Day 6: My National Conference Exploits.....

Well! Well!! Well!!! Yesterday (26th March 2014) was very unproductive, I must confess.

One speaker, an Emir, a Head, and a Leader goofed beyond my imagination. Perhaps, I expected much. He stood up and said to the house that he doesn't care if Nigeria disintegrates. He is very close to Cameroon he can migrate. If you ask me, this is the height of insensibility - Ok I should be respectful to elders they say. I therefore have my reservations, but that statement by a supposedly elder statesman was uncalled for. I never expected anyone to utter such.

Anyway, after that speech.

The chairman asked the house if they'll be need for receiving memorandum from the general public. One delegate said it's going to be waste of time - I wondered what could be more time wasting than him uttering that.

A youth emphasised the need on getting a memorandum from the general public. "Your children are looking up to you to make a difference, and they'll need to send in their ideas". She also explained the importance of engaging the social media youth - the space-age of modern civilisation.

Another delegate spoke on the need to be cautious on the kind of memorandum the secretariat receives so as not to receive from Cameroon - obviously a sub on the earlier speaker, the Emir.

Majority of the house agreed on the need to receive memorandum from the general public and it was agreed upon, a duration of 2 weeks.

After all said and done, the Deputy Chairman called out names of some delegates who are to meet with the chairman behind the scene (in a particular order, similar to how leaders are hand-picked in the country) to deliberate on the 2/3 and 3/4 issue.

The sitting was adjourned around 11 am to 4pm.

After eating lunch, at about 2.30pm we - the Youths decided to meet and deliberate on some critical issues. In the middle of our discussion, Elder statesman - Josephine Anenih, elder statesman as she call herself or rather say as it is, came to where we were seated and said. "So you these people that complain we have expired what are you people discussing?" we told her we are discussing on issues that are in the interest of our mothers in the conference" she laughed and walked away.

We all were seated at the conference hall at 4pm - well not all but most of us, to hear the outcome of the meeting, the Chairman said a lot of progress has been made but they still needed to buy-in more time to reach a conclusion and iron out some points of departures.

The Chairman, apparently was not happy with the conduct of the house - as usual, shuddered " if you watch the repeat broadcast of yourself yesterday, you will be very ashamed, you embarrassed yourselves" [sic]. And he continued "We would not want a repeat of what happened yesterday".

The conference was adjourned till Monday.

I remain speechless.

It's very saddening to see that the house is divided along ethnic & religious primordial lines and even funnier that these set of people would be deliberating on the need for this division to be harmonized.
Or rather, how can a divided house talk about unity?

Indeed, we have come to a point where we really need to define our identity - Are you a Northern Muslim? A Northern Christian? A southern Muslim? Or a Southern Christian? Or a Nigerian Muslim or Nigerian Christian?

While we are still where we are..I will be pleased if this conference will channel its energy to redefine the Nigerians indigene based on ethnic, religion and regional line. We can not shy away from that. It's only hypocritical to be shying away from what actually is the bottom line of our problem as a Nation.

Until then, the solution to our woes remains an optical illusion.

See you on Monday.

On Twitter: @Yadomah