I am yet to see a massive citizenship education from agencies of state like the National Orientation Agency – NOA – and agitators for true federalism in regard to what should be tabled at the forthcoming national confab which would make the Boko Haram sheathe their sword and stop killing innocent Nigerians; or stop the MASSOB and the Niger Delta militants from blowing up oil pipelines; or make the nationalities within the regions want to tap their resources for infrastructure and over-all development of their areas. More disappointing is the fact that the vociferous opposition parties are not drawing up any clearly discernible agenda that truly represent the thinking of the majority of the people.
Instead, what you hear is grumblings that the conference is late in coming or that it is fraught with hidden motives to ultimately torpedo the 2015 electoral vessel should Jonathan fall out of favour with the political class. Worse still, the electronic media is fielding all sorts of people who hardly understand the issues at stake for constructive engagement with the conferees when the stage is finally set for the national dialogue. The Para-critical press is probably expecting Mr. President to float the confab, draw up the agenda and produce a new constitution all by himself which would have a magical wand to fix all the problems bedeviling the nation; even without the input of political opposition and the discerning public. I think that the press, political opposition, human rights groups, and federalist agitators should seize the initiative offered by the conference to draw up an autochthonous Nigerian constitution that would grant the Boko Haram the right they seek to produce and run a fundamentalist constitution, operate not-forprofit banks and enterprises and live the way they deem fit; while still maintaining a link to the central government for the purposes of external relations and national army, if they so desire. Similarly, the North-West people, the South-West, the Middle Belt, the South-East and the South-South or the Niger Delta should be encouraged to articulate the way they want to cohabit with the rest of Nigerians; with regional constitutions interlaced with pragmatic compromises and concessions considerate of the apparently poor regions, which would make "brothers' keepers" of the so-called prosperous and well-endowed states.
Nobody should pretend that the way the country is going at the moment can lead Nigerians anywhere, apart from implosion and perdition. Citizenship education should enlighten Nigerians that restructuring the country into autonomous regions does not mean division or disintegration as some politicians are mischievously presenting the matter. What could be more divisive than what we have at the moment, where a section of the federation has made the country ungovernable? The people need to chart a way forward since politicians, by their greed, have proved incapable of running the affairs of the Nigerian State in a peaceful, orderly and civilized manner.
The misconception that if the country is restructured into autonomous, development regions that those who have invested in and married from the other regions would suffer adverse consequences is mere propaganda masterminded by avaricious power seekers who desire a behemoth, bizarre federal system to exploit for self-aggrandizement. Nigerians have businesses in many countries of the world and have married from other races; and these businesses and marriages have not been confiscated because the countries in question are not local government councils in Nigeria!
Some opinion leaders even ignorantly or mischievously make a big deal of the size of the country and its potential for arousing global interest and attention to push the argument that even if the country is ungovernable, even if thousands of innocent Nigerians are being killed needlessly by angry terrorists, even if basic infrastructure cannot spring up on account of debilitating ethnicity induced corruption, the country should remain as it is because of its immense size and the influence of the size of countries in global politics and relations. How hollow and how bereft of substance can an argument be? Ghana is small in size, but it is more respected today than Nigeria in world rating. The State of Israel rules the world through America. What is its size compared to Nigeria? Evidently, in the matter of rating countries in world politics, size is nothing and substance is everything.
Russia today is a loose federation of independent republics. That does not stop it from exacting tremendous influence in world politics. To allow the different ethnic nationalities to federate on their own terms in no way amounts to the liquidation of the country. The South-West is not going to move away from its present geographical location simply because it now enjoys constitutional autonomy to tap its resources, pay tax to the federal government and develop its jurisdiction. It will still be part of Nigeria. The same thing will apply to the other regions if and when they are so created. The fear of disintegration is not about the country, but about the fear of power seekers who won't have an anonymous awesome center to preside over and pillage.
The worrisome dispensation is: stealing and looting the federal treasury is stealing and looting everybody's treasury. And everybody's treasury is nobody's treasury. But when the treasury belongs to a distinct nationality, the group won't spare any looter or thief. That is the fear of power seekers. No more, no less. Should the vocal press, the rights activists, the federalists, the youths of this country allow themselves to be sold to the gimmickry and chicanery of politicians and refuse to stand up in the moment of history to be counted, by pretending that the confab is a Jonathan conference?
My personal plea to President Jonathan is to forget about 2015, restructure the country like the Russian Gorbachev and let our people attain the height of their potentiality. This he can do by letting the conference run its full course, let the outcome be submitted, not to the National Assembly, but to a plebiscite, to allow the emergence of autochthonous national constitution given by the people unto themselves.
Source: Citizenship education for national confab (http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/citizenship-education-for-national-confab/)