Constant dialogue, debate and negotiation constitute the tripod on which the future of Nigeria rests. They are also necessary for the practise of democracy in the country. These are the passionate views of Chimaroke Nnamani, Governor of Enugu State.

Nnamani's views tally with the position of Haeder Jodl, a renowned social scientist, who warns against the grave dangers which people, who ignore the reality of their history are bound to face. Jodl asserts in his book titled: New Empires, published in 2001 that "... if a people should ignore the reality of their history, hitching for the pretension of a would-have-been compact state, which has not shed its pristine bickering and divisiveness, such people would have displayed an unpardonable political laziness of which the new foundation for the evolving state should pass them by."

Nnamani is worried. His worry is that some elites in Nigeria do not seem to see the truth in what Jodl has said and continue to indulge in acts and pronouncements that show that Nigeria is not prepared to shed its pristine bickering and divisiveness. He is more worried that these elites ignore the reality of Nigeria's history and continue to indulge in what he calls "an elitist deceit."

What these elites do is to deliberately mislead other Nigerians to shun dialogue, debate and negotiation as the basis for continued peaceful co-existence, mutual trust and respect among themselves. More worrisome to Nnamani is the destructive campaign by the elites to link the genuine public demand for a constitutional review designed to address the imperfections in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, to the rumoured third-term agenda of President Olusegun Obasanjo. As a result, he told Newswatch that there is a campaign going on no in some parts of the country to blackmail the National Assembly and force it to discontinue with its current efforts at constitutional review. He said the third-term campaign is a disruptive strategy because its proponents don't want to discuss the constitution.

The governor's worry was extensively reflected in his welcome speech at the Conference of Governors, Legislators and Leaders of Southern States of Nigeria in Enugu on December 19, last year. In the speech titled: "Agenda for Better and Stronger Nigeria," Nnamani made a case for the continuation of the debate on the project called Nigeria. Delving into historical archives, the governor explained how the various independent nations that existed before colonial rule, were conquered and brought into what is now known as Nigeria without their consent.

Stated the governor: "Of course, it was without notice and consent of the natives that the agents merged the Lagos Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, as a prelude to building a mega territorial possession for the Queen of England. From amalgamation of North and South, in 1914, and the constitutional conferences - all named after their husbandmen - Sirs High Clifford, Donald Cameron, Bernard Bourdillon, the Lord Milverton, Arthur Richards, John Mcpherson and James Robertson; agreements were reached on the impending Nigeria project." He said the agreements were full of imperfections.

Nnamani argued that these agreements ignored how the multi-nations had operated as sovereigns, before colonial rule. For instance, he said, King Jaja of Opobo had agentsgeneral in the Whitehall in London and Fernando Po up till 1875, while the Benin Court also had its agents-general in Fernando Po and Portugal up till 1897. Similarly, he recalled, Nana of Itsekiri had diplomatic agents in Fernando Po up till 1879.

The governor argued that the constitutional agreements also ignored the realities of the various ages when the kings and princes on the banks of the Niger and Benue rivers held sway, operating as sovereigns and freely negotiated with colonial masters. Even after they became part of the Nigeria project, he said, agreements were reached on how these multi-ethnic nations could live together, govern themselves, share their resources and relate to one another as free citizens of one country. "Today, what we must understand and talk about is a matter of nations and, in indeed, Nigeria has been an amalgamation of nations and interests, some predating the nation-state, but arising from unceasing dialogues," he stressed.

Nnamani recalled that at post-independence, the debate and dialogue continued because the Nigeria national question had not been resolved. "From the 1960 Independence Constitution, we had moved to 1963 Republican Constitution, just before we plunged into the heady actions leading to the Aburi talks of1967. The aftermaths were endless non-consultative law-making and national actions, all culminating in the eventual Constituent Assembly which produced the constitution of 1979," he further recalled.

