The president has betrayed the trust of a sizeable number of his supporters and electors; who gave him their support on the assumption that his second term will witness a muscular and decisive leadership, without the distraction of another election. The convocation of a National Dialogue is a betrayal of gargantuan proportion that betrays either a cynical perspective of the Nigerian Project or an admission of failure in the quest to reform the Nigerian State or both. To clarify my position and forewarn my readers, I make the following disclaimers. I am an Obasanjo sympathizer.

I believe in the zeal, energy and fearlessness that the President has exhibited in the discharge of his duties. I also believe in his personal integrity and desire to be the purveyor of the modern Nigerian State that is anchored on transparency and rule of law. I also believe that the President has made some necessary concessions to interest groups and power blocks in deference to the first principle of life, self preservation. Until he needlessly brought the issue of morality into the national lexicon, the President has basically been a good politician, fighting different battles with the entire arsenal at his disposal and empowering the Presidency in the face of rudderless, unprincipled and corrupt opposition, both in the PDP and other Parties.

In the United States the Bush Presidency has gone to the extent of leaking the spy status of an opponent's wife in the bid to blunt his edge. That is power for you; it is not Sunday school and has very little moral contents rounds the world. Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathiar, the preferred model of leaders of the Nigerian intellectual class, are better known for their Machiavellian tactics and disdain for opposition in the West than the transformation they brought to their countries.

However, power ought to be used to increase the economic, social and spiritual life of a people despite its unholy origins. Unfortunately the "People" especially in Nigeria have not been mobilized or raised to the level of consciousness where they can defend the sanctity of a government in power. This leaves a government with no option but to continually make concessions to interest groups and the power elites to remain in power. This I believe was the conundrum of the President in the First term; how to remove the government subsidy on the elites and still win a second term. After a few populist acts that gave him high ratings in the first quarter of his first term he ran into turbulent waters which manifested in the attempted impeachment, accusation of reneging on an agreement and ethnic wars on different fronts, he soft-pedaled for second term sake.

During the last independence anniversary, Chief Ojo Maduekwe in his independence Lecture called for regional government and more or less lent his support to the call for a variant of the National conference that does not possess sovereignty. In the lecture he graphically painted a depressing picture of the challenges plaguing the Nigerian State and the drift to anarchy. He posited that unless urgent steps are taken to rebuild the capacity of the Nigerian State our regression to a failed state status will be a foregone conclusion. After a very brilliant analysis of the problem, Chief Maduekwe, as I pointed out to him in a private discussion, went on to offer some crucial reforms that are imperative for state building, however he veered off the road when he speculated on the need for regional governments. That kite flying recommendation obviously fuelled the comatose appetite of the conference advocates and maybe provided the intellectual trigger for the President's current adventure.

The President in an obvious search for a new national consensus has fallen prey to a band of idealists whose faith in electoral processes is non existent; their quest for constitutional reforms ejaculatory and their connection to the Nigerian people specious. These tribes of conference advocates are patriotic citizens, mostly above 60 years of age and still living in nostalgia of the 1960s post independence Nigeria. They view elections with disdain and stand with utter contempt of the process that elected President Obasanjo. They want to have access to the Nigerian State governance structure by appointment. They have no capacity for the coalition building that is necessary for State building and national consensus. They have been at it since 1953, where the caused an upheaval at a constitutional conference in Kano; in 1962 they plotted to overthrow a legitimate government when they couldn't win the federal elections and in 1966 joined a Military government with the understanding that Power will be handed over to them in 1976. These are the progressives that have metamorphosed from independence nationalists to ethnic champions.

There is also a category of latter-day conference converts who subverted the legitimate governments in Nigeria either through Military coups or rigging. In both situations we hold them equally liable of treason. Now they want a dialogue to solve Nigeria's problems. All the constitutions in Nigeria has been clear on the way and manner of changing governments yet it has been kept in the breach by the tribe of those who now want to fashion a fool proof constitution for Nigeria. They have in their various sojourns in power consistently proved that the Nigerian problem is not constitutional. The looting of Nigeria by this category of conference converts was obviously not allowed by the constitutions under which they served.

