Confab Delegates And Their Demands

The National Conference has been touted as the silver bullet that would blow away the country’s problems. But some of the personal demands being made by a number of delegates at the ongoing confab beggars belief. Some have been reported to have demanded that the federal government buy them laptops and pay their personal servants salaries. This is on top of the widely reported N12 million that each of the delegates will go home with for 90 days’ work. This is despite that, like our overlords at the National Assembly, the delegates are wont to give themselves all sorts of breaks at the drop of the hat; they quickly took the first one just a day after the inauguration ceremony!

With due respect to all delegates who have publicly given up all of the N12 million legitimately due them for participating in the confab and others of similar patriotic disposition, we condemn the frivolous and selfish demands made by some delegates. And if these pathological freeloaders cannot do the job at the hefty N12 million fee offered by the government, we demand that they take a walk; they will not be missed.

These frivolous demands are symptomatic of the common disposition to a call to serve the country and probably explains why Nigeria is in a huge mess today. Very few of our countrymen and women take the John Kennedy mantra — “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” — to heart. This, perhaps, is at the core of the misrule Nigeria has suffered since independence.

As they resume sitting today, the delegates should call to mind the short history of this conference and what it ostensibly would accomplish for the country at this critical juncture of the nation-building process. Perhaps they need to be reminded that many Nigerians are still skeptical about the whole set-up and have dismissed the conference as another talkshop from which nothing useful would emerge. With the reports of some delegates’ inordinate demands, many of these skeptics are already gloating and congratulating themselves on not buying into a ruse. Another misstep now would really suck off any credibility the conference still enjoys and leave its reputation in tatters.

We are glad that the federal government has rejected the inane demands, according to media reports, that is. We insist that the N12 million is more than enough pay for the delegates and that they should use part of this huge amount to pay for any backroom support and working tools they desire, lest they really confirm that the conference is another jamboree through which the country would be ripped off billions of naira yet again.