There are many things wrong with current system, says Oloyede

The Secretary of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Professor Ishiaq Oloyede has said that the 2014 National Conference convened by former President Goodluck Jonathan, was a charade.

Speaking at Ilorin, Kwara State capital, during an Iftar dinner, the cleric explained that his comments on the confab do not in anyway impinge on the integrity of some of the personalities that made up the conference.

In particular, he said that his quarrel was not with the persons but with the motive behind it, stressing that the eercise was devoid of sincerity of purpose.

Oloyede who was the co-secretary of the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, claimed that the conference was a mere political chess game.

His words: “Coming to the issue of the 2014 National Conference convened by the then President Goodluck Jonathan, it was absolutely unnecessary in the first instance. The way I look at the conference was that the then government wanted some people for a long time in Abuja to plan elections.

“How do we do that? They had to look for an excuse for bringing us down. Those of us who participated knew that those people who were the core of the conference were meeting every night. Definitely they were not meeting about the conference. The conference was not meant for anything but a forum for some people to meet on some other issues.”

He alleged that the composition of the conference did not represent the true structures of Nigeria “but that does not mean that having come together there were no decisions taken, but you cannot place something on nothing. There was no adequate representation of the people.

“If you take the number of people from the South-South and look at the proportion of their population to the number and the percentage of conferences’ attendees that would tell you that ‘ab intio’ it was meant to be a joke. For me I lose no sleep for the decision of the Federal Government that it is meant for the archives. I thought it would even be for the dustbin. That is the way I look at it. I believe that it was meant to be a joke and it ended up being a joke.”

Also, Oloyede who was a former Vice Chancellor of University of Ilorin wondered why Jonathan did not commence the implementation of the said Conference report before leaving office if it had been a worthwhile endeavour.

“Unfortunately, many of us from the South-West thought that they could ride on that agenda either to be able to access resources from the man or for them to achieve their own particular end. At the end of the day, it was clear to everybody that people were just deceiving one another,” he claimed.

However, Oloyede supported the clamour for a true restructuring of the federation because he believed that the current decline in the economies of many Nigerian component units could not be divorced from the lopsided composition of the country.

He noted: “People are talking about reorganising and re ordering the federation and so on. I believe that is a correct position to hold that we have a lopsided federation. There are so many things wrong with the current system. There should be an agreement on how to restructure the federation. I would say it is timely for people to call for the restructuring of the federation. What we are running is not a federal system; it is a unitary one.

“I also believe that it is not sustainable. You can see what is happening now, almost all the states are under economic pressure, which ought not to be if we are running a true federal system; because it would be possible for each of the components to have created the wherewithal to do its own things in its own way.

I will go for a proper restructuring of the federation with adequate representation of the people for a genuine discussion.”

Furthermore, he said: “You can see what is happening in the United States of America; a colleague of mine told me of a state in America that once you are a cleric you can’t aspire to become the governor of that state. As unfair as that is that is the policy of that state within the US and the other 49 states would say no, that you could aspire to become anything once you are qualified. What I am saying is that the system we are running is unfair to everybody.”