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Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele turned living history, with living witnesses, on its head, when she declared that Bola Ahmed Tinubu, “contrary to what everybody was thinking, was not financing NADECO because he did not have any money when he became Governor”. NADECO existed long before Tinubu became Governor, so ordinarily his not having money when he became governor ought to have nothing to do with financing NADECO especially when Tinubu had never claimed to be NADECO’s sole financier. But there are living witnesses to the fact that he was a major financier. This is what happens when a group like Afenifere wants to cut its nose in order to spite its face. Fortunately, it is its nose and not the Yoruba nose.
Which is why she would be making spurious claims both on the past and present and in the end, contradict herself, where, for example, she claimed, on the one hand, Tinubu had people who backed him to become Governor(as if no one backed her own push), that “most of us(them) had spent all of our money in the struggle and therefore didn’t have money to fight for elections and that it was those who had the wherewithal that were selected”—when she had just stated that Tinubu also had no money; so how come he was selected and she was not?
Furthermore, that they all left AD and had to go elsewhere, using Tinubu as the excuse by his “taking over” the AD to the detriment of the founders, show their severe limitations; for, as founders, “elsewhere” was another opportunity which was squandered by their being absorbed into an existing formation, particularly a formation that had also neutralized its own founders in Yorubaland which then enabled their own claim to leadership.
For Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele, the electorate is now to be blamed for the monetization of elections as if the electorate determines the parameters for electioneering when they are actually victims of it. For monetization of elections is a form of rigging which emanates from an unpopular attempt at seizing political power. Usually, since the 60’s, the unpopular UPP/NNDP/NPN had sought to gain power though this methodology, proving false the claim that rigging is possible only where the party is popular, whereas the attempt at rigging itself is an admission of unpopularity.
In an attempt to take Yorubaland into an alliance with the center, a similar scenario is playing itself out where the PDP of which Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele is now embedded tried to leave no stone unturned in its attempt at capturing Yorubaland which led her to deny militarization of elections, saying she saw no military personnel near any polling booth while watching her TV , yet INEC itself said over 100 members of its own staff were illegally detained by the same military that Buckor-Akerele did not see on TV.
“Law and order” presupposes that law enforcers must, ab initio, obey certain rules and regulations of behavior in their conduct. When such enforcers violate their own rules, their function is no longer about “law and order” but intimidation and that was what happened in Ekiti and Osun.
Further justification of this attempt saw Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele absolving Goodluck Jonathan from current problems bedeviling Nigeria, saying these problems were there before Jonathan became President without admitting that Jonathan need not compound them; for the only reason Jonathan would want to be president was to ensure those existing problems were resolved while blocking possibilities of others coming up.
However when these problems are aggravated and compounded by his presence in office, he becomes the problem and not his predecessors. It is an insult on our intelligence if his failure is now laid at the doorstep of his predecessors in office, which Bucknor-Akerele is now doing.
And if Jonathan’s solution, according to Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele, is in the changes supposedly made though his conference, the question will be exactly what those changes are, aside from the fact that it took him almost six years in office before calling for such conference. Hence, for the conference’s solutions now ascribed to Jonathan which include the increase in the number of states to 54 with an unchanged allocation where the states rely on the center for their existence, having no control over their resources; state policing where any state that can finance it can set one up—such financing based on the same allocations and control by the center; merging of states after being divided up which raises the question of the division in the first instance, when all that would have been required is to allow the current states to merge or retain the zones as federating units and determine the parameters to take care of the minorities in each zone; the centralization of all elections in a supposedly federal set-up, where a local government cannot organize its own elections even when such a local government is directly created by the State Government; and many more.
If, therefore, as Bucknor-Akerele says, the “Northern leaders do not want any change in Nigeria” and with the Conference resolutions above, definitely Jonathan and his PDP also do not want any change. And if we accept the need for a new Constitution, it follows that such requirement would have been determined, ab initio; for the NASS has its own constitutional amendment already in place and the conference decisions can only be tabled alongside it as an addendum or at best, an alternative.
