PRONACO Established in Bad Faith - Balarabe Musa
THISDAY By Idowu Sowunmi, 10.21.2005
Chairman of Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Alhaji Balarabe Musa, has condemned the activities of Pro-National Conference (PRONACO), saying the body was established in bad faith and that its proposed People’s Conference is "subversive."
Musa, in an exclusive interview with THISDAY in his Kaduna home, traced the history of the formation of PRONACO, saying Pa Anthony Enahoro undercut the original movers of the idea "for whatever reason."
He said "long before President Olusegun Obasanjo's National Political Reform Conference, when CNPP was planning a mass action held in Abuja, we contacted leaders of all political parties, civil society and all ethnic organisations for support for mass action. In the course of our consultations, we realised that CNPP cannot hold an effective and successful mass action because CNPP's grievances concerned the whole country. So, we decided that to make the mass action successful, it should be conducted and controlled by a broader and non-partisan body. We established Nigerians United for Democracy (NUD) for the sole purpose of conducting the mass action."
Musa, who is also National Chairman of Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), said "NUD was headed by Pa Anthony Enahoro as the protem Chairman, Maxi Okwu as the protem National Secretary and myself as the Chairman of NUD Sovereign National Conference. Of course, we realised after the mass action that Sovereign National Conference (SNC) was a serious issue. So, we established the sub-committee under NUD for this purpose. Our responsibility at the committee was to consult as many organisations throughout the country as possible that uphold SNC. We had a series of meeting in Lagos and Abuja. All the meetings in Lagos were chaired by Pa Enahoro and the committee meetings for SNC held in Abuja under my chairmanship."
"In the last quarter of 2004, we held our last meeting at Airport Hotel in Lagos and decided that there should be a democratic election of the leadership of NUD. Pa Enahoro was asked to convene the meeting for the election of the leadership.
We identified 30 active political parties, civil society and ethnic organisations that should be involved in the elections, we said each one of them should bring I think five delegates to elect NUD leaders. But unfortunately for whatever reason, Pa Enahoro did not call the meeting for the election, instead he called a meeting at which PRONACO was established. We opposed the action and since that time he did not call meeting of NUD, and of course we couldn't participate in the activities of PRONACO," he said.
When asked on the probable alternative to the present discordant tunes over the much-touted people's conference, Alhaji Musa said PRONACO members "have to abandon it," adding that he "would not attend this conference," and described it as "subversive."
Musa described the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as "the tragedy of Nigeria," saying "it is the tragedy of democracy in Nigeria."
"PDP did not win a free and fair election, they declared themselves the winners. Secondly, the PDP led government has not been able to perform for six years, and they want to deceive themselves that in the next one and half years they will make the difference. It is impossible. Nigeria is not a Banana Republic. You can't consecutively for six years and hoped that you can make the difference in two years. PDP is so bankrupt that even the party has no respect for its constitution. The President does not respect any constitution of the party, as far his concerned President Obasanjo is the party. As it is now, the President has abused all the provisions for separation of powers contained in 1999 constitution. the legislature, the judiciary and the executive are supposed to check one another in a system of separation of power. But President Obasanjo has now consistently transformed this into only one power-executive even that power has been personalised, it has become the Obasanjo power, PDP cannot even do anything. Obasanjo decides at anytime who should be the leader of PDP. He decides what should be the action of PDP members of National Assembly who are 2/3 of the assembly. PDP is involved in self-elimination. Even the anti-corruption campaign. PDP is not helping matter at all," he said.
