Tula Cultural Festival 2014, Gombe, Nigeria

PROGRAMMES AND PROJECTS

THE CONFERENCE OF AUTOCHTHONOUS ETHNIC COMMUNITIES DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATIONS

(CONAECDA)

No. 10 Kungfang Village Miango Road, Jos Plateau State.

Phone: 08036025872       E-Mail: conaecda@gmail.com 

PREAMBLE

INTRODUCING THE AUTOCHTHONOUS ETHNIC COMMUNITIES

Our ethnic nationalities consist of communities identifiable by certain cultural characteristics that define each ethnic nationality group as a people. Key components of these characteristics include our languages, our beliefs and practices, our arts and crafts and our native lands.

The struggle for survival, development and cohesion of our communities led each ethnic nationality and community to individually establish development associations and unions that promote the cultural, political, social, economic and educational development of our peoples.

In several states, the common developmental challenges faced by the minority ethnic nationalities communities led to the formation of coalitions or networks such as Plateau Initiative for Development and Advancement of the natives in Plateau and in Kaduna State. It is the consensus of most of our communities that the challenges faced by our people are largely common, and require networking to help not only in resolving problems but in driving community development and survival of our languages, cultures and peaceful co-existence with other, especially larger groups with whom we share a common Nigerian State and are all committed to its success as a just and equitable nation.

It is our belief that we cannot just hope for justice to thrive in our country, we must work together and share human and material resources of our communities and also relate with international partners and governments at various levels for the success of our community efforts.

The process of national integration through constitution making, state and local government creation has tended to work at the expense of the minority ethnic nationalities, as the Nigerian State institutions have not functioned as neutral arbitrators; the major ethnic nationalities have tended to exploit every means to their advantage and sometimes, establish structures, make and implement policies that deprive our communities of rights and privileges that should accrue to them. Examples abound in institutions of State and laws that tended to destroy our languages and culture and even deprive our people of their identity and land. 

We are also concerned that our current situation is largely due to our inability to work together as communities, to define our interests as a key component of the Nigerian common interest and to harness our resources in contributing to the integrity and development of a just and equitable nation.

It is as a result of these issues that we have resolved to be proactive in pursuit of just and equitable development of the minority ethnic communities as key to the overall survival and development of Nigeria. We believe that only a just and equitable development of our communities that collectively form the majority in over 14 out of the 19 northern states, will guarantee a developed and peaceful northern Nigeria and a free and just Nigeria capable of providing leadership to Africa and contributing to the overall advancement of mankind as a member of the international community of nations.

We have therefore collectively resolved to maintain our individual associations and to work together at various levels of interests by networking and providing a secretariat of professionals who will organize, strategize, plan and implement decisions taken by Conference of Autochthonous Ethnic Nationalities as equals, and to facilitate activities, programs and projects that will enhance the ability of our associations to effectively drive community participation in human development and nation building. We are committed to our collective traditional courtesy of welcoming, accommodating and assimilating visitors who are willing to be members of our communities; but that will not be at the cost of losing our culture and identity, or becoming dominated and marginalized people in our own homelands.

With the consent of several ethnic nationalities of Northern Nigeria, we convened the first conference of all northern minority ethnic nationalities development and cultural associations. The three (3) days conference held in Jos the Plateau State capital and was hosted by the 54 ethnic nationalities of Plateau State.

KEY ISSUES THAT EMERGED FROM THE CONFERENCE

1. SECURITY

The conference took cognizance of the fact that Nigeria has been invaded by groups of terrorists, which are drawn overwhelmingly from the three majority ethnic groups in the North East and North West of the country, and which are sponsored and backed by powerful political groups, and supported by international terrorist organizations, with the stated objective of overthrowing the “secular” Nigerian State, and replacing it with a theocratic Islamic state. The Conference noted that this war has the open declared purpose of conquering and taking over of the lands of the autochthonous minority ethnic nationalities of the Northern Nigeria (Middle Belt), and declaring it an “Islamic State”. This war has been characterized by widespread massacres and genocide, wiping out of the people and communities of the region, destroying their economic resources, driving out the people and herding them into refugee camps, and despoiling the land and supplanting the people from their ancestral lands.

 The Conference views with serious concern the unedifying approach to the war, where the terrorists seem to be taking over part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with apparent ease. The Conference noted that while there are reported cases of widespread sabotage of the Federal Government’s efforts from within and without, the community-based organizations of the Minority Ethnic Nationalities, whose territories are the theatre of the religious war, have not organized a coordinated response to the terrorist assaults and sackings of their communities.

We observe that, if the current deteriorating security situation is left unchecked, people of the affected areas would be left with no option than to take up arms and defend themselves and their communities and lands.

2. ENDANGERED LANGUAGES AND CULTURES

The Conference discussed at length, the situation whereby some of the languages of the minority nationalities are dying out, or are in danger of disappearing, and ascribes that to two forces; pressures from the wider Nigerian society, where minority languages have not been used as media of instruction in the pre-primary and primary schools in the northern part of Nigeria, contrary to the letter and spirit of the National policy on Education, and the attitude of parents in not ensuring that their mother tongues are used in the homes, and the assimilating cultures of majority languages and the dominance of the English and Hausa languages in the Church, commerce and government. The Conference also recognized the efforts of various organizations and institutions working to preserve and advance many minority languages.

