Okunrounmu, Olunloyo Doubtful of National Conference Success

Dr. Femi Okunrounmu



By Shola Oyeyipo

Judging from the intricacies around the ongoing National Conference, the duo of former Governor of the old Oyo State, Dr. Omololu Olunloyo and the chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee on the 2014 National Conference, Dr. Femi Okunrounmu, have cast doubts on the possibility of the conference achieving any meaningful result.

The two prominent Nigerians from the South-west expressed their concerns yesterday during the 2014 annual luncheon merit award ceremony of their alma mata, Government College Ibadan Old Boys Association with the theme: ‘After the conference, Whither the Nation?’

Olunloyo who was the chairman of the occasion, while giving his welcome address, had stated categorically that “the National Conference is not likely to succeed,” stressing that there are so many reasons why the conference would not succeed but he gave just two of them.

According to him, his premonition was premised on the fact that government did not follow Okunrounmu’s prescriptions in organising the conference and also because of the characters who are involved in the talks among ethnic nationalities in the country.

“I will give only two of the reasons here: one is that what Okunrounmu told them to do is not what they did. He advised them to elect some people and appoint some people, but unfortunately, that was not what they did. They are going to fail because they did not follow his advise. Then from all indications, the people in authority are still using the old rogues who run the country down; the same heartless people running the nation down,” he said.
Olunloyo expressed deep sorrow over the state of the nation.

“I’m assuring everybody; I may be dead or alive; I spent the whole of 2011 in hosspital and I decided I will not die but live to declare the glory of God. If they don’t change, event will change them,” he assured the people.

Okunrohunmu who is also a delegate from Ogun State at the conference, shared Olunloyo’s point of view over future of the conference.
In his opinion, the vested interest of the delegates from the core North to retain the status quo was frustrating most of the proposals brought to the conference by other regions with the hope to change the country for good.

“They (core North) came with a very straight forward agenda, which is to block any change and ensure the sustenance of the status quo. So, the conference has mostly been a clash of the South-west against the core North. While the South-west pushed forcefully for the realisation of all the elements of their agenda, they found themselves almost in every case pitted against the core North, enjoying only lukewarm support from the South-east and a near total indifference from the rest of the country,” he said.

The former senator who had traced the problem facing Nigeria to the anomalies left behind by the colonialists, said the resistance coming from the core North was understandable and indeed expected, noting that “the status quo clearly places the North in a vantage position relative to all other sections of the country because the military rulers who had fashioned out the 1999 Constitution were all from the region, and had erected the structures of state to favour their peoples, especially in the distribution of states and local governments.

“Furthermore, they had assumed that the North would always control power at the centre, a consideration that gave rise to making the centre so strong and the federating units, so weak.

They had also guaranteed, by that constitution, that the North would have a comfortable majority in the National Assembly, making it near impossible to make any constitutional changes that will reduce their advantage. The totality of the North position is that while they may accept some inconsequential amendments to the ‘I999 Constitution, they are doggedly opposed to the writing of a new one.”

According to him, the issues of resource control, regionalism, devolution of power and others that the southerners are proposing suffered setbacks at the committee level because of the interest of the North.

He therefore posited that given the above scenario, the conference was not likely to turn out totally as expected by Nigerians.

“So far, all indications are that the progressives may not have the kind of far-reaching changes that they had hoped for, although there is still some hope that we may have enough departures from the statusquo to justify the submission of the conference outcomes to a referendum preparatory to writing a new constitution.”