Why is the President succumbing to these high decibel voices of national discontent? Why is he allowing himself to be stampeded into finding a forum for retired and tired Nigerians to congregate in Abuja as a new team of contract seekers and rented voices of nebulous national interest? The nation is already groaning under the weight of a tribe of legislators who we have now confirmed are extorting money from Ministers and Chief Executives of Parastatals and scavenging for contracts all over the City. Why add another group of national officers, as they will pretend to be, with name cards boldly affixed with the coat of arms, Personal Assistants and tinted vehicles. MTN is already spending so much in their State capture project by bribing national assembly members with recharge vouchers at consumer's expense, why add another 400 people to the list? With the modal age of conference delegates around 60 years I know this will be a good opportunity for many to seek medical attention on government expense at National Hospital and foreign clinics.

President Obasanjo and the elected legislators as the current inheritors of our sovereignty have done a great disservice to the State building project by this embarrassing assemblage of geriatric elders to a debating platform that has the potentials of wasting the remaining time of this administration. The issues they want to debate have been articulated by the Mantu committee and will not be different from the Vision 2010 document. How will anybody imagine that this assembly in Abuja is representative of the current power and popular configuration in Nigerian politics? They represent no one but themselves. The vast majority of Nigerians has expressed their will through the elected officers of this dispensation and as such expects them to provide them with the benefits of good governance.

Some will speedily say that the elections were a sham and rigged. I agree, but it is not a constitutional problem. Others will say that the administration is not delivering public goods to the people. Again I agree but it could be due to incompetence, poor civic participation but not a constitutional problem. Others will yet say that the ethnic tension in Nigeria is capable of derailing the republic. That may be true but rather than a constitutional conference it requires greater devolution of Power which, the President and the national assembly can effect, with or without a constitutional amendment. What then is to be done in the midst of the deafening advocacy of constitutional conference proponents?

The problem with Nigeria today is very basic and clearly discernible; lack of integrity of systems and impatience with institution building. President Obasanjo today only equals the former military dictator, General Babangida in the strength and powers of his Presidency. His party has 28 Governors and controls the 28 State House of Assemblies. He is the bona fide leader of the People's Democratic Party having successfully caused the election of three Party chairmen and forced the last Chairman to resign; a proper dynamic of Presidential system of government, the president is the leader of the party. The National Assembly is dominated by the President's Party and bears his imprimatur. Like General Babangida, who at one time dissolved his Armed Forces Ruling Council and traveled abroad, President Obasanjo is the most powerful man in Nigeria today. From his early tentative days in the first term we have seen an increased and increasing amassing of powers formal and informal that it will be a waste if this Power is not used to effectively increase the social capital stock of the federal government. How is this to be done?

I had thought that instead of spending about a Billion naira for a nebulous debate the government should have used the money to fund a national program of street naming, numbering and digital mapping to be able to locate Nigerians and make the national identity card a true form of identification. Why is this essential? It is a critical component of state capacity that a state must be able to identify its citizens and provide a basis for transactions to take place between people across the length and breadth of Nigeria while relying on the integrity of the State to locate and identify the citizen. This singular act will increase the state scope and capacity of the Nigerian State and make it a true administrator of our national identity and consciousness.

The President should administratively devolve Powers to the State and local governments. Why do we need federal Ministry of works building and maintaining roads nationwide? I believe we need a federal Highway Administration charged with Building new interstate highways and detailing the maintenance process and schedule for State Ministry of Works to implement. State governments will collect tolls on the roads remit some to federal government to fund new highways and use the remaining to maintain their own portions of the federal highways. The Federal highways should determine the technical staffing level, technology type, contract awarding guidelines and monitoring of the state Ministry's adherence to rules. This will free the federal government from this incredulous role of maintaining roads in all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, an impossible task that reduce the social capital of the federal government in the eyes of its citizens. This does not need a constitutional conference or amendment and if it does the President can make it happen with the awesome powers at his disposal.

