“National conference”and our Constitution

Last week, I was invited to a meeting in Lagos that was tagged the National Dialogue of Eminent Leaders on the

State of the Nation. The two-day event at the Sheraton Hotel was well funded and was shown live on television. The purpose of the meeting, I was told, was for eminent Nigerian leaders of thought from diverse constituencies to collectively and soberly assess the state of Nigeria, with emphasis on the current bombings in parts of the country and threats to national security and stability, the deregulation of the downstream of the petroleum sector, the ongoing constitutional review process amidst the clamour for a peoples’ constitution in Nigeria, and the proposed monetary (e.g. cash- less economy) policies of Government The expectation of the organizers was that the dialogue would generate a more robust and inclusive dialogue to help mobilize consensus among various social/political/economic con- stituencies of the civil populace for the enthronement of a negotiated national consensus on best security, economic, and ground norm-creating processes for the cohesion and stability of Nigeria. The invitation claimed that the Federal Government and State Governments in Nigeria have also agreed to attend this national intervention of patriotic Leaders in the country

These are laudable objectives but I did not attend the event partly because the outcome of the meeting was clear. The communiqué would call for a National Conference which is the magical elixir to solve all the serious problems enumerated above. I was surprised to see that a group of young Nigerians who described themselves as worried citizens converged at the premises of the Sheraton Hotel, Lagos to protest the non- involvement of the people in the purported ‘national summit’ they claimed was sponsored by the government. This provided me a clue to my concern on how come the Dialogue was so well funded.

The protesters condemned the conference and tagged it as an ‘unacceptable jamboree’, proclaiming that the out- come, like other similar sponsored confabs in the past would have no impact. Chanting solidarity songs, the protesters said the charade is not people oriented and called for a people oriented Sovereign National Conference that will not take place in a private hotel put in a public square that will accommodate people who will be able to speak their minds. The question in everyone’s mind was why should the Federal Government fund a Conference to propose a national conference? Before addressing this question, I need to state that I was active in the demands for a sovereign national conference under the Babaginda and Abacha military dictatorships. We believed that the way the people of Benin Republic took over the President Kerekou Conference in 1989, declared it sovereign and proceeded to establish the normative and institutional framework for a return to democracy was a great example that all citizens living under dictatorships needed to emulate. I do not think the present context in Nigeria calls for such an approach. That is why since 1999, I have dissociated myself from any campaign for a sovereign national conference. I have always insisted that we must learn to use our democratic institutions, whatever their challenges, in the process of deepening our democracy.

et us now return to the question of why the government should fund a conference calling for a national conference. President Jonathan can easily call such a conference the way President Obasanjo called the National Political Reform Conference. Already, President Jonathan has appointed a 22-person committee to prepare constitutional reform proposals under Justice Belgore. The Committee is acting in an odd manner as it has refused to invite memoranda from the public. The indications we are getting from the Committee are that they know exactly what they want – a constitutional proposal for a single term presidency of seven years for the President. Although President Jonathan has said that he will not be a beneficiary of the proposal if adopted, no one believes him. We have been through the same scenario with Obasanjo who tried to get the same recommendation first through the Yusuf Mamman Committee, then through the Clement Ebri Committee and then through the National Political Reform Committee. When these attempts failed, the Mantu Committee of the National Assembly gave him his wish but Senate, and later, the House of Representatives threw it out. The only purpose for a single tenure is for President Jonathan to dream of adding seven years to the four years of his first term in addition to the Yar’adua tenure he completed. If that is the plan, then he is underestimating the resolve of Nigerians to protect our democracy from eternal incumbency.

n Africa, it is remarkable that no country has a single tenure presidency and the two successive term limit is the rule. What differs is the year of every tenure, with Senegal, Rwanda and Republic of Congo having seven years renewable period whereas the rest employ also four or five year’s renewable tenure. Liberia has six years renewable tenure.

The countries that practice the single tenure presidency are Mexico, Paraguay, South Korea,Guatemala and the Philippines. If one includes nations with two but non-successive presidency, then Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Hon- duras, Panama, and Peru will give a total of eleven countries. The rest of the presidential and semi-pres- idential democracies are mainly two term presidencies. In con- temporary political science, single tenure presidency is considered to be an unusual practice. The following countries have abandoned single term Presidency – France, Bolivia, Venezuela, Columbia and Nicaragua. In the Philippines, the House of Representatives is debating a proposal to return to two- term tenure.

The reasons are simple. Single tenure has the strength of encouraging presidential sluggishness. Even more serious is the fact that single term presidencies encourage large scale corruption by incumbents who know they cannot return to power. It encourages indolent governance by incumbents who know good governance will not be rewarded by a second term. Nigeria does not need the distractions of a sin- gle term presidency. The Jonathan agenda will simply derail the constitutional reform process. If the proposed national conference is simple to give President Jonathan another seven years in office, then it is clear to me that the proposal is dead on arrival.