Being Text of the Press Conference Organised on the State of the Nation by Bamidele Aturu & Co on Tuesday, the 26th of November, 2013 in Lagos, Nigeria.
Being Text of the Press Conference Organised on the State of the Nation by Bamidele Aturu & Co on Tuesday, the 26th of November, 2013 in Lagos, Nigeria.
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Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press,
Let me welcome you all most warmly to this Press Conference. Our main purposes of addressing you today are to remind you of the forthcoming 6th Annual Law and Social Development Lecture that is coming up on the 2nd of December, 2013 and to take a deep look at the State of our country and people.
We are grateful to God Almighty for sustaining the series and to our friends in the media for always giving the event extensive coverage, thus making it a leading and unique intellectual platform in our country where theory and practice intersect. We also salute our compatriots who have made the Annual Lecture their own major event for the year. We are encouraged by people who call us so often to ask if and when the Lecture will hold. In the face of such friendly ‘harassments’ we dare not fail to hold the lecture. We are, thus, immeasurably encouraged that our people yearn for honest discussion of our multifarious problems. This brings us to the main political topic of the moment, the idea or plan to have a National Conference.
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National Conference: Another Elite Jamboree without Content
The idea of a National Conference, we must remind ourselves at the outset, was not invented by members of the ruling class in Nigeria. National Conferences of different types have been held in different countries with different results. In the late 1980s, an attempt was made by Civil Society Organisations, under the irrepressible former President of the Nigeria Bar Association, Mr. Alao Aka-Bashorun, to organize what was then referred to as the National Confab. That was in the heydays of military autocracy. The venue of the Conference was the National Theatre. The Conference was aborted by the ruling class, of course using the police, one of the agencies of state coercion. The point of telling this story is to emphasize that the ruling class in Nigeria cannot and can never support genuine National Conference.
Today, there are glaring divisions among the ruling class not just on the question of the National Question but on many other issues. While the faction of that class in control at the centre, in spite of its well-known resistance to the idea, now suddenly realizes the benefits of a National Conference, the opposition, or what Nigerians erroneously refer to as the opposition are making a show of opposing the Conference as if they had ever supported genuine National Conference. The truth is that neither the latter-day advocates of National Conference nor those who used to clamour for its talk-shop variant among the ruling class really want the kind of National Conference that our people desire and deserve.
Genuine National Conference can only mean a negation of what the mainstream politicians stand for such as privatization of public assets, systematic looting of public resources, culture of impunity, electoral fraud and unrestrained acts of corruption. I believe they are wise enough not to bring forth their own gravedigger, except unwittingly. First, there can be no serious National Conference that is not sovereign. The conference must be sovereign in the sense that its decisions are not subject to alteration or amendment by any other authority, executive, legislative or judicial. It follows that its outcome has to be subjected to a national referendum and not taken to the National Assembly dominated by those whose interests conflict with those of our people. Second, the Conference is sovereign in the sense that it determines its agenda all by itself. It drafts and plays its own script and not that of anyone else.
The other point that we need to note about a genuine National Conference is that it is not organized by State resources. It is not a per diem based conference where people jostle for allowances. Such conferences abound in this country. All one needs to do is to visit all the 5 star hotels and see how our resources are being wasted on frivolous conferences that are part and parcel of the problems of our country. Organisations, groups and ethnic nationalities that want to participate in a genuine National Conference must fund themselves. But above all, true National Conference is not a gift; it is the product of serious mobilization by the people and their organisations. I certainly do not see how the proposed National Conference fit the bill of a genuine National Conference. It is just a jamboree for the elite to spend some more dollars and enjoy themselves. But do I then say that it should be avoided? No. Patriotic organisations and progressive citizens, who have the time, should do everything possible to use the platform to show that it is nothing but a deceptive jamboree and journey that leads to more confusion. As I have said elsewhere, who knows, the contradictions that abound may just accelerate the process of our peoples’ freedom in spite of the permutations of its convokers.
Privatisation of power
Two kinds of power privatization are going on at the same time in our country today. Predictably, but regrettably, both are producing nothing but utter darkness. First, I do not know if anyone remembers that it is almost a month ago that PHCN was finally buried in the graveyard of greed into which some people have turned our country, precisely on the 1st of November, 2013. Now, the fake promise they used to deceive our people, including ladies and gentlemen of the press, was that very soon there will be light everywhere. But what we have everywhere as we speak are generators and not light from the cabal that hijacked our power sector. Cabal everywhere. We have cabal in the oil industry, cabal in the power sector, cabal in politics, cabal in the judiciary-remember the shameful collaboration of senior members of the judiciary in throwing out Justice Salami for doing nothing-cabal in the legal profession. This is indeed a cabalized nation. The workers must brace up for another struggle this time around, no matter how unpopular it may be. The struggle is to retake PHCN from the cabal. We do not say that they should not come and invest their resources and build power plants et cetera. But it is immoral to take what belongs to us and sack two-thirds of our brothers and sisters and then generate darkness. That is utterly unacceptable.
