The premise
of this opinion article is predicated on the notion that Southern Nigeria needs
to insist on the Sovereign National Conference (SNG) in order to rectify the
divisions, poverties, and insecurities within the constituent nationalities of
the United Nations of Nigeria. Like South Sudan, Southern Nigeria must be
willing to peacefully shut down the entire oil pipelines in the Niger Delta. These
actions are necessary in light of the high levels of mass decadence and elites’
sponsored terrorism that we have witnessed for the last 40years and past 4year
respectively. There ought to be some reactions from the masses to send some
shockwaves to the strata so that we can break away from the status quo. Hence
this is by no means a call to arms but a calculated strategy of bringing
representatives of all our various nationalities together to craft a republic
that is beneficial for the regular Nigerians. Haphazard and half measures like
the much heralded constitutional amendment in Nigeria would not suffice. We
need to form a union that is not based on 19th/20th century European
protectorate contraptions or those of our military and civilian dictators and
scoundrels a.k.a. internal colonial masters. Instead ours should be a union
grounded in self-determination, our combined destinies, and inter-regional survival.
Consequently, the nationalities
within Southern Nigeria need to convey a 3-5days conference on national security,
transparency, and economic development. This august summit would seek to build
on the just concluded South-South Economic Summit that took place in Asaba
Delta State on April 27, 2012 at which Professor Wole Soyinka spoke. Civil
society groups, states and local government representatives from the South
West, South East, and South-South should attend the aforementioned conference
with a mission of laying the groundwork for security, good governance, and
development in Southern Nigeria in lieu of the systematic corruption in Nigeria
and terrorist attacks by Boko Haram and other insurgencies in the country. This
gathering should be the precursor for the Sovereign National Conference and emissaries
from the Middlebelt of Nigeria should be encouraged to attend. The key issues
that should be discussed include the actualization of the Sovereign National
Conference, the demand for a confederation system of government in Nigeria,
transparency in states and municipal governments, and job creation through
investments in infrastructures to benefit our burgeoning youth
populations.
The expediency of this gathering
cannot be over emphasized when we are witnessing an elitist bankrolled
terrorist onslaught on the Nigerian people in northern Nigeria. Our police
stations, military barracks/installations, churches, prisons/jails, and the
international community buildings have become primary targets for the
bloodthirsty Boko Haram criminals in the north. As a sad testament to our
current realities the so-called northern elders have been unambiguous in their predilections
to offer rhetorical shield for the relentless carnages in the north.
Unlike the perennial meetings of the North Elders Forum/Arewa
Elders Forum that have yielded sycophantic comments and no substances, the
Southern Nigerian Guidelines workshop would be results oriented. For example, when
retired General Theophilus Danjuma said that the north is on fire during recent
gatherings, others should have immediately asked him to bring out some of his ill-gotten
wealth to quench the fire. We need to ask Mr. Danjuma if his pronounced “Somalialisation
of Nigeria” has a correlation with the massive national fortunes the members of
the 1% Northern Military Industrial Complex like him have amassed to the
detriment of the public good. Similar
questions could be asked of Senate President Mr. David Mark and his foundations.
Do they still generate revenues from oil wells in the Niger Delta? How much of
their rogue funds have they used in making some differences in the lives of everyday
northerners and other folks?
During the Southern Nigerian
Guidelines conference we have to tell ourselves the truth which should be
distinct from the presentations in recent assemblies of General Yakubu Gowon
former Nigerian Head of State and Mr. Ibrahim Shekarau former governor of Kano
State. Both men are comparable to other so-called elites who continue to wallow
in their own self-imposed denials and realities. Gowon keeps on blaming General
Ojukwu for succession rather than the ethnic and religious inspired pogrom in
the north that he oversaw before the war and during the Biafra genocide.
Similar killings are continuing today because so-called elder statesmen like
Dictator Gowon continue their embellishments.
