 When the governors of southern Nigeria met on Tuesday, they not only resolved to ban open grazing, they also called for the convocation of a national conference. The governors say a dialogue is needed to manage the widespread agitations among various peoples for greater inclusiveness in governance. Public Affairs Analyst Mac Adebayo is joining us this morning to discuss this call and to answer if indeed a national conference is needed in Nigeria at this time. Good morning Mr. Mac Adebayo. Good morning and thank you for having me here. So our first question really is on necessity. Do we need a national conference right now? Well, thank you so much. That is the most relevant and pertinent question for Nigeria today. We do need a national dialogue, we do need, by whatever name we want to call it, if people are afraid of a sovereign national conference where there are agreements we must have reached remain binding. If people are afraid of the sovereign national conference, at least let us have a national dialogue, let us have a conference, let us talk to one another, let us talk together and arrive at some sort of consensus about how Nigeria should proceed moving forward. Because we, the far corner, at the moment, cannot hear the far corner. The center cannot hold, everything seems to be falling apart, you know. We have terrorism, we have banditry, we have killer adders, menace, now on top of that we now have cessationist tendencies and that is why we need to quickly and audibly sit down and talk and fashion out the way to restructure this country. This structure, the college structure will restructure this country if we don't restructure. So we need to quickly restructure this country. We cannot operate under the abattoirs of the 1999 military decree, aka 1999 constitution. No, it is unsustainable, it is unworkable. And that is why under percent, many Nigerians are giving kudos to the 17,000 Nigerian governors for coming together to say that the time has come for us to sit down and talk together. And the society at the crossroads that refuses to sit at the round table, we eventually meet in the battlefield. We want to avoid that. Mr. Adebayo, I'm sure you remember that some of the things that you mentioned were part of the resolutions from the past national conference that was held during Goodluck, Jonathan's government. But those resolutions were ignored over time. So do we need to have another conference, another dialogue, or do we just need to go back to the resolutions from the 2014 national conference and take a closer look at some of those resolutions and maybe also implement them? That would be a great recommendation. That would be a great step forward to go back and look at those 2014 recommendations. But this government will not do it. I mean, this government is not going to do it during the campaign. They said they were not going to touch it. It's one of the terrible errors made by Nigerians who have gone ahead to steal food for the party that says, look, we are not going to implement the 2014 national conference. So they were not a part of it. They were invited. They didn't go. So there is no way, you know, they have remained consistent in saying that they are not going to touch it. They have refused to touch it for six years. They are not going to touch it. But at least if they are not going to touch that, we don't want to give them any excuse for us not to sit down together and talk. Let them bring their own template and call people from all... People are angry, you know? People are angry. Justify a blessing. Because of the injustices, but still injustices in the appointments of this government, in the way this government is treating the people. So we need some sort of forum to sit down and talk together. And the basis of our speaking, of our talking together is to find the main means to restructure this country where we can remove every matter of perceived injustices and imbalances in this country. So it is very important. Look, they are not going to touch 2014. It will have been a great step forward, but they are not going to touch it. We shouldn't deceive ourselves. But they should, by themselves, define and structure their own national conference or national dialogue by whatever name you want to call it. You know, I used to call it the National Peace Conference so that we can come together. You see, the way we are, we cannot conquer terrorism and banditry because we are not speaking with one voice. The South is saying one thing, the North is saying another. The South, you know, and for the first time, the Southern governors have come together. We should salute them. You know, for them to have been able to aggregate the courage to come together to stand for irrespective of party lines, whether PTP or APC or AFGA, they came together and said, look, this is the way forward. This is what we think. And I think they have demanded it. And I think they have a duty. They have now realized that they cannot keep quiet. They cannot leave the initiative to the federal government. They cannot leave the initiative to the United States governors. You know, you can see that even the United States governors in the North are now criticizing the South. There are other counterparts. Because of this, the open-gracing matter and the open-gracing of Katu is also sustainable. We will continue to be in the perpetual state of war if you allow killer others to be moving around with their Katu. And for the Southern governor, for the first time, especially for differences in party lines, for them to come together and make that a fatty public declaration. Kudos to them. Kudos to them. And it is high time we understood that there is no way that Gila could proceed with Katu moving around all over the place. All right. Mr. Adeboyo. It is a good intention and crisis and war and bloodshed