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Author: Dimgba Igwe
Posted to the web: 7/8/2005 5:46:06 AM

Just before its hasty inauguration, I received a letter from the Nigeria Guild of Editors inviting me to a pre-confab discussion to set the agenda of our participation in the National Political Reform Conference. The Guild of Editors had been allowed to nominate one delegate to the confab. I would have loved very much to attend the meeting first and foremost, out of respect for our professional association, if the invitation had not coincided with an important scheduled engagement out of town. After all, the guild is my constituency and charity should begin at home. The other reason was sheer curiosity. It would have been most interesting to know what other media colleagues thought about the confab outside the pages of newspapers, what should be the agenda of the journalists and so on.Perhaps, on a selfish note, it can be argued that a single slot for the fourth estate of the realm, smacks of tokenism. You can even consider it rude. The history of Nigeria’s political evolution from nationalist era down to the military and now back to the civilian dispensation is replete with monumental evidence that perhaps more than any other country in the world, the Nigerian media have done more to sustain civil governance than any other group, class or institution. An audacious claim, I agree, but hardly contestable if we stick to the facts of our various political struggles. It is perhaps instructive that the earliest nationalists fought more with their pen against the British imperialists than with their guns and political mobilization skill. And when independence was finally attained, the political class did their naughtiest best first to break the ladder with which they rode to power and ultimately set the young nation wobbling and tottering. Once again, the media were on hand not merely to keep the politicians on their toes, but to keep the dream of independence aloft. When the military crashed into power, demolishing all opposition, the media remained perhaps the most indefatigable rallying point of the opposition. Indeed, in the halcyon days of the military, especially during the dark dictatorship of Abacha regime when all voices of opposition were either dead, silenced, exiled or driven underground, the media remained the only visible opposition that lost so much, bled so much but refused to surrender. Under Obasanjo, the voice of opposition is once again on retreat, save for the media. With our National Assembly in a state of animated suspense, hardly even baying like a toothless bulldog, our political class in disarray, most of the times reduced to struggling for crumbs from the regime, our national conquest would have been total but for the vigilance of the media. Any surprise the media are not in the president’s good books? Given the fact of Obasanjo’s famous ambivalence to journalists at the best of times or outright hostility most other times, it is presumable that even that single slot must have been a grand concession. And this might well be the fruit of a possible epical battle by people like Remi Oyo, the president’s media aide, who used to be president of the editors’ guild. If so, then it must be a grand magnanimity from the president himself, swallowing hard to satisfy the exigency of the moment.It is likely that in the spirit of democracy, the president would have deigned to throw in slots for groups like Academic Staff Union of Universities, the Nigerian students and, say, the Nigerian Medical Association, if they were not indulging in frequent cantankerous strikes! But, then what do you make of other professional associations that had no voice in the confab at all?I was ruminating on all these when a reader called me to demand my views on the president’s 'no-go' areas. Actually, the president didn’t call them no-go areas as such, he considers them settled 'issues that must be accepted as given'. Settled issues? Those at the receiving end of the six years of Obasanjo’s presidency must be in shock when the president listed some of these issues as given or settled areas not to be discussed. Let examine some of them, starting with what the president dubbed as 'oneness of Nigeria.' In his speech, the president argued, 'Nigeria, by any means, is not a perfect assemblage of people, institutions or groups, but I believe that God does not make mistakes. God brought Nigeria into being and those of us he put in this geographical territory will be going against what God has ordained if we do anything to diminish or erode what God has put together.' Put in such messianic terms, the president has us all cornered, especially those seeking for self-determinism. The patent blackmail is that if you dare argue otherwise, you are a heretic questioning what God has ordained. That the earth, as the Bible puts it, 'is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein,' is not in doubt.But many are prepared to argue that the geographical contraption called Nigeria was put together by Lord Luggard, not necessarily under divine unction, and that the newly made nation was christened by Luggard’s girlfriend only in 1914—and not since creation! Which means that contrary to the spiritual air the president tries to evoke, anybody can legitimately question the oneness of Nigeria without being guilty of heresy. Personally, I prefer the Nigerian option for purely practical reasons. In the global marketplace, size is an asset to those who know how to take advantage of it. In terms of competitive advantage of nations, nobody trifles with China or Indian market. Because of our size, diversity and dynamism, the Nigerian market continues to offer limitless attraction to potential investors if only we had put our act together in vital areas—political stability, social security, stable infrastructure, policy consistency, etc. Even if for the sheer psychological kick, it is a fair assumption that many Nigerians are not in a hurry to dismember the entity called Nigeria. But that does not mean that such assumption cannot be tested through a debate. After all, if Nigeria is so important to us all as an indivisible entity, it is the threat of alternative proposition that should drive us to defend our unity, not some executive fiat.The other point is federalism and federal system. For a heterogeneous society like Nigeria, federalism looks like an ideal way to accommodate our diversity without crushing our individuality. Unfortunately, the years of military unitarism perpetuated in six years of Obasanjo presidency has served to alert us on what could go wrong with federalism. As we write, the president is yet to release the statutory revenue allocation of local governments in Lagos State, despite multiple Supreme Court judgments to the contrary; in Abia State, the president invoked bogus security report to substitute a nominee of the state governor to the confab, even though he had no power to choose for the state, etc. So, with so many imperfections in the present federal arrangement, what is so sacrosanct about our federalism that it should be immune to debate?I perfectly agree with Chief Gani Fawehinmi that the only thing so spectacular about presidentialism is that it provides space for dictators to thrive. So, if we wish to debate on how to curb the monster, who has the right to tell us it is off-limit and yet still tell us we are into a democratic process?The idea of multi-religious society is the freedom of worship but that freedom is undermined when governments get involved in sponsoring pilgrims. The American pattern of strict separation of state and religions offers an attractive model that may be a potential peg for discussion. The same argument can be raised on the other so-called settled issues listed by the president. Like Chief Olu Falae once argued, it is an insult for any individual, no matter how powerful or wise, to presume to know what is good for everyone else even without our consent. Which, in a way, is what the president tried to do, in a gratuitous way for that matter.