Chief Charles Edosomwan, a former Edo State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice and a delegate to the 2014 National Conference, visited the headquarters of Vanguard Newspapers and shared his thoughts with senior editors on the gains of the Confab and how to make the recommendations count. He spoke as Nigeria turns 54 on October 1.

By Clifford Ndujihe

On comments that the delegates wasted taxpayers N7 billion spent on the National Conference
Really, I can’t tell you for a fact how much was expended on that exercise. The reason is that I was quite taken with the purpose of the talks for me to reconcile with the naira and kobo that made it happen. No doubt, that money was spent because we were paid allowances and, for you to run a thing like that, you must spend money but I do know that a lot more money has been spent for  less worthy projects that have not benefited Nigerians at all.

For the first time, for those who are familiar with pre-Nigerian history, even our economic history will know that Nigerians were convoking to talk about moving the country forward without being prompted or supervised by some European power;  organized or headed by gun-totting khaki persons. We all went there to meet and most of the people who came are people you could say are credible.

You can make some allowance for others who are not credible, and people who ordinarily would not win election because of their inability to play the political game, but otherwise, they have established a track record for themselves and with the ability to look at Nigerian people, interrogate them and look for middle ground that form the basis for which we will be able to move forward. So, to that extent, I would not say that the money spent was badly spent.

On what he took away from the Confab
We recorded some achievements.  I call it achievements because so many people out there call it a waste of time, a jamboree; that we came up with policies and recommendations that would not be implemented.

Now, we are at such a precarious juncture in our nationhood that something has to happen. In 2010, when the late President Umaru Yar Adua had to convoke the Niger Delta Summit, things had become so fluid in Niger Delta that law and order had totally broken down. It was just as bad as what is happening in the North-East now even though their culture is different.

Then, we were not selling much oil, so our economy became badly affected that somebody somewhere saw the need for the people of Niger Delta to come together, select people and talk about the problems of Niger Delta. We did that; fortunately, your Chairman (Mr. Sam Amuka) was part of us.

He was the most active in genuinely trying to seek solution and we did reach some resolutions even though some of us are still angry that President Goodluck Jonathan has formally refused to implement the report we sent to him. Some policies that were to be subsequently promulgated came out of the deliberations we had.

I spent four months of my executive time in the committee.  It became very important for us to bring to the consciousness of the rest of Nigerians that you don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

We suggested as an economic concept:  open up the Niger Delta, establish industrial clusters, get the young ones engaged, removed them from the creeks, which was temporarily the theatre of operations, to end the insurgency. We suddenly saw the mentoring system that was engrained in the amnesty project.

The militants were removed from the scene. As they were removed from the scene, criminality that was enshrined in the loss of lives and properties, which in Obasanjo’s time instigated Odi massacre and others, became unnecessary.

To the present, there has never been a time when mutual suspicions are so high in this country as now. Centrifugal forces at play have never been at variance as now so much so that some people in the North-East have embarked on open rebellion.

As a Benin man, I used to be a part of an empire with pedigree. We used to be part of an entity recognized by Europeans. The ancient Benin had a policy of imposing its language on places it settled; they were speaking Bini in Accra, in Lome, across the west coast and some parts of Igbo land.

The British came here in 1897, subjugated us, reduced us to nothing and put us in an economic project called Nigeria.

The Igbo still go to the days of the civil war in 1967, they haven’t lost their street mentality. They have not been welcomed back in the North. I remember when the first Igbo Chief of the Army Staff was removed, a lot of dust was raised from certain quarters. If you go to the Middle-Belt, the grudges are so deep-seated that you have these explosions from time to time.

People will sit back and say Nigeria will always remain one. They take our sovereignty for granted. This is what President Jonathan saw and said, ‘let us not take these things for granted, let us come now and talk about these things at a National Conference’.
And, in the end, we came up with far-reaching recommendations that will save the country, if implemented.

On criticisms trailing Confab’s recommendation for creation of additional 18 states when most of the current 36 states are not economically viable
The issue of state creation is very tricky. As a Benin man, I went with a mandate to speak for regionalization which is premised on the fact that creation of states would cost us much. We are a mono-economy. Now, we are in a presidential system where every state has a regime of quarterly use of officialdom.

So, I don’t need too much convincing that those who sent me to the National Conference asked me to speak for regionalization and the thought was that we should go back to the four regions: West, North, East, Midwest or use the present six geo-political zones as the federating units.

We got to the conference and found out that if we need to do a smooth job, we must confront Nigeria’s problems from the perspectives of the multi-facets. Nigerian has a bouquet of problems in different compartments, economic, governance, political, sociological and religious and solution must be sought in such a way that we ensure harmony and political balance.

