his is the concluding part of this  memo to the presidential committee on the proposed national dialogue by the Ndi-Igbo Council for National Coordination

By ELDER UMA ELEAZU & ARC UCHENNA NWANKWO
IT will be the business of the national conference to pronounce on what constitutes the federating units of the country – whether it is the zones or states – but it will then be the business of the federating units to deal with the actual creation of provinces, divisions or whatever the second tier of government under the federating units is called and what number of these each of them wants.

Form of government: Do you want a presidential form of government with executive powers outside of the elected assembly (as in the 1979 Constitution) or a parliamentary system under which the executive (Cabinet) is formed from elected members of the House of Assembly as in the 1960/1963 Constitutions, with the leader of the majority party  becoming the Premier or Prime Minister?

Devolution of Powers: What powers should be devolved to the Central Government (Federal Government) and what powers should be reserved to the federating units? Which level of government should levy and collect which kind of tax?  How are the proceeds to be distributed among the various levels of government? Here the delegates to this level will have to do a thorough study of the existing legislative lists in order to answer the above questions.

Judicial Powers and the Criminal Code: Should any federating unit be allowed to adopt sharia or customary law? What protection should be accorded to people not covered by sharia or customary law within such States or zones? To what extent should this be allowed to operate?  What happens in case of conflict with the received Common and Statute laws and the Constitution? How many levels of court should be established?

Armed Forces and Police Formations: Should we have a professional Army, Air Force and Navy under the Central (Federal) Government with a unified Command or should each Zone or federating unit be allowed to maintain its own Regiments?  What are the implications? Should we have a unified federal police system and/or zonal/state police formations? How should law enforcement be organized for effectiveness?  What safeguards should be put in place to ensure that politicians do not misuse the law enforcement agents to intimidate ordinary citizens or non-indigenes?

Regional Constitutions for local peculiarities: This will come after the national conference,but the zones have two tasks to perform before the national conference;

•To prepare the position of the zone for presentation at the National Conference; • To elect 60 delegates to represent the zone in the National Conference, a leader of the delegation, a secretary and a legal adviser.

At the National Conference, the first question to be put to the House is “Given our common experience in the last fifty-three years, are we ready to stay together as one Country?”  If yes, do we want a unitary, federal or confederal country? Depending on the answer to these questions, then the burning issues will be tabled for discussion, negotiated and agreed to before lawyers are asked to draft the constitution, incorporating what has been agreed upon.

Burning issues: Basic principles to which all must subscribe; • Sanctity of human life; and • Basic freedoms and inherent rights. Should the country adopt one Religion or should each Federating unit adopt a Religion or should we live the issue of religion to individual choices?  Consider the implication of each.

What rights has a citizen or resident or indigene of Nigeria. Should we define these precisely in the constitution? Who owns the minerals found underneath the surface of the earth and what rights have the people who live on top of such mineral bearing land? What of other natural resources rivers, sea, lakes, forests, etc?

• Legal Procedures and Options for integrating the outcomes of the dialogue/conference into the Constitution and laws of the nation. The draft National Constitution will be published nationally and subjected to public scrutiny for sixty days and thereafter subjected to a national referendum.

Thereafter, the National Assembly is to be suspended to enable the national conference delegates to promulgate the Constitution, repealing Decree 24 of 1999 that put the present constitution into operation.

•Other matters that may be related or incidental to the proposed dialogue/conference. The dialogue/conference exercise has budgetary implications. Government should make funds available for the project. Finally, for security and other reasons, we suggest that the national conference be held in the old House of Representatives Building in Lagos, more so now that Bashir Tofa has reportedly warned that the conference could be bombed.

His words: “And then, how do you protect the conference from a terrorist attack?” – The Punch, Wednesday, October 9, 2013 (page 27). We believe and we affirm that if we all come to the table in good faith to do a deal for our national survival, we should not be bugged down with debate over words.  Let us do the talking first.