National conference: Why Jonathan’s motives are suspicious, by Gov Fayemi Kayode-Fayemi...

Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi has expressed scepticism over the proposed national conference initiated by President Goodluck Jonathan, insisting that the planned discourse might produce no tangible results. Dr. Fayemi, a civil society activist has, over the years, been involved in the agitation for the convocation of a sovereign national conference to address the blatant imbalance within the Nigerian political and economic space, as well as redress the socio-political challenges confronting the nation. The governor averred, however, that the President’s abrupt declaration of support for an idea that had consistently been rejected by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the past 14 years was quite doubtful. In his words, he was adopting “a suspended animation mode” on the proposed national dialogue.
President Jonathan had, in his address to the nation on this year’s Independence Day, said his government would explore the option of a national conference in response to the yearnings of Nigerians. He has since inaugurated a National Advisory Committee, chaired by Afenifere chieftain, Senator Femi Okunrounmu, to work out modalities for the conference
But Fayemi, in a chat with Sunday Sun at the Governor’s Office, Ado-Ekiti, said Jonathan’s sudden interest in a national conference was even more suspicious as the president had been undergoing some challenges within his own party and might be seeking to distract Nigerians with the proposed conference.
While acknowledging that many members of the National Advisory Committee on National Dialogue instituted by the president were men committed to the ideals of a genuine national discourse on Nigeria, Dr. Fayemi noted, though, that their work might be deliberately frustrated at the end of the day. He recalled that the brilliant report of the Political Reforms Committee set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, with eminent jurist, Justice Karibi Whyte and Bishop Matthew Kukah as chairman and secretary respectively was eventually discarded as a result of some hidden agenda, asserting that a similar fate might await the proposed national dialogue.
His words: “I have been long involved in the struggle for sovereign national conference. I spent the better part of my life as a civil society activist, as a convener of the Citizens Forum for Constitutional Reform. And we came up even then with an agenda for national conference. So, I am an unapologetic promoter of national conference. “Of course, it puts me in a bind when those who used to pooh-pooh our idea have now suddenly come around to see the value in what we are saying. And that is why one must be suspicious of their motive for doing this.
“It’s a good idea. I cannot but associate myself with a national conference given my own perspectives of it. But I am very suspicious of the motives behind it.”Fayemi noted that he nursed considerable cynicism over the proposed dialogue as President Jonathan had not been successful in demonstrating sincerity even with the powers within his purview as president. Said the governor: “It is well within the powers of Mr. President to review the revenue allocation formula, which he has not done so far, and which has not been done in 14 years of the PDP administration, to reflect, broadly speaking, the yearnings of Nigerians for devolution and derivation in the fiscal revenue allocation formula in the country. That does not need a national conference.
He could do that as a demonstration that this is beyond opportunistic politics; that it is really about how we can forge a roadmap for Nigeria on a sustainable basis. If he does that, he might even win some of us over as converts.
“We all know that the president is struggling even within his own party right now, and he needs an escape route. I don’t want to conclude that this is the escape route, but it is something that might help distract Nigerians from focusing on whatever might be seen as the inadequacies of this administration.”
The governor said the conference could only have national acceptability if the outcome was further subjected to a proper referendum.
“If we want to have a referendum, it will put the question fairly and squarely. And a model exists. If we go to Kenya. Kenya just did something similar to this. After a body worked on the constitution, then it was thrown open. That was how Kenya got the federalism that they got. I was in Kenya just two months ago to address the new governors on the kind of challenges that we were experiencing with our federalism. So I feel there may be a silver lining at the end of this. But don’t quote me yet; I am adopting a suspended animation mode.”
THE NEWSPAPER