and rape by these killer others. All right. Mr. Adeboyo, stay with the call for a national conference by these Southern governors. You've mentioned that, you know, the presidency says they would not implement the resolutions of the 2014 national conference, possibly because that was from an opposition party, you know, who organized that. And you say, maybe they should organize theirs. It's less than two years to an election, and maybe it is likely that maybe another party might, you know, come into power. So if another party comes into power and they create, they do organize a national conference and have their own resolution. So this president doesn't want to, all right. So I think we'll take a break here and we'll be right back. So, Mr. Adeboyo, can you hear me? I'm hearing you like that. OK. So I am saying that there was a national conference in 2014. There were resolutions. This administration says they would not implement that. If this president's administration goes ahead to have a national conference, have a resolution, it's less than two years before they're out of power. If another administration comes in and refuse to implement that resolution, where does that leave the people? Because government is supposed to be a continuum. So if one administration keeps saying they would not implement the resolution of the past administration, where does that leave us as a country? Well, you see, we really do not need to reinvent the wheel. The situation we have now, you know, we have enough time to be able to hold a national dialogue. And this government, in the life of this government, they can start implementing the results of those. That the coming administration will not be able to tamper with it. Because if we have reached such, we have made such variation decisions and arrived at conclusions. And then that was the error of the Donald administration. If it had started implementing the 2014 national conference before it left office, it would be difficult for this government to come in and say that they would not be able, that they would not implement it. No, because by that time, the country would have been so restructured that all these agreements we are having today, since for the past six years that the world came to power, we would not be having these discussions, we would not be having these conversations. They are not these crises. By that time, nobody would be able to be moving cattle over the place. Nobody, the appointment at the federal level would not be skewed, the way it is skewed now. That means, all these issues we are discussing, all the matters that our conversations with the government wouldn't have arisen again in the 2014, the result of the 2014 conference have been implemented before Donald had left office. So we have enough time. We are there to say we will, there to say we will. One way of hope is that this government will have the political will to want to hold a national dialogue, a national conference. So if they are able, we have enough time. You know, it's 2023 May-20 before they leave office. So this is 2021 May. They can, before the next election, we can hold a personal conference in January. You can hold it in December or even November. You know, what is the government to start now? We'll be able to hold it, all the templates would have been organized, everything would have been put in place. We can hold one this year. And the government can start implementing the outcome of that conference immediately. They will have had the opportunity of implementing it for two years. So this government coming with, they are not touch water, they are sat down together. So Mr. Adebayo, why does it then seem that in Nigeria, it's when it's close to elections that political parties or the current administration begins to do things that they should have done right from when they, you know, got into power. Why do we have this, we just call it five great approaches to doing things. This is a recurrent decimal of incompetence and blood and blood leadership. It is called on, you can see who might, they're after a debt of regret. They didn't do this, they did not do that. It's part of our leadership malice. It's, I mean, it's inexplicable. It's totally, it's totally unnecessary. You know, people, I cannot understand why you superimpose your political self-interest, of a national interest. That's what, what they have this time. That's why, it's because of self-interest. It's self-interest, political interest and because of artificial differences that they have created in their own mentalities. And it's not working for this country. It is not working for this country. Look, I believe that, you know, when you say people, when they come to government and they begin to blame their predecessors, it is part of the lack of reparations of leadership. Because when you are coming to a meeting, you have an idea of what the problems are. You criticize it, you expose it, you discuss it, you say there's corruption, we are going to fight it. You say there's insecurity, we are going to fight it. You say there is a, there is a moral contest, we are going to deal with it. You say there's a problem with our health and educational systems. You are going to deal with it. You knew there was a problem and you said you are coming to office to fix those problems. So why do you now call and begin to complain about the problems you said were there and then you are complaining about the problems? It was because you said that the past government was not good. That's why you said it was a deficit. You say come and continue campaigning, come and continue the blame game. No, the blame game does not work for this country. All right, Mark Adebayo, one of the things that you've mentioned and our previous guest also mentioned as one of the big topics that should come up with a national conference is