Why should we have a Federal Road Safety Agency that pretends it can man all the roads in Nigeria and issue licenses that have no integrity? The Federal Roads Safety agency should be a regulatory agency that will give matching funds to State Safety administrations that will have the function of maintaining presence at all the State roads to ensure safety. The state Licensing offices should be linked with the FRSC as Vehicle registration and Licensing will become a State and Local government matter but with a reporting requirement to the FRSC to ensure a national database and make it easy for People to get new vehicle registration or license when they move to another State. This will effectively provide a second national identity and provide a database for proper car insurance and a source of local car tax to fund transportation needs of the local government. It then means that while your drivers license is valid for use all over Nigeria it can only be an effective identity in the State of residence and needs to be changed once you change your state of residence, same for your vehicle registration, which must be registered at the State of domicile.

Why do we need federal government Colleges, as islands of excellence? The government should hand over those schools to State governments and insist on a standard for the accreditation of secondary schools for the whole country. A minimum set of standards that will require appointed certification agencies to conduct bi-yearly certification exercises to ensure compliance. The certification process should include State ministries of education to ensure that they have the capacity to regulate education. We should also have a program for handing over Federal Universities to the State governments with the federal Ministry of Education through the National University Commission evolving to a regulatory Agency for ensuring standards and adherence to federal regulations.

What of Federal Fire Service? The federal government should use it as a regulating agency requiring all local governments to have a Fire Service Department and ensure that water is available for its use in a defined distance for every defined number of people. This will relate to overcrowded classrooms, houses and building regulations and make the safety of Nigerians an issue of federal regulation but local implementation.

These are just a few examples of how we can deepen our Federalism and build institutions through executive and probably legislative engineering. The federal government should use the power of the purse and its regulatory and supervisory powers to ensure national standards and local capacity building. If the federal government frees itself from most of this concurrent issues it will then concentrate energy on the exclusive list and deliver more policing, for instance. The current state of things where the federal government is expected to maintain the road that passes through Obosi, my village; which is curiously a federal road, is to say the least ridiculous.

The sheer logistical and financial incapacity of the federal government to keep up with these tasks creates a continual depletion of social capital and trust, two pillars of development. This also have the impact of creating a certain aversion and revulsion at the mention of the federal government. In some states where the Governors, not distracted by the gigantic bureaucracy that the President has to contend with, are able to rebuild some infrastructure it increases this romantic vision of a Nigeria without Nigeria, a geographical space just made up of independent ethnic groups. A fallacy because they all conveniently forget that the money that drives the development in the states comes from Nigeria as presently constituted.

The President should, since the National Assembly has proved incapable, propose a constitutional amendment and see it through before 2007. The amendment could be on any non contentious issue like Preservation of national monuments and arts, just to show that any group that feels strongly about any issue should go through the National Assembly, build coalitions, advocate and fight its case through. There should be no short cuts to national renewal; we must learn to build state institutions and build bridges.

The American constitution was written with the exclusion of Women, Blacks and landless or Poor Americans. Yet the authors proclaimed the equality of all men as a self evident truth, this had not led Americans to call for another constitutional conference rather it created an ideal which all the discriminated groups latched on to in their fight for equality. So if some Nigerians feel that the words "We the people" that preface our constitution is not true they should see it as an ideal and fight for necessary amendments to reflect any national consensus that is not in the document. After 27 amendments the American constitution is still going through metamorphosis to reflect the current understanding of the ideals of the framers of the constitution.

