion of the principles of equal rights and privileges to Nigerians wherever they choose to work and live. But, it must be fully realized this principle is inconsistent with “resource control”. If Nigerians are equal everywhere, to the extent that the same proponent of “resource control” are calling for the abrogation of State of Origin and substituting this with State

of Residence, it then follows that all resources of the nation belong to all Nigerian and therefore the basic principle of sharing resources would have to fundamentally rest on need, equity and fiscal responsibilities of tiers of governments to citizens under their jurisdiction, supplemented by other appropriate principles to encourage wealth production, economic growth and social development.

• Security and Human Rights Violation. The security situation in the North has reached a point where the North can no longer continue to assume and hope that those with the responsibility to protect its citizens have the political will to do so. That the North has to collectively wake up to the ‘war by other means’ against its people is fairly obvious for all to see.

This is not the place to say more. It should suffice to say that we cannot continue with our complacent, naïve and fatalistic attitude that has never served us. It is time to consider something radical and ultimate.

• The Choice of an Appropriate System of Government for Nigeria is another issue that is certain to come up. The North must not be dragged into the futile debate of the Presidency or the Parliamentary system, which only diverts attention from the more fundamental issue of good governance. It is not so much the system of

government as the entrenchment of corruption in our political culture and governance system. It is the value system that informs the political culture that really matters and we should be able to retrace our steps and fall back on our values of honesty, hard work, dedication and selflessness.

Admonition
The point has been made that even as the conference lacks both legality and legitimacy, we may not serve our cause by absenting our selves. We may even turn it into an opportunity to educate and inform and address the misinformation and propaganda against the North. In doing this we shall require a strong coordinating

secretariat, which will provide the facts and figures so that Northern conferees will speak from the point of knowledge and the point of strength. This is critical to the role we must play in this confab. At this meeting, we must workout how that can be put in place.

Even more urgent and more important is the issue of the Security and Human Rights violation in the North. The assault and humiliation on our persons and dignity have become unbearable. To say that we have been abandoned is to understate the gravity of the crises. Our children and more importantly God Himself may not forgive us if we leave this meeting without doing something serious and consequential. May the Most High guide us that which is best.