Rule of Force: The other Privatisation
As 2015 draws close, we see in bolder relief the effect of the privatization of state power at all levels in Nigeria. Disagreements within parties and among parties are now brutally repressed with the aid of the police. Governors who used to wield power violently to evict the poor from their homes in the name of some fancy but dubious beautification projects or programmes are now prevented from having private meetings. Talk of the chicken coming home to roost. Nevertheless, we must say it loud and clear that it is unacceptable to have recourse to bully tactics to have ones way even in a country that pretends to be a democracy. It is animalistic, to say the least. We will not allow the politicians to reduce us to their level. We shall do everything possible to reject every attempt to turn our country into the jungle where might is right. We therefore condemn totally the illegal and indefensible brutalization of protesters in Abuja and some other parts of Nigeria on the 21st of November by officers of the Nigeria Police Force. It was indeed ironic. The protesters were protesting the rampant culture of impunity under the aegis of SIN (Stop Impunity in Nigeria) only to be dispersed in the most atrocious manner imaginable. That was the height of impunity. The Police authorities should not only apologise but compensate our compatriots who they brutalise so irresponsibly.
Madam Stella Oduah and Arunmah Otteh: A President’s disturbing silence
Long before Mr. President took ill and recovered, we had been waiting for his decision on the controversies that trailed Mrs. Oduah and Ms Otteh before her. The President needs to say something on these cases so that some of our compatriots can know where he stands. We accuse the fair ladies of no crime; but we are entitled to be alarmed that allegations of waste and corruption have been made against them without our President saying a word. That is wrong. We will not allow the matter to die like the others. The President must act one way or the other. That is the decent thing to do.
Unrelenting Culture of impunity and the murder of Comrade Festus Iyayi, a cultural hero
Nothing demonstrates more forcibly that if we do not do something urgently about the culture of impunity, it will erase whatever is left of our culture of decency. Already the reckless use of convoys has claimed one of the titans of our struggle and a leading advocate of a culture of moderation and decency. The killing of Comrade Festus Iyayi by the notorious convoy of Kogi State Governor, Mr. Idris Wada is one of the worst tragedies that have hit this country since it came into being. As we had cause to say when the news broke, Comrade Iyayi did not die in an accident, he was murdered, pure and simple. We reiterate our call for the driver of the escort vehicle that snuffed the life out of this noble champion of the oppressed to be fished out and prosecuted. We need to remind those who claim to be Governors and their aides and cronies that there are no categories of citizens. They may have privatized the economy; we won’t let them privatize our lives. We have already indicated to the leadership of ASUU that we would partner with them to ensure that justice is done in the matter. Our citizens must become defiant. The roads do not belong to political office holders; the roads, the offices they claim to occupy and the cars they drive belong to us, so don’t let them drive you off the road and into untimely death.
The Siege to Ugborodo Community in Delta State must stop
Information reaching us is to the effect that some chiefs of Ugborodo Community have been kept in confinement for days at the Naval base in Warri simply on account of their refusal to surrender their land and resources to agents of imperialism. It is a shame that the rights of citizens can be trampled upon so needlessly by security forces under a supposedly democratic dispensation. We call on the naval and police authorities to release the spiritual head of Ugborodo Community and all the other detainees being held incommunicado in breach of their fundamental right to liberty. If they are not released immediately then we shall take a series of legal actions to convince the authorities that we are not in a jungle.
INEC and 2015
The compromised election in Anambra is an indication of what we are to expect in 2015. Without any doubt, the Election Management Body has displayed characteristic institutional incompetence. There is no question of that at all. No excuse is good enough for not being able to organize election in just one out of thirty-six states. But INEC is not wholly to blame. Politicians, and I am speaking generically, not excluding any of them, must all share the blame for their irresponsible appetite for power by all means. Ghosts did not compromise the elections, one or all of them did. Ghosts did not steal the money meant for building roads and providing infrastructure, absence of which make it impossible to distribute materials smoothly and quickly, they all did. Ghosts did not render those young men and women who were alleged to have rigged the election vulnerable though hopelessness and joblessness, one or all of them did. My position remains that an exercise that was conducted so badly cannot answer the name ‘election’. It should be cancelled. This is not the time for specious legalism. The votes of the people are too sacred to be corrupted by the nonsense that took place in Anambra State. Of course, I know that some of the politicians crying wolf now are doing so because they are at the receiving end. It is their stock in trade. We make this call for the sake of decency and not because we are carried away by their position on the election. Our people must brace up for 2015. We must defend our votes; politicians won’t do that for us. That is the lesson.
The Theme of this year’s conference
The topic for our lecture this year is, The Economy, the Rogues and the Law: The Development Conundrum. Anyone who knows anything about this country would admit easily that the topic is apt. It is now clear beyond any iota of doubt that the Nigerian State is producing more thieves than leaders. Corruption is pulling apart the fabrics of our society everywhere. This explains why we have requested Dr. Soifiri Joab-Peterside, a leading sociologist of development to present this year’s lecture. We have no doubt that he will offer sound arguments on the link between routine stealing of public resources and the state of underdevelopment in which have been thrown. He will also proffer solutions to governance crisis. The time as usual is 11am and the venue is the Banquet Hall of the Airport Hotel at Ikeja.
Book presentation
We are also using the opportunity of this year’s lecture to present to the public our latest book, Law and Practice of the National Industrial Court. The book is written to lay bare the rules and practice of the court so that employers and employees can understand what the court and the law expect of them in prosecuting or defending employment cases. It is our modest contribution to the sanitization of industrial relations practice in Nigeria.
Thank you for listening and God bless.
Bamidele Aturu
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