A
day before President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday, March 17, 2014 opened a
national conference of about 500 delegates in Abuja, which aims to tackle
Nigeria’s burning issues and foster unity, poet and political analyst, Odia
Ofeimun, presented three books.
Namely:
“THIS CONFERENCE MUST BE DIFFERENT,” “WHEN DOES THE CIVIL WAR REALLY END?” and
“TAKING NIGERIA SERIOUSLY”, “THIS CONFERENCE MUST BE DIFFERENT,” was the subject
of discussion at the symposium held at MUSON Centre, Lagos on Sunday, March 16,
2014.
The
former private secretary to late politician, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was elated that he completed the
three books, which he said were very difficult books to write. “I am now an old
man but I have always told myself since I was young, that if there is anything
I must do, I must help to give answers to some of the questions that trouble
Nigeria. I am glad I have done that in these three books. We are self critical
people. Nigeria has many ethnic groups. That we have managed ourselves to a
point that we are planning on how to make it better is quite commendable,” the
poet said.
The
first section of the book begins with a statement made by Governor of Edo State
and former President of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole,
that: “This conference will not
be different from any previous conference.”
Ofeimun,
in the book says: “I strongly disagree. I wish to assert the contrary: that
this conference will be different; it will provide defining moments beyond all
the shenanigans of the past; it will buttress ideas that were injudiciously
outlawed from previous conferences; and it will enlarge the room for creativity
beyond and above what was possible before. Even if there is some alchemy that
can prevent it from taking place - in these days of mismanaged university
strikes and purloined gubernatorial elections -
whoever succeeds in achieving such a negative feat will have to carry
the burden of making it happen again, sooner rather than later. Or earn opprobrium that will never cease.
“I
take it that the political skills needed to make such a difference are actually
within the grasp of the Comrade Governor and other skeptics like
All-Progressive Congress leader, former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola
Ahmed Tinubu who, in my view, should be prevailed upon to reconsider their
positions and to join in the boil of the discussions. Especially now that,
their party, the All-Progressive Congress, APC, has arrived at mega status,
they must be assumed to have a broader position from which to make a
difference. They have had enough experience in and out of office to appreciate
the actual workings, as well as the dysfunctionality, of the Nigerian polity.
So, even without gruelling research, they know how to navigate the issues.
Specifically, for the Comrade Governor, who has only so many years left of his
two-term tenure - he must be deemed to know that, if he misses this opportunity
offered by the conference, he risks running out of time to make his input from
the position of an incumbent. To boycott or postpone it, in the hope that a
different political arrangement will
emerge that is better for his ken than the existing one, is to make
constitutional reform too subordinate to partisan promptings in pursuit of
political power. As for the other APC leader, Major General Mohammadu Buhari,
he has had a historical baggage of being, once upon a time, too strait-laced
against such a dialogue in his pursuit
of draconian change. He owes his many followers, and the whole country, a
responsibility not to want to repeat the past in a way that could find many
incumbents in his party joining or leading demonstrations for constitutional
change, only after their tenure in office.
So to say, the strategy of
complaining ever so loudly about how the Federal Government and its agencies
are taking more than their fair share of power and resources, while rejecting
the chance to confront it as a solvable theorem, is not good enough. Similarly, any gloating over the failure of
past conferences which offers no chance to brace alternatives, can be seen as a
genuine bid to escape the rigours of serious debate.”
He
noted in the book that, “Irrespective of whether it is a sovereign national
conference, a mere national conference, a conversation, a dialogue or a deal of
whatever stamp, those with ideas that cannot pass muster are the ones expected to bow out in the face of
superior argument. This is the way things are supposed to work in a democracy.
It is the reason that the very idea of a national conference has refused to
die. Although very much knocked about, sidelined, backhanded out of the way,
and then taken up, manhandled and aborted on the corridors of power, it has,
like the mythical phoenix, returned again and again, each time more insistent
than the last. It has now been roaded
in a way that some strong body of opinion consider unexpected. Still, may it be stated, and very quickly,
that it was not unexpected by those who took President Goodluck Jonathan
seriously enough to give him due credit for the attention he was paying to
constitutional reforms
“The
odd part is that the nay-saying has come from political leaders who had whipped
up the country to frenzy about the need for a conference. To be fair to them,
they wished only for a conference that would be sovereign and not merely
national. Their efforts for more than a decade, added up to the pressures
that caused President Jonathan,
following Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Yar’adua, to stand for
constitutional reforms of a nature that obviously has not registered well with
the agitators. Quite intriguing is that the reasons that they have given for
opposing or doubting the value of this particular conference, are actually
among the best that one can have for jumping into the bandwagon of the national
conference proposition. As I hope to make clear in this intervention, all the
reasons being advanced by the nay-sayers deserve to be accommodated
as contributions to the impending debates because they raise questions that cut
into the fears of majority of Nigerians who are however bent on seeing that
something good will come out of the current exercise,” he stated in the book.
In
summary, he maintained that the book was not only about National Conference but
about every Nigerian.
Born
in Iruekpen-Ekuma,Edo state, Nigeria, in 1950, the former president of the
Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), who clocked 64 years old recently
studied Political Science at the University of Ibadan, where his poetry won
first prize in the University Competition of 1975.
He
has worked as an administrative officer in the Federal Public Service
Commission, as a teacher, as Private (Political) Secretary to Chief Obafemi
Awolowo, leader of the Unity Party of Nigeria, and as a member of the editorial
board of The Guardian Newspapers in Lagos. Ofeimun’s published collections of
poetry include The Poet Lied (1980), A Handle For The Flutist (1986), Dreams At
Work and London Letter And Other Poems (2000) and so on.
Prof.
Kole Omotosho hinted the Odia has been his friend since early 1970s to the
extent that he is regarded as part of his family. “His enthusiasm, his optimism
about project Nigeria amazes me. He is the easiest person to call and point out
all the negatives which he regards as positives. He is concerned about Nigeria.
For the past six months I have been in Nigeria, all we discuss is National
Conference.” Omotosho said.
Some
of Odia’s childhood friends such as Comrade Albert Uduehi and John Akhabue
spoke passionately about him and revealed how they lived together as young men
and cracked palm kernels to drink garri together.
Few
people graced the book presentation because Odia said he didn’t want to make it
public so he needed a few friends and colleagues to be present at the occasion.
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