He pointed out that even the 1979 Constitution failed to adequately address the national question and that was why there were renewed calls for dialogues when the democratic government of President Shehu Shagari was sacked by the military in 1983. According to him, the governments of the day yielded to the demands. The .process of re-writing another constitution started with the setting up of the Political Bureau by Ibrahim Babangida, then military president, followed with the Constitution Drafting Committee, the Constituent Assembly and the Constitution Review Committee, CRC, which produced the still-born 1988 Constitution. Thereafter, there were some attempts to address the national question through the national constitutional conference organised by the government of late General Sani Abacha and later by the Abdulsalami Abubakar's constitutional committee.

Declared, Nnamani: "By this foregoing, we can see that Nigeria has been consistent with debates and dialogues. So, do we now end the debate started by our fathers and fore-fathers and exploited extensively by the makers of the 2lstCentury Nigeria, just because they said that the effort at reviewing the constitution is about third term? Of course, far from that. We say, no brothers, we only want to continue to talk so we can get it right. It is against this background that we hope that this dialogue (conference) will be a clearer endorsement of the need to continue constitutional debates and dialogues. That is how to build a nation."

Tony Anenih, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, agrees. Speaking at the conference as a leader from the South-South geo-political zone, Anenih urged Nigerians to allow the National Assembly to carry out its constitutional duty of reviewing the existing constitution without interference. He expressed regret that a recent attempt by the National Assembly to review the Constitution in order to address many issues of national interest including the immunity clause, derivation principle, power-sharing and power-rotation among others has been misinterpreted as a third agenda of the president.

Anenih said that the trend is more worrisome and pleaded: "May I say categorically that in a democracy, all institutions have their own statutory functions and each should be allowed to perform without undue interference."

President Obasanjo is not helping matters. The on-going efforts by the National Assembly to review the Constitution may face greater opposition unless he makes a categorical statement to dismiss his third-term agenda rumour. On December 22, he missed a golden opportunity to kill the speculation when he fielded questions on a Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, programme, "The President Speaks" anchored by Cyril Stober. A caller from Sokoto had asked the President to clear the air on the speculation that he was planning to seek a third term in office.

Rather than giving a direct "yes" or "no" answer, Obasanjo took the caller on a long winding story about the success of his government's reform programme cleverly evading the question. Earlier in the week, Olu Falae, former finance minister, had advised the President to kill the rumour. In his contribution as a leader Falae from the South-West at the Enugu Southern leaders' conference, Falae said even though he shared the sentiments and position of the South on the Nigeria project, he was not comfortable with the third-term speculation going round the country. He advised that the Southern leaders should take advantage of coming together at the conference to kill once and for all "this third term thing."

Nnamani said it is wrong to tie the yearnings of millions of Nigerians for constitutional review to the ambition of one man. According to him, there are much more fundamental issues that the exercise is meant to address. He told Newswatch in an interview after the conference: "The constitutional debate is not about who becomes president. The debate is about poverty, hunger, ignorance, disease, universal basic education. It is about child mortality, gender empowerment, HIV/AIDS. And currently, the debate should be about aviation crisis.”

Nnamani was not happy that as a result of the crisis in the aviation industry, he was forced to travel by road from Enugu to Abuja on December 21. The journey he would have made in 45 minutes by air took him 12 hours by road. "I believe we need to target our people to the correct debate. It is about the structure of the country, about resource control. It is not about who holds political office," he explained.

Emmanuel lwuanyanwu, publisher of Champion Newspapers, who presided at the Enugu Conference as chairman said in his opening remarks, that the purpose of the meeting was to kick-start a debate on the Nigeria project. He said the meeting which he described as "historic" signaled the birth of a new dawn of progress for Nigeria and more particularly for the entire South.

Apparently overwhelmed by the large turn-out of delegates from the three geo-political zones of the South, Iwuanyanwu declared: "Never in my 30 years in politics have I witnessed the South-South, South-East and South-West zones coming together for a unity of purpose. Today, we will leave this place with a new story of unity. Today, we are not talking about partnership, relationship or a union of South-South, South-East and South-West but rather that the Yorubaman, Igboman, the Urhobo, Itshekiri, the Ijawman, Efikman and Ibibioman can come together. I can tell you that we believe in the unity of Nigeria. We are committed to it."