However, for those of us who are of the view that the Conference has not provided a solution, there exists an opening: the Jonathan conference was held without a formal, NASS backing; hence nothing stops any nationality from having its own conference without such formal NASS backing. And if NASS will consider Jonathan’s Conference resolutions, it must also consider any other resolution submitted to it by other parties. NASS cannot reject such other resolution while considering Jonathan’s, unless NASS is telling us that we, the people, do not matter, in which case, it will be up to the Nationality to pursue the issue beyond NASS.
Taking that route will resolve the issue of who decides on a new Constitution. Jonathan’s Conference was not a Constitution-making body even as it may have the option of presenting what it considers to be a new Constitution; hence the only arbiter would be a Referendum by the Constituents. Because Nigeria does not have a reliable census and because the states (new and old) are part of the current zonal structure, any referendum would have to be based on the zones and conducted by the zones. It is only when all the zones have agreed to re-form Nigeria that a pan-Nigerian Constitutional Referendum would be acceptable and that will be after the Constituents have decided what their concept of Nigeria is.
A pre-existing Nigeria, which needs a surgical operation for survival cannot at the same time be the foundation for the new Nigeria. Thus, we have to go back to the drawing board, that is, the amalgamation of the different peoples and what such had cost us. The various peoples know themselves and they are the only ones capable of determining how a new relationship with others can endure and under what conditions. A referendum on and in Nigeria is a referendum for, or against amalgamation and its current consequences.
For the umpteenth time, Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele is telling us that the report of the Conference should be” spelt out, translated, published in the newspapers, announce, televise and hold discussion sessions everywhere”, she forgot to add that even before the Conference, these were carried out through similar means, where the people had already decided what they wanted—these decisions did not form part of the modalities for the Conference, as stated by Femi Okurounmu who midwifed these sessions neither were they part of the Conference deliberations itself. So, the fact that these sessions, in whatever format, took place does not imply their acceptability, which means the only acceptable format is for each of the zones to formally declare its wants and needs through their own referendum which will make it impossible for anyone else to have them shortchanged.
Whitewashing Goodluck Jonathan by excusing him on the Boko Haram insurgency and anchoring it on a need for “careful planning”, Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele ignored the expose by the Australian negotiator, Stephen Davis, to whom Jonathan gave all logistical support, that Jonathan could not claim ignorance of Boko Haram’s strategy and tactics and that these Boko Haram’s fighters’ convoys are usually visible while on their way to their missions and he could not understand why they were not usually attacked at such moments whilst also mentioning Lt Gen Ihejirika, the former Chief Of Army Staff and former Governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff as Boko Haram’s backers, even as Jonathan had admitted, while Ihejirika was the COAS, that Boko Haram is in his government.
If then, as Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele says, Jonathan cannot simply rush in and rescue the abducted girls, he, at least, could ensure that his government is not compromised. By Jonathan’s own admission, not only is his government compromised, but also Andrew Azazi, the NSA who initially blew the whistle on Boko Haram politics inside the PDP was unceremoniously neutralized via a helicopter crash. And Andrew Azazi should know, being a member of the inner caucus. To all intents and purposes, therefore, Jonathan’s government is neck deep in the Boko Haram insurgency which would be why he is unable to do anything about it aside from the fact that it serves his own political purposes.
And so, as the chief security officer and commander-in-chief, if his officers under him could not come up with a good plan to “ensure the security and rescue of the girls”, as Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele would want us to believe, those officials would have no business continuing being in government, for by saying they could not come up with any credible or reasonable plans means that other plans that could be utilized are out there or Jonathan himself has a superior plan in mind and there must be a process in place where such a superior plan is to be executed. So far, there is no indication that this is taking place. Unless he has agreed with both Generals Babangida and Obasanjo, who, as former presidents and Commanders-in-Chief, have recently declared their readiness to don their uniforms again, so as to assist in resolving the security issue. The question then will be whether both generals would have to obey their new Commander-in-Chief or Jonathan would have to make way for them to assume the title themselves as a joint responsibility, even as Goodluck Jonathan is now blaming General Babangida of deliberate underdevelopment of the military in favor of “regime protection”.
Leye Ige