Relatively, no one ventures to ask the ex-chief executive in
Kano State about his stewardship to the people. Why did Mr. Shekarau stop polio
vaccinations under his watch and as a result institutionalize increased
poverty? Governor Shekarau contested for the presidency in 2011 and was
bestowed with the title Sardauna of Kano by the Emir of Kano because he stood for
the interest of the northern Nigerian 1%. However to his credit and under his
watch Nigeria remained part of the three nations who were unsuccessful in
eradicating polio. In this disgracefully World Health Organization WHO rankings,
we stand hand in hand with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Stewardship and
accountability should be the hallmark of the Southern confab. Instead of
worshipping positions, status, and power, our goals should include identifying
the root causes of our problems in a land where it is not enough to be a chief,
but one has to be a high chief without any community service, morals, and
mores.
Generally, clinicians recognize “acceptance” as the first
step in dealing with denial. Meanwhile the elites in Nigeria continue to be in
denial concerning our dire straits we have to go ahead with the southern
workshop to address our pandemic addiction to corruption, massive
underdevelopment, and swelling insecurities. Civil society activists, state
legislators and local government representatives of the various southern
nations should be the primary conduit of actualizing this conference. Afterwards
some of our governors are entrenched in the status quo as members of the 1% in
Nigeria and maybe the world; we cannot allow them to undermine the south
confab.
Therefore one of the first resolutions that should be
addressed in the assembly is the stripping of immunity from governors and all other
serving officials. There is a need to realize that the official immunity
tradition is as antiqued as the British inspired and informed hair wigs that
our barristers still place on their heads under the Nigerian scorching sun.
Prosecutorial or Qualified Immunity is at the heart of the systematic
corruption in the south and the whole nation. Our legislators need to look into
a framework of recalling all elected officials in southern Nigeria through
referendums which should be organized by obtaining signatories of certain
percentages of the electorate.
Former and present governors and
judges in south Nigeria would have to be sent the message that the business of
governance and accountability will demand drastic changes. In the Southern
Nigerian Guidelines conference our state legislators and human rights and
environmental rights activists need to come up with best practices to hold
prior, present, future politicians, and public trust office holders responsible
for their actions and inactions. Gone should be the days when criminal and
corruption charges are only brought by the federal government as in the case of
Governor Bode George of Ondo State and another nation such as United Kingdom have
to sentence and incarcerate our known thieves like Governor James Ibori of
Delta State for wanton fraud.
State laws and prosecutors should be strengthened and
encouraged to go after crooked politicians, businesses, and judges. State
legislators should pass laws that increase the amount of incarceration periods
for intimidating, comprising, and bribing government officials especially
judges. The acceptance of quid pro quo arrangements in terms of offering and
receiving favors should also be brainstormed and criminalized when legislators
return to their various southern states. If these measured are successfully
codified into laws after the south conference, then we might very well bid
farewell to the era of fugitive ex-governors.
Some have asked about how we plan to
convene a Sovereign Nation Conference and how do we assign the representatives
for the said conference. We go by pass our federal legislators, make dem go hug
transformers because dem too mago mago (Pidgin English). Our federal senators
and house of assembly members are some of the highest paid legislators in the
world, they are insensitive, corrupt, and out of touch with the people. Our
local legislators, who are more representative of the 99% of Nigerians, have to
occupy the quest for true representative democracy. In the interest of more
transparency we also need to push for public funded elections so that we do not
have a plutocracy influenced by cabals. We have to create systems that empower
our people and rekindles our ethical can do spirits. Our societies and
communities should be receptive to the contributions of our youthful
expatriates that are scattered all around the world. More importantly we need
to invest in inter-state public works projects that would elevate the standard
of living for our ever expanding home-based youth and elderly populations.