He submitted: "When all of us in the South-South, South-East and South-West come together, it will be difficult for any particular geo-political zone to monopolise power again. It will be difficult for somebody to tell me that power is coming back to the North. It is an insult."

Iwuanyanwu's opening remarks which was immediately followed by Nnamani's welcome speech set the tone for the conference. Every delegate who spoke harped on the need to restructure Nigeria in a way that would ensure fair play, justice and equity in power-sharing and revenue allocation. The various views were summed up and reflected in the eight-point communiqué issued at the end of the conference and read by Victor Attah, Governor of Akwa Ibom State.

One of the issues raised in the communiqué was that in view of the country's historical data which showed that the North had dominated power for 35 out of 45 years of Nigeria's independence, the presidency should still reside in the South in 2007. Specifically, the communiqué said it would be the turn of the South-South or South-East to produce the next president after Obasanjo. Newswatch wanted to know if Nnamani would be interested in the presidency in view of his excellent performance in Enugu State.

His reply: "As I told you earlier on, for me, this is not about fixation to political office or public office. There is certainly no fixation. It is not what we are thinking about. What we are thinking about is how to move Enugu State forward, how to be part of the Nigerian debate. For me, there are much more fundamental issues that if addressed, there will be less fixation or less interest, in who becomes the president."

Was the conference a reaction to the position of the Northern Union that the presidency must return to the North in 2007? Nnamani dismisses such a notion. However, he said, those who felt that way have a legitimate reason for their feeling. He said the meeting should have been held much more earlier because it was not about the presidency. "The meeting is about Nigeria, the Nigerian president, and the structure of the nation. How do we govern ourselves; how do we live together, how do we relate to each other, how do we share our inherent resources, how do we protect ourselves, how do we relate to other nations? It is about governance, state creation, and sharing of resources. These are deeper issues than who holds what office,"
Nnamani told Newswatch during an interview.

How did the idea of the conference come about? He said it was a spontaneous reaction of a chance meeting of governors who were discussing the need for such a meeting. "We happened to have been thinking about the same thing. We called around and within twelve hours, all the 17 governors, including the governor of Lagos State, welcomed the idea. That was the first meeting that was supposed to hold on December 17 and subsequently on December 18 before it was postponed because of the air crash."

He said Enugu was picked to host the conference following suggestions from his colleagues. Hosting a meeting of that magnitude at short notice could turn out to be a logistics nightmare. How was the government able to cope with the challenge?

Nnamani admitted that the logistics for the meeting made the government to do a lot more things it should have done much earlier. For example, he said, the legislative building which was the venue of the conference had to be refurbished. The seats in the legislative hall were changed, broken down air-conditioners were repaired while the public address system which had long broken down was made functional.

Said the governor after the meeting: "You can see the legislators will be very happy" because the legislative building was used for the conference. It was now an incentive to refurbish the place. You saw the water fountain fully in place; you saw the legislative hall changed its seats. We brought back some old pictures and did a lot of re-painting and re-surfaced some roads. We put the street lights back and cleaned the whole place." Nnamani said the expenditure his administration incurred in putting the logistics in place was justified because "it was logistics that would stay after guests must have departed."

The governor is very happy that the historic Enugu meeting had come and gone. Moreso, that it was a huge success. Despite initial skepticisms that Southerners cannot unite to take a common position on national issues, the "outcome of the one-day meeting proved otherwise. How was the governor able to mobilise the caliber of delegates who attended the meeting? And how was it possible for them to agree on the decisions they took?

Nnamani confessed that the success recorded at the meeting was not by his personal effort. "We give credit to God and my colleagues, the Senate President Ken Nnamani, Deputy speaker, House of Representatives, Austin Oparah, the leaders of the various organisations Afenifere, Yoruba Council of Elders, YCE, the South-South People's Assembly and Ohaneze Ndigbo. It is certainly not something that was done by one person or one government or one state," he explained.

