No, Mr President, Legislators – Sovereignty belongs to the People!

No, Mr President, Legislators –
Sovereignty belongs to the People!
on october 23, 2013 at 12:50 am in for crying out
loud
By Ogaga Ifowodo
AND just like that, President Goodluck Jonathan
took the wind out of his own sails! With his
Independence Day announcement, and subsequent
empanelling of a National Conference Advisory
Committee, his floundering presidential ship of state
seemed set to sail out of troubled waters. I was,
and remain, cautiously optimistic about his decision
to convene a national conference.
A cross section of members of the Presidential
Advisory Committee on the National Conference
during the inauguration of the Committee at the
State House, Abuja. Photo: Abayomi Adeshida.
Frankly, at this calamitous point of our life as a
nation, I would be delighted by any chance of airing
out grievances, real or imaginary, sitting face to
face with the “enemy other,” before we all go mad.
Thus, I offered a tentative endorsement of the
national conference in my last column, “Salvaging
Nigeria: Only a Sovereign National Conference Will
Suffice!”
For me, the qualifying word “sovereign” is the
litmus test of Jonathan’s sincerity, foretells whether
or not his national conference will be a transforming
event or just another bloody waste of time.
Precisely in the same waythat his combative
refusal to publicly declare his assets has been a
test of his so-called “zero tolerance” war against
corruption.Now that he has said he would forward
the proceedings of the conference to the National
Assembly for ratification, I feel even more
confirmed in this view.
More than mode of representation (ethnic or
acrossthe varied strata of civil society) or agenda,
the question of sovereigntystrikes me as the most
important. Lest it be forgotten, especially by the
self-serving individuals (with very few exceptions)
known as our national legislators, a sovereign
conference means no more than that its
proceedings be ratified only by referendum.
This would be a straightforward enough proposition
in any sane polity, except in ours of the most
expensively paid parliamentarians.With a straight
face, our legislators insist that sovereignty resides
not in the people but in them, the mere agents sent
on the errand of executing the people’s will. Their
arguments in defence of this outrageous claim are
so patently disingenuous a secondary school
student would beg to debate them on television.
Since our return to civilian rule (not to be confused
with democracy), I have had cause to dismiss the
majority of our“honourable” legislators as illiterates.
By which I mean not the inability to read or write but
lack of the requisite cultivation of mind to fit the
citizen for service to his society and humanity at
large.But after the arguments advanced by a gaggle
of senators and representatives in support of their
contempt for the people, I am beginning to think that
perhaps they are functionally illiterate.
For what do they not understand in the clear
provision of Section 14(2)(a) of the
Constitution:“Sovereignty belongs to the people of
Nigeria from whom government •••derives all its
powers and authority”?Perhaps, that government
includes the legislature? In what world does the
agent ratify the principal’s act?
Well, then, suppose the nine villages of a clan—let’s
call it Umuofia—resolve, after protracted
deliberations on the root causes of incessant
conflicts among them, to set up a Council of Elders
with a representative from each village.
And this council’s duty is to make subsidiary
resolutions towards the implementation of their
decision on ways ofsettling their differences and
ensuring lasting peace. Suppose that four years
after, relations among the villages have not only
failed to improve but have degenerated. And that,
consequently, they decide to rewrite the original
resolution.
For which purpose, they constitute another body to
draw up better principles of co-existence for the
clan. Would President Jonathan and our legislators
insist that the new body’s recommendations are to
be ratified by the Council of Elders and not by each
of the nine villages?
I should hope not.The best one can say for the
National Assembly is that it is the “custodian” of the
sovereign will of the people. But a custodian is only
a caretaker. His powers are subject to, and
determined by, the over-riding powers and rights of
“the owner” or “beneficiary.”
If Jonathan and our federal legislators do not
understand this principle, then they confirm the
fears of those who suspect a hidden agenda in the
sudden conversion of hitherto sworn enemies of a
(sovereign) national conference.After all, in what
democracy do public servants hold their masters,
the people, in such utter contempt? Oh, I know: one
in which politicians have perfected the art of rigging
elections and so do not need the electorate.
Still,I remain cautiously optimistic about the
conference for the simple reason that it is better to
“jaw” than to “war,”particularly at this ominous
juncture of our national life. But I have no
confidence in Jonathan or the National Assembly.
All my hope is in the people. And to some extent, on
the Okurounmu Committee whose members, I
pray,will choose to be patriots by taking the side of
the people. If the goal is to salvage Nigeria and set
her on the path toself-actualisation in a free, fair
and genuine federation, then only a sovereign
national conference will do. Which means that its
final resolutions may only be ratified by referendum
and adoptedinto lawwholesaleby the National
Assembly.
That is the only way the resultant Constitution can
claim to have been made by “We the people.”
Anything else would be a travesty.