Part of the mission of the Southern
Nigerian Guidelines gathering must be to offer pragmatic solutions to our
ongoing problems. With all the aforementioned plugged holes of corruption we
would have the opportunity to capitalize on infrastructures that are going to
benefit the masses for the next 50-100years. Primary bilateral areas to
concentrate on includes, improving the healthcare delivery systems and research
facilities in the south. With the number of southern medical manpower and
specialists in Nigeria and around the globe there are no reasons why the health-wealth
gradient continues to deteriorate. At the very least we need to have comprehensive
plans to cure and feed ourselves with our human capital. The agriculture
sectors would demand enormous investments and subsidies so that we can reduce
our importation of basic food stuffs. Our universities and tertiary institutions
from Obafemi Awolowo University IIe Ife to Rivers States University of Science
and Technology, from University of Nigeria Nsukka to University of Lagos, from
University of Uyo to University of Benin, and from Federal University of
Technology Owerri to University of Calabar need to have each other’s faculties
on speed dial.
Consequently, the four walls of these educational centers
need to establish a fifth wall for research industries and technological zones
to nourish and heal the rest of West Africa. There is also the need for
southern Nigerian nation states to cooperate with other countries along the
West African coastlines including the Bright of Biafra, to enable us build thriving
fishing and tourism industries. This is not the 15th century and we should not
allow our mangrove swamps and maritime estuaries to be pillaged by other
countries and corporations through unannounced and unaccounted fishing raids.
Plans should be made to monetize these sectors by establishing secure tourist
coastal cities with boardwalks activities and thriving seafood processing
businesses to serve the African and international markets. It makes no sense
for South Koreans, Europeans, or any other countries to steal our seafood
commodities in broad daylight and then sell them back to Africans for triple
the prices or more in the form of processed fisheries. These are valuable
sources of community development projects that we need to take into
consideration.
Another priority area that we have to finance and cooperate
on in southern Nigeria is the transportation system. After more than 50years of
independence we seem to exist on the colonial setups because most of our
so-called leaders have been more concerned with enriching themselves and their
cronies rather than establishing safe and modern inter-state highway and subway
systems. Despite our strides in aviation within the past 10years we have not
efficiently developed our roads and the consequence and cost in preventable
lost lives remains one of the saddest testimonies of our ineptitude. In reality,
if we are to calculate all the monies that have been derived from petroleum
production since Dictator Yakubu Gowon infamously announced to the world in the
1970’s that Nigeria had so much money that we did not know what to do with it,
we should have constructed multiple beltways throughout the nation. As part of
the southern Nigerian conference we have to come up with plans to build these
rail and road systems to the outskirts of Benin Republic via Ogun and Oyo
States on the West as a gateway to the rest of West Africa and to the outskirts
of Cameroun through Cross River and Benue States as a gateway to Central Africa.
This would ensure viability to transport regular people, agriculture, and other
goods that would increase business enterprises.
Southern Nigerian Guidelines confab
has to deal with the problems of security within and outside south Nigeria.
With the amount of resources in south Nigeria there is no justifiable reason
why anyone in that region should want for anything. We have to espouse the
dignity of the African/Black life through our deeds and be willing to take
drastic measures to buttress this point. In the absence of the Sovereign
National Conference, presence of rampant corruption, and the provocation of
terrorism, we have to create Human Rights shields to occupy and takeover all
the petroleum pipelines and trucks that are supplying the north with crude and
refined oil when necessary. There is no need to blow up these infrastructures
to prove our points.
As a final point, our domestic agenda in the south should
include the eventual divestment in petroleum productions, so that we can clean
our environment after years (1956-Present) of relentless pollutions/oil spills,
corruption, underdevelopment and exposures to carcinogens. These actions should
be taken as self-determination survival measures notwithstanding the bottom
lines of our federal government, petroleum cabals, and the global petroleum industry
cartels. Since we have one of the largest per capital graduates within the engineering
and technology fields in the whole of Africa, we have to reintroduce the clean
energy and renewable energy paradigm to our schools and ways of life. Southern
Nigeria is surrounding by the Atlantic Ocean which is a possible source of
hydroelectric plants and wind turbine energies and we have enough sunlight to
manufacture and export solar energies.
Dedicated to the Memory of Dr. Ken
Saro-Wiwa
Nnamdi
F. Akwada MSW, BA is
a Social Justice Activist
