 |
| President of the Senate, David Mark |
President
of the Senate, David Mark, on Tuesday said the call for national
conference by certain sections of the country was in order in view of
the discontent in the polity.
Mark, while welcoming senators from
their seven-week annual vacation, said every matter about the union of
ethnic groups that made up the country should be opened to discussion
though with the proviso that the dismemberment of the country should be a
no-go area.
He said that the country could not
continue to shy away from discussing national issues in view of the
discontent in the polity and present global realities.
The Senate President said, “We live in
very precarious times, and in a world increasingly made fluid and toxic
by strange ideologies and violent tendencies, all of which presently
conspire to question the very idea of the nation state.
“But that is not to say that the nation
should, like the proverbial ostrich, continue to bury its head in the
sand and refuse to confront the perceived or alleged structural
distortions which have bred discontentment and alienation in some
quarters.
“This sense of discontentment and
alienation has fueled extremism, apathy and even predictions of
catastrophe for our dear nation.
“A conference of Nigeria’s ethnic
nationalities, called to foster frank and open discussions of the
national question, can certainly find accommodation in the extant
provisions of the 1999 Constitution which guarantee freedom of
expression, and of association.
“It is welcome. Nonetheless, the idea of
a National Conference is not without inherent and fundamental
difficulties. Problems of its structure and composition will stretch the
letters and spirit of the Constitution and severely task the ingenuity
of our constitutionalists.”
But Mark, in tandem with the typical
fear of those already in power, wanted a national conference premised on
existing governance structure, saying giving the sovereignty to an
“unpredictable mass” to determine the fate of the country “will be too
risky a gamble and may ultimately do great disservice to the idea of one
Nigeria.”
He in fact said “it would be unconstitutional to clothe such a conference with constituent or sovereign powers.”
He said, “Let me counsel that we make
haste slowly, and operate strictly within the parameters of our
Constitution as we discuss the national question.
“Be that as it may, such a conference,
if and whenever convened should have only few red lines, chief among
which would be the dismemberment of the country. Beyond that, every
other question should be open to deliberations.
“The task of nation building requires
patience, faith, scrupulous honesty, diligence, dedication, sacrifice,
toil, labour, assiduous application and massive investments in our
future. The heights attained by great nations were not made by sudden
flights.
“Our people long for a country in which
our tremendous potentials as a nation are transparently and equitably
nurtured and realised; a country in which law reigns supreme, and is
applied evenly and equally to all, high and low.
“For our constituents, there is no
alternative to the democratic project. What they dread, and will never
want, is a nation trammeled by impunity, brigandage, banditry,
insurgency, rampant corruption, and misgovernance.
“These expectations perfectly dovetail
into our core constitutional mandate of making laws for the good
government of our federation, and all of its parts.”
Mark lamented that despite the fact that
the 2015 general election was still two years away, some “political
jobbers, sycophants, and hustlers have prematurely seized the political
space, and are being allowed to set the tone of national discourse.”
He described the development as an
“unnecessary and avoidable distraction by characters or hirelings who
are desperately in search of relevance.”
He said those in the forefront of the
crisis were only out to feather their own nests and in the process
unduly overheat the polity.
PUNCH
No comments:
Post a Comment