There were age-long agitations and grudges that needed healing. The first thing I learnt in the conference is that talking as a Midwesterner, the Urhobo,  Ijaw and Itsekiri,  who were part of us,  didn’t want to come back to Old Mid-West. Even the Igbo components want Anioma State.

In a discussion with one of their leaders, I said, ‘How can you be talking of creating states when we should be talking of compressing governance?’ He said, ‘Are you real?’
If different parts of the country are asking for state creation, as a political problem, what do we do? Ignore it?
Moving further, I came to see that while regionalization and compressing structure may make good economic sense, it will make a very poor political judgment because those in the Middle-Belt, who felt aggrieved, have formed themselves in tight restless group and want a platform to express themselves.

This is the same situation with southern elements in Adamawa, Bauchi and even Borno. Then, there is South-East, which felt that one of the ways of continuing the civil war unofficially against them was making them the underdog among the zones. One of the strong agenda they brought to the conference was state creation, giving them one more state.

I never went there to support creation of states. My people told me that no part of Edo State must be ceded to any other entity. We even had the issue of Edo and Delta denying us access to the sea. The first time I spoke, I did for one more state in the South-East, to create a balance.

But looking at the various agitations, the issue of political problems, economic, sociological, and religious dimension, I became convinced that for us to have politically harmonious balance in Nigeria’s structure, state creation at this time probably makes more sense politically than regionalization.

On derivation, removing local councils as tier of government and the effect on sharing of federal revenue
I don’t think we came out with all the solutions to our problems. Let’s be realistic about it, nobody can say there is a catalogue of solutions to Nigeria’s problems, but we have come to realize that when it comes to system of government, federalism is the one that best suits us.

There are over 300 ethnicities in Nigeria, some of which were internationally recognized on their own before Nigeria became an economic project of Britain. The Kanemi Bornu Caliphate, for instance, was once in existence, and the Fulanis, who came all the way from Mauritania, only got in 1804. Now, the Benin, the Jukuns, the Nupes, and the whole conglomerate of cephalic Igbo people, Tivs whom we saw as the last to migrate into Nigeria.

So it became clear that we have to affirm the principles of federalism. We have been pretending to be a kind of federalism since 1954, which worked till 1966 when the coup happened and Ironsi enacted a decree that removed federalism from Nigeria’s Constitution.

Several Constitutions that were promulgated, most of which were done by the army, were used to distort our federal structure. We had a situation where the military became a political force, we saw the military as a party of a sort in the country. It was during that period that so many things happened to our structure that did not make sense; over centralization, multiple creation of states and local governments, etc.

The centre came to hold over 52 per cent of revenue. Things in other federalism that the centre will allow the federating units to handle were held strongly to the centre.  The centre held them in a state of inaction which eventually led to a progressed regression – our railway system, power and energy, aviation and so many other things.

It got so bad that Land Use Decree was promulgated. Babangida took it to a disgraceful height when he said all coastal lands belong to the Federal Government.  People who live in Bayelsa, Ondo, Edo, Rivers, Delta, Lagos and Akwa Ibom states no longer own their lands.

What was done with the booty that now accrued to the central government? It was dealt with as gifts for patronages.  We needed to address our federalism and happily I think we affirmed the principles of federalism in this conference. How did we do that? We agreed that nobody owns anybody in this country. If you had been privileged and entitled all the time we have been together, this is a new era.

The times have changed. The kind of consensus Nigeria had in 1967, I was small during the civil war, to fight a war to keep Nigeria united is no longer there. To their thinking, they were preserving a unity gotten in heaven. If for instance, the Southwest part of Nigeria, which has a Constitution, map and flag, say they are leaving Nigeria today, who can stop them? Nobody!

However, being the biggest black country in the world is an asset to us in terms of self-esteem. We go around the world, even other people from other countries are proud to tell you they are Nigerians.  We are the envy of other Africans. So what will be the ingredient for this federalism? We need to cut into the overwhelming capacity of the Federal Government, 52 per cent is too large.

Even the roads maintained by the Federal Government are bad. Go to Aba for instance, there are federal roads. When I was commissioner in my state, Edo, the road that came from Lagos into Benin is federal road. It got bad. Nobody remembered to talk about Obasanjo during the time of Igbinedion. He could not maintain our road but nobody remembered to talk about the Federal Government, which competes for small things it ought to refer to states or local governments.

Look at the police. Can a monolithic police secure lives and property in Nigeria? They have not done so. They brought a Commissioner of Police from Zamfara to Edo who didn’t have empathy for victims of crimes. Bring a report to him, there was no empathy. He didn’t belong there. He did not have the cultural influence that will enable him to establish an intelligent regime that will bring to him the information he needed to combat crime, arrest suspect or get evidence to successfully prosecute suspects.