restructuring. But if you've also been closely following the reactions to a call for restructuring, there are certain people who have continuously stood against it or found a reason to not support it. There is also the agitations for their own country by IPOB, self-determination, that's the word, by the IPOB. How do you think that all of this, which has been in place, can come together in a national conference and there would somehow be an agreement on anything? The IPOB wants out. There's also a certain Euro bar group that's also wanting out of Nigeria. And at the same time, there's people who don't agree that there should be restructuring at all. So how do you think that we, if we set up a national conference, would come to some agreement? Well, you see, in the Nigerians, of all particular device are working out to smell the coffee. We are now seeing that we are not really united. We are just telling ourselves lies that we are really not united in terms of what we want Nigeria to look like. You can see that the not and the self have never agreed on the issue of restructuring. So when you wake up today and begin to shout about restructuring, the not will disagree with you. If you wake up today and say, look, let us do national conference, the first opposition will come from the not. Why? It is because we are not speaking with all voice. It is because we are not really one. So when people say Nigeria is indifficible, when people say the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable, it's a lie. Because we are not saying things the same way. We are not saying Nigeria the same way. We are not saying the same way forward the same way. We are not, we need to, these are fundamental issues we really need to discuss as a national conference. You know, the former governor of Nassau House State, Abulai, something, came out to size the southern governors for burning, open-gracing India, all states, who does that? What is, that's why we don't marry one wife. Because what you like, I don't, I may not like. That is why people marry their own individual wives. What is not, what we know is not good for our people. We cannot accommodate it. So if you say you want to open-gracing, let them leave me to the not. The southern governors have said they don't want it here. Why do we run away from things that can give us peace? One of the things that can give us peace is this structuring. One of the things that can give us peace is this non-aggressive, and then let us let people begin to arrange their catch-we. But no, so will they. Mark, that would be a, you know, from your own understanding. And I believe, you know, I'm guessing that you also believe that a lot of Nigerians have woken up to smell the coffee and, you know, would agree with you. But if we also, you know, would admit that there is, like you've said, a certain region of the country that might not want to be in the country, certain region of the country that might not want, you know, to get into a conversation on restructuring and all of that, you know. And like I also mentioned, there's the IPOB, there's the Yoruba Groups, Oduwa Groups. Yes, exactly. So how do you think that, you know, with all these persons and with all these political leaders here who don't agree with the idea of restructuring, why do you think a national conference might be able to bring us together to that agreement? It will, you know, if you are looking for a way to bring us together to be that national conference, you know, if we show respect, not respect, the IPOB will come, or the Oduwa safety, the damnation rules, they will come, middle belt, agitation needs, they will come. You need to show them respect, you need to invite them to the table because they have justifiable reasons for calling for separate states. So you have to call them, you stop calling IPOB a terrorist organization. They were not carrying arms before you tagged them a terrorist organization, now they got angry and now they are armed through the ESA and then the bubble is about to burst, we should not allow the bubble to burst. Look at what is happening in the South East. I'm not a happy man. We know, we wake up every day and see that 12 policemen have been killed, one soldier has been shot, military and police personnel, I don't know that comfortable we are in their uniforms in the South East. If that once you get to the South South and South West there, what are we looking at? So it's better we talk now, let us talk, they will come and I can assure you they will come. They will come, they will feel respected, they will feel that okay, yeah, now they are recognizing us, now they will come. People will come and table their, what you need to do in resolving an issue is that you allow people to table their differences. So Mr. Ajay Bayo. Without politics, without ethnicity, let us stop our issues and move forward as a nation. All right, Mr. Ajay Bayo, your points are noted. Solutions to our issues. Mr. Ajay Bayo, your points are noted, you're saying yes, we do need a national conference, and that yes, all the aggrieved parties would come together to the table. But I think the other question remains, will the government actually call for a national conference because of seeing the Senate president, Amit Lawan, and Bajabirah as well say, it's wrong for the Southern Governors to have reached this conclusion, asking for a national conference, asking for a structure in banning open grazing. So that's just the remaining question. Is the government willing to actually, you know, call for a national conference? Would they do that? So that's yet to be seen. But thank you very much, Mr. Makade Bayo, for your time on the breakfast. Thank you so much for having me. All right, here's where we'll take a break on this conversation and return to discuss more issues on security. Do stay with us.