Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr. Joe Nwaorgu has flayed the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachair Lawal over his remarks that the 2014 National Conference was designed to create jobs for the boys. The member of the 2014 confab in this interview with LAWRENCE NJOKU also commented on sundry national issues. Excerpts:

2014 National Conference as ‘job for the boys’

It is unfortunate that a Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) could make such a flippant comment that the 2014 National Conference was job for the boys considering the number of volumes of the report, which neither he or President Muhammadu Buhari has taken time to read.

The President said it on air that he has not even read the report and that the report belongs to the archives but my response to that is no! Mr. President cannot leave that report to the archives and why he has not read it, beats my imagination. That report was part of the handover notes given to him by erstwhile President Goodluck Jonathan before public view. Does it mean President Buhari did not read Jonathan’s handover note? Such open statement of non-government tactics astonishes me, even if he had not read it, he cannot come to announce to us blatantly that it should be left for the archives.

As long as Mr. President remains a very important stakeholder in Nigeria, there must be dialogue and he cannot single-handedly say that the report should be dropped in the archives.

There were 500 eminent Nigerians that attended the conference; the SGF may not stand a chance if weighed with most of them. It is unfortunate and I say they must read the report because it contains a lot of substance. Lawal told Nigerians that they gave the members seven million naira each and I ask if it is seven million that will make people leave what they were doing for five months to negotiate, discuss and arrived at total consensus with over 600 resolutions.

To the best of my understanding, the SGF has only discredited himself because of the things he sees as volumes as committee reports. The report is about 964 pages.

The second aspect of the confab report is that the former President, Jonathan also sent to the National Assembly a Presidential Bill on it.  So what is happening that the report cannot be discussed at the National Assembly? I could see that the Grazing Bill that was abandoned since 2005 has been dusted up; so why are they not interested in what Prof. Wole Soyinka called ‘redefinition of Nigeria”, because each time the word ‘restructure’ comes up, people who have been sucking the country dry stand up against it.

I am happy that Prof. Soyinka came out openly to make the suggestion. Nigeria is negotiable; it is negotiable in that even husband and wife do talk to ensure that their marriage succeeds.

At the confab, the former President of the country said nobody should discuss break up and nobody did. The suggestions were ways and means to make Nigeria great for all. Those who are yet to read the report but are passing negative comments on it are not qualified to hold high position in this country.
Need to implement the conference report

Nigeria needs that confab report because of the combustible long lying materials created by injustice, cheating, and downright fraud known as structure. That has been the cause of agitations here and there. It is the injustice in the present structure that is breeding agitations. If all parts of Nigeria feel the leadership of the country, agitations will not be there and even if they are, they will not be at the very level and dimension it is at the moment. To stem this tide, steps have to be taken and I think the resolutions of the conference chaired by the distinguished Justice Idris Kutigi and his deputy, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, should be looked into.

Nigeria needs that report so that all sections of the country will feel a part of the country. This is the panacea on statehood and without this present structure being addressed, all talks about economic revival are nonsense. There is no feeling of patriotism from Nigerians; people go to the centre where everything is concentrated with the mindset it is their turn and not how to build the nation. You should learn to give service, not to go and grab and please your people. This is what has been happening for some time.

From the era of the former Military Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s three R’s, ‘Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation’ till today, it has just been one slogan to another; no concrete steps have been taken at uniting the country.

Buhari not keen about implementing the conference report

The reluctance is basically because the report is not in his people’s interest. It is not everything that Jonathan started that is bad. Government is a continuum and with a continuation of policies and programmes, good governance can be achieved. They have always opposed Sovereign National Conference, they have opposed restructuring of the country, they have opposed anything that will make for equity of the country and without equity there will be no peace.

So I will continue to say that, the government should do something about uniting this country before it is too late.

How the report proposed restructuring

Restructuring here is in terms of the body-polity. There will be three levels of government – the federal, the state and local government. Each time you discuss regionalism or local structure, some people usually kicks; the confab report did not approve regional or zonal structure. It approved 54 states, nine per zone plus the Federal Capital to make it 55. This took care of all agitations about state creation, marginalisation among others.

If these states were created, every group will have a state of belonging. We agreed that a group of states could decide to operate in any terms. They can form any kind of association suitable to them but nobody said there would be a regional or zonal government.

We went also to what is loosely called true federalism. There must be decentralisation of authority and aspects of
resource control. We arrived at the fact that the areas that produce things must have a certain percentage that you cannot carry everything and put at the centre and people will divide it anyhow they like.

Look at the Niger Delta zone, it is a disaster zone, the place should be declared emergency zone so that capitalist infused will know how to go about it.

The people need to be compensated and their areas infused with immense capital for development and that is the meaning of equity.

Buhari’s performance after a year in government

I was asked the same question on May 29, when President Buhari clocked a year in office and my response was in terms of performance, absolute zero. That does not mean this idea of chasing people who have looted the economy, fighting corruption is not a good thing. But chasing corrupt people up and down is not the only aspect of governance.

If there are ten components of governance and you are on one and running round and round, to me that is not performance. So far, not a single person has been imprisoned and none of the corrupt cases concluded. So since that first one year, I didn’t see anything to grade in the health sector. The power and energy sectors are in state of comatose. We fought Jonathan about increase in the price of petrol when it was hiked to N86.50k but Buhari has increased it to N145 and the burden is on the masses and not on government officials that get free petrol and what have you.

There is acute poverty, Nigerians are wallowing in poverty, in pains and with such a situation, I don’t know how to grade the government in the last one-year.

The environment is not good for investment, you cannot invest in uncertainty, and confidence has to be regenerated in the system. He has done very well in fighting insecurity especially the Boko Haram crisis but I am of the opinion he should negotiate with the Niger Delta people.

I think the President should negotiate with the Niger Delta militants and the motley groups coming up. There should be an articulate policy to address the Niger Delta problem. It is a national calamity and the President should set up a proper committee without depending on a particular minister to have an articulated policy on how to rejuvenate that environment.