We need to reduce federal capacity from 52 per cent to 42 per cent even though it is not enough.  Let us take the exercise as the first in our march towards actualizing a better Nigeria. In future, there may be need for changes. The reduction of allocation from 52 to 42 per cent for the Federal Government will free up money for states that should be able to build their own railways, improve education and construct more roads.

On the failure of the conference to resolve derivation and resource control
We achieved beyond expectation and resolved most of the issues through consensus. At the beginning, it was not like that. Everybody came with his agenda. If you are from the section where the system did not change, the system allows you to acquire without interference; where local government revenue allocation is coming as booties for feudal leaders, your position will be dictated by your perspective.

But it so happened that we found out that things have changed and we had to do all we can to reach compromise in the interest of Nigeria. I gave lot of praise to conference members and the leadership. Whenever we came to a brick wall, a resolution was to be carried by 70 per cent, the conference leadership will set up a committee consisting of members from all parts of the country and across the various sectors. They would meet and often come back without solutions. They would be told to go back and work. For consensus, we from the South kicked against 75 per cent.

Having worked in this conference with other Nigerians, I came to realize that truly there is no Nigerian that wants Nigeria to break up, including the man who said he was going to Cameroon. We were able to work through difficult resolutions like state police. We addressed the bad issue of funding religious pilgrimage. The matter of derivation became more serious. It was obvious that we from South-South didn’t want it put to a vote. We said that the South-South people are ready to go on with urgent developmental projects.

What we needed badly is railway. I went to Verona to see marbles, some of the prettiest marbles I saw were from Edo State. There are so many precious resources in Nigeria that if we harness and take them to the world market, we will be talking less about oil. The Mambila in Taraba State can feed the whole of Africa.

So I think we should increase capacity and turn revenue allocation to revenue gathering where everybody will be active participant in contributing to the nation’s wealth. It was a resolution that came out of the derivation debate.

On whether President Goodluck Jonathan can surmount the Boko Haram insurgency, rescue the abducted Chibok schoolgirls and implement the confab report
President Jonathan will be remembered in history for two things. One is the Chibok schoolgirls and the other will be his commitment to the National Conference. Those who thought that he was a lame duck, gutless man, fickle without clue were shocked when he talked about National Conference and  took active steps to bring it to being by first, inaugurating the Okurounmu Committee.

Some people thought he was playing a card. Some said, ‘if we hold the conference, we will break up this country’, and all sorts of conflicting theories. I wasn’t very sure until I was called up to represent my people and I gave it a thought and it came to be.

When he was briefing us on the 17th of March, he said he had already appealed to the National Assembly who had begun a constitutional review process to introduce the point of referendum into our constitution.

When we finished at the conference, the anxiety among us was how we will proceed further what we have done? In my own interaction with people all over the country, I came to see a lot of cynicism, doubts, lack of confidence. The question was what will happen to the end product of the conference? However,  the project of progressing the recommendations of the conference into becoming the substantial part of the regime of rules that will guide Nigeria is not the business of one man.

We are talking about President Jonathan. His first term is winding up. If the PDP politics play out as beautifully as they have done over time, he will have another four years and then goes away, but we will still be here with the problem which has no solution.

So, the business of progressing the work of the conference, which I perceive as a good job and the next pedestal upon which Nigeria will move, is the business of all Nigerians. Every Nigerian is a stakeholder in the Nigerian project.

What do I mean? Let us even assume that Jonathan was playing politics with the conference, it has gone beyond him now. Nigerians are saying they have interrogated Nigeria. They were together to say Nigeria is worth saving. It is the best form of entity that we can have as a people so that we can move as a black nation to the next level.

All these are lofty agreements. Why must we leave it for one man who may have been playing politics with the conference? So, good he has taken a step by constituting people from his cabinet to interrogate what to do with the conference report. I have criticism against the composition of that committee.

I do not think it should have been members of the cabinet alone that should interrogate the way forward. Some people from the conference, the academia and people who are also knowledgeable in systems, the press, even some religious leaders who think centripetally should have been recruited.

The press must be in the front of the process of getting the report implemented. Why? Its immense information capacity, sensitization quality and motivational capacity. If Nigerians don’t know about these recommendations, they can’t be sensitized.  There’s need for vigorous sensitization.

We must speak the truth to ourselves. These things are doable. Talking about time, unfortunately, I have to admit to you that we can’t have time. But what can’t be doubted is the commitment of Nigerians to engage this process. Elements in National Assembly, probably, don’t like what we have done because by submitting local government to states, there is no need for constituency boundaries.

So we too must accept that if we want things to happen, we must act to force National Assembly to do what is right or to make it happen in spite of them. How that will happen, we all will contemplate it and have the solutions.