By Our Correspondent
PORT HARCOURT — A former Minister of Aviation and Chancellor of the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership, Osita Chidoka, has called for a new national consensus founded on equal citizenship, accountable public power and a shared responsibility to defend the rights of every Nigerian.
Chidoka made the call while delivering the keynote address at the 28th Wole Soyinka Lecture in Port Harcourt, which also featured the inauguration of the National Association of Seadogs’ Martyrs’ Day.
Professor Wole Soyinka, who turned 92, was present throughout the lecture.
The lecture series was established in 1994 by the National Association of Seadogs (NAS), also known as Pyrates Confraternity, to mark Soyinka’s 60th birthday. It has since become an annual platform for discussions on good governance, social justice and democratic ideals.
NAS was founded in 1952 at the University College, Ibadan, by seven undergraduates, including Soyinka, and was formally registered in 1980.
The inaugural Martyrs’ Day honours 33 NAS members who were detained for 72 days in Port Harcourt in 1997, an episode Chidoka examined extensively in his address.
Speaking on the theme, “Reclaiming the Nigerian State Through Accountability, Justice and Civic Courage,” Chidoka argued that Nigeria’s challenges go beyond the structure of the federation.
He said the country lacked “a sufficiently shared organising ideal” and needed a common understanding of “what Nigerian power is for, what citizenship must guarantee and what Nigerians owe one another.”
Chidoka acknowledged the need to reform Nigeria’s federal arrangements, particularly in the areas of devolution, policing and fiscal responsibility, but cautioned that structural reforms without a corresponding moral purpose could merely redistribute injustice.
“A federation can be decentralised and still be unjust. A regional government can oppress a local minority. A state police service can protect a Governor rather than the citizen,” he said.
Tracing Nigeria’s founding aspirations through the 1957 Willink Commission, the independence anthem and the 1999 Constitution, Chidoka said the country was established on a promise to protect minorities, uphold justice and build a nation in which no citizen would be oppressed.
He commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for restoring “Nigeria, We Hail Thee” as the national anthem in 2024, arguing that the anthem “does more than ask us to love Nigeria: it tells us what kind of Nigeria deserves our loyalty.”
Chidoka proposed three commitments as the foundation of a renewed national consensus: equal citizenship without the need for an ethnic sponsor or political godfather; public power treated as a trust that leaves a trail and submits to correction; and a shared duty to defend the dignity of Nigerians regardless of their party, faith or community.
Accountability must have consequences — Chidoka
On accountability, which he defined as “answerability joined to consequence,” Chidoka, drawing from his experience as Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, said explanations, audit reports and court judgments were insufficient without corrective action.
“Explanation without correction is not accountability,” he said, proposing a three-part discipline for public power: “trace, test, correct.”
Drawing a link between the 1997 detention of NAS members in Port Harcourt and the 2005 killing of the Apo Six in Abuja, Chidoka argued that Nigeria had changed the “uniform of its rulers” without sufficiently changing the reflexes of power.
He urged NAS to broaden the meaning of Martyrs’ Day beyond its members, insisting that “the best way to honour the F18 survivors is to defend citizens who do not belong to this Association.”
Chidoka called for a national consensus that would promote equal citizenship, accountable public power and a shared sense of responsibility.
“Let us construct a new national consensus around equal citizenship, answerable power and common brotherhood. Let us give young Nigerians a banner worth carrying. Let us build a Nigeria where courage can live and no citizen needs a martyr’s bravery merely to enjoy a citizen’s rights,” he said.
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