The governor argued that the response, enthusiasm and passion the conference generated was not something anybody could engineer. He insisted: "As I speak to you, there are no flights coming to Enugu but a lot of these people came by road. Some chartered buses to come here. They went to the airport and there was no flight, they took off straight from the airport to come to Enugu by road. You saw the caliber of people at the meeting. Hoe do you arrange to bring Falae and Ebitu Ukiwe and Anenih? How do you arrange to bring all these people under one roof?"

Nnamani is a strong critic of the policy of zoning the presidency to any particular part of the country. His position has always been that the presidential contest should be thrown open for the best candidates. He maintains that once the right caliber of leadership is put in place with the right structure, no Nigerian will worry about where the president comes from.

But at the Enugu meeting, the Southern Forum took a position that conflicts with his viewpoint by insisting that the next president after Obasanjo in 2007 should come from the South-South or South-East. Has the position of the Southern Forum modified his view on the issue?

Certainly not. "I am a leader and a leader carries the message ( of his people). What we did was to articulate the message of our people. That does not contradict the personal opinion I have. I still believe that the nation-state has to be piloted by the best. The pilot should come from an 'A' team," he affirmed.

Nnamani said the only way the country could be saved was by having the best captain or pilot to move the ship of the nation-state and to keep it always afloat. He stressed that Nigeria must keep abreast with the global trend whereby the leader is now the chief executive at whose table the buck stops.

The governor said unlike in the past, leadership is now more demanding. It is not a question of people bringing you things to sign or bypassing you. A leader has to drive the process and must have a mental content to be able to understand what is going on and must be able to absorb what is going on. The leader should be able to drive the process. Above all, he said, a leader should even be ahead of people who advise him because he is the chief executive at whose table the buck stops.

This happens to be the case in Enugu State where Nnamani personally drives the process of governance. He told Newswatch that the Enugu meeting was such a huge success because of his personal involvement in all aspects of the arrangement. To make sure there was no hitch during the conference, he visited the venue several times to be sure the podium was in good shape and also that the building had water.

He personally supervised the preparation of the communiqué at the conference secretariat. He made sure the public address system worked and the traditional kolanuts were available for presentation at the appropriate time. He never sat down expecting somebody to do it for him. When it was getting to lunch time, he moved ahead to make sure the parliamentary cafeteria was ready for the delegates. "I had to virtually do everything. The days of sitting down and people will bring papers to you (to sign) is gone," Nnamani said.

Despite the pervading sense of fulfillment exhibited by the delegates acclaiming the strong position taken by the Southern leaders on some national issues, some pessimists are quick to dismiss the contents of the communiqué as "mere political posturing," which will soon fade out. But Nnamani does not feel so. He retorted: "What are they posturing for?" He said the communiqué raised serious issues that have to do with all the restiveness in the land. "People are unhappy and that is why they are resorting to all sorts of militia. It means there is a problem in the land." Nnamani stressed.

The governor also dismissed insinuations that the threat of the South to boycott the 2007 general elections and thereafter push for a confederal structure of Nigeria if the issues complained of were not addressed is capable of overheating the polity. He explained that the position of the South was a goal or objective set to be realised before 2007. "Nobody is expecting that there wouldn't be a constitutional review before 2007. I believe the process is already on. Recommendations have been made and I believe they will be debated."

All over the world, it is a known fact that nobody gets political power on a platter of gold. But Southern leaders who met in Enugu on December 19 resolved that they would not be confrontational in their struggle for political power. How realistic is their approach in view of the hardened position of the North to take back political power in 2007? Nnamani said: "It is possible and easy to attain political power without confrontation.”

Confrontation, he added, "is much more difficult because the other group will also dig in." He feels the North could be persuaded to see justice and equity in the Southern position.

But most Nigerians do not reckon much on persuasion as an effective weapon in political struggle. The governor attributes this attitude to the fact that democracy is relatively new in Nigeria. Democracy, he argued, "is about debate." He believes that with time, the North and South will sort out things, adding that democracy will survive in Nigeria if its citizens recognise the value of debate, negotiation and mutual respect.

Additional report by Chris Ajaero.