Should it be that the President wants to collate the views of Nigerians and to reflect it in his proposal for constitutional amendments? If so I still think the national dialogue route is the wrong way to go. He should have used the General Babangida format of Political Bureau. This would have made it possible to organize State dialogue sessions, listen to the authentic voices of Nigerians, collate the responses and reflect areas of national consensus in his proposal to the National Assembly. That would have been a politically and statistically relevant route of listening to Nigerians. It would have generated strong national consciousness and acted as a vehicle for mobilizing the masses as the true protectors of the constitution. President Obasanjo betrays his supporters and the Nigerian people when he falls into the trap of assuming that a congregation of treasonable felons, an ex this or ex that, elder statesmen, retired civil servants or newspaper pro democrats are the custodian of the will of the Nigerian People. This is an assumption that undermines the legitimacy of the democratic process and provides shelter for those who while refusing to engage the political process are enamored of its outcome.

For those, and this includes ethnic groups, professional pro democrats and the eternally dissatisfied, who feel strongly about any issue in the constitution including tearing it, there is an option open. Form a Political Party, win the Presidency, control two-thirds of the National Assembly, State Houses of Assembly and then do to the constitution whatever you deem fit. Should that be a difficult task for you, build alliances with Parties of like mind and mobilize support from the politically irrelevant ethnic organizations that support the idea of a conference. If those prove difficult still then know that your views are only popular in your head and should be modified. That is the truth of the Nigerian condition; urban elite that have no base with the electorates or the masses and these are the People the President have gathered in Abuja.

President Obasanjo has rewritten the Nigeria political equation with the victory of the PDP in the South west despite Afenifere posturing. Before Obasanjo, General Abacha had effectively demonstrated the power of the Nigerian State as the inheritor of the sovereignty from the British government, (the idea of sovereignty has been well articulated by Bala Usman). Some of his very bold acts put paid to the posturing of ethnic and religious organizations that want to share sovereignty with the Nigerian State. The evolution of a modern Nigerian State is on and should be complemented by reforming our electoral process, increasing the integrity of systems through state capacity strengthening and building social trust through devolution of powers; these are not constitutional but ethical and administrative issues.

The President should please disband this assemblage of geriatric and expired old men or get NAFDAC to check their shelf expiry dates so we can be assured that their ideas are fit for human consumption. If he does not, I hope he will be willing to contend with a legitimate body that can mischievously call for an interim government to conduct fresh elections and write a new constitution for Nigeria. They can cause further division by asking that the Senate President to head the interim government while legislators and some of them act as Ministers. The world will give them audience and will demonize the President if he tries to teargas them or surround them with armored tanks. Even if this is a far-fetched scenario, not forgetting the Abacha conference 1996 handover date debacle, the distraction of this national dialogue is too expensive for a retreating government to afford.

As for Nigerians in Diaspora I find it unconscionable that they will be genuflecting before the charade that goes on back home. What manner of immigrants do we have that is only waiting for the day when they will have access to the Nigerian till? How else can I explain the inability of the renowned Nigerian entrepreneurial spirit to be manifested by the legal Nigerian immigrant population? Where is our own George Soros, poor immigrant Greek boy turned international businessman? Why we are only interested in returning to Nigeria to participate in the looting? Should the Nigerians in Diaspora not be in the vanguard of the quest for institution building and due process hallmarks of the societies they live in? Why are we afraid to reveal the names of our government officials who buy houses in cities we reside? Or are we saying we don't know them? Is it not true that the latest job amongst Nigerians in Diaspora is the handling of the financial and commercial interest of government officials for a fee? Yet we have a cream of Nigerians abroad, leaders in academic fields and responsible citizens of their host countries. They should be able to witness truth to power and not allow a few office and lucre seeking masqueraders to lead them to the path of dishonor.

The National Dialogue or whatever name it goes with should be rejected by all right thinking Nigerians. It is a poisoned chalice covered with honey. It is a brutal rejection of due process; state building and smacks of the usual Nigerian quick fix syndrome. There is no holy grail for building the Nigerian State; it requires only consensus building, focused leadership and incremental development of our constitutional experience. The national dialogue is a betrayal of a Presidential mandate.

Text Of A Paper Presented By Osita Chidoka At The Pre National Dialogue Conference Hosted By The Nigeria In Diaspora Organization At The Nigerian Embassy Washington DC On Saturday 19th February, 2005