ASSIMILATING CULTURES

Conference observes that hegemonic cultures of by-gone empires, including Kanem-Borno, Sokoto Caliphate and British Colonial Empire, through Islamic and Christian missionary influences, the school system, and administration and commerce, have developed Hausa and English at the expense of the indigenous languages. That the cultures promoted by the dominating nationalities and religious systems have led to the spread of such cultures, while diminishing the rich cultural diversity that God blessed Nigeria with, including the music, languages, aesthetic arts and indigenous knowledge of the ethnic minority nationalities. While saluting institutions of higher learning in Benue State for initiating the study of the languages of autochthonous nationalities in their catchment areas, Conference observes that there are no State programmes for the promotion of the rich cultural heritage of the people of the Middle belt region/ Northern Minorities.

3. COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNANCE

The Conference observes that from the village community to the federal level, participatory governance has not taken root in the Northern States, including the autochthonous minority nationalities of the Middle Belt. It further observes that the low level of community participation results from low capacity to organize people at the grassroots to demand participation in governance as the right of all citizens, and that the precondition for accountability in governance is an organized and empowered citizenry, able to hold public office holders to account for the power and responsibility entrusted to them.

Taking cognizance of the foregoing observations on the challenges confronting the minority ethnic nationalities in northern Nigeria in particular and Nigeria in general;

Considering the urgent need of the minority ethnic nationalities of northern Nigeria to take steps to ensure their survival in an increasingly unfavourable and hostile environment;

Determined to take their destiny into their hands, and to claim their rights as the autochthonous communities of the lands they occupy in the Federal Republic of Nigeria;

The Conference of Autochthonous Ethnic Community Development Associations (CONAECDA) passed certain resolutions that now form the basis for the programmes to be run by its secretariat.

MANAGEMENT PROGRAMMES AND PROJECTS

1.      ANNUAL CONFERENCE

The members of the autochthonous minority ethnic nationalities Community Development Associations established the Conference of Autochthonous Ethnic Nationalities Community Development Associations [CONAECDA] in 2014, the conference is to hold annually and be attended by Presidents and Secretaries of Member-Associations with observers, the venues of which is be decided by the Conference Secretariat.

2.      CONAECDA SECRETARIATE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

CONAECDA seeks to establish a vibrant Secretariat to organize future conferences and activities, and to execute decisions of the Conference. The Conference Secretariat is to be manned by experts and seasoned technocrats drawn from the autochthonous ethnic minority nationalities.

PROGRAMMES, PROJECTS AND COMMITTEES

1.      COMMUNITY INTERVENTION PROGRAMME

To institute a Community Intervention Programme: to address all issues arising from the current violent conflicts affecting our communities. The Community Intervention Programme shall be run in partnership with communities, civil society organizations, governments, individuals, groups and other national and international partners.

3.      CULTURAL OLYMPIAD

The national secretariat shall plan and host a Triennial Autochthonous Ethnic Minority Nationalities Cultural Olympiad. The aim of the Olympiad is to promote minority cultures locally and internationally.

4.      GOOD GOVERNANCE PROGRAMME

A Good Governance Committee is set up to work towards instituting and enhancing accountability and community participation in governance in all its ramifications, at all levels.

5.      COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FORUM

The secretariat shall organize and host a Triennial Community Development Forum, where experts from various fields of community development and leaders of community development associations, shall address issues and strategies for the development of the people and their communities.

6.      COMMUNITY MARSHALS

The Community Development Associations and Socio-cultural organisations of Autochthonous Ethnic Minority Nationalities shall establish Community Marshals, which shall serve as Neighborhood Watches by working in collaboration with various legitimate community groups, to promote peace and security within and among all our communities.

7.      TECHNICAL COMMITTEE ON UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities.

The committee shall work with communities and the Federal Government to establish National Commission for the Protection of the Rights of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, which shall have the power to enforce the individual and collective rights of ethnic, religious and cultural minorities in Nigeria, in accordance with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities.

8.      THE MINORITY LANGUAGES DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME. 

A.      The programme seeks to achieve the use of languages of the Ethnic Minority Nationalities for instructions in all primary and secondary schools within the various ethnic nationalities home lands.

B.      The programme seek  to assist all minority ethnic nationalities, to put in place all necessary machineries to develop their languages, teach their children how to speak their language and imbibe their cultures as a matter of utmost importance.

C.      The objectives of the programme include:

                          i.             To identify and effectively classify all minority languages in Nigeria

                        ii.            To develop writing so that each language can be written and read.

                      iii.            To produce reading materials and instructional materials for the teaching of minority languages

                       iv.            To encourage the use of minority languages both within the family, communities and in official maters were possible. 

                         v.            To preserve in oral and written forms various forms of literature, in minority languages

                       vi.            To ensure the survival and development of minority languages.

9.      COMMUNITY COHESION

The United Nations concept on Community Security and Social Cohesion will be a framework through which CONAECDA shall operate. The programme shall entail the training of community leaders in various aspects of the CSSC programme. This is to ensure that the Christians, Muslims and Traditionalists in the communities learn to accommodate one another as brothers and sisters and live in peace as people of the same blood and one destiny. CSSC training will form a core component of all training programmes of CONAECDA.

10.  THE 2014 NIGERIAN NATIONAL CONFERENCE  DECISIONS/RESOLUTIONS IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE

The Conference establishes The 2014 NIGERIAN NATIONAL CONFERENCE DECISIONS/RESOLUTIONS IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE to work with various Stakeholders including the Federal Government, the Presidency, the National Assembly, the State Governments and Sate Houses of Assembly in implement the outcome and resolutions of the 2014 National Conference, including the states recommended by the National Conference.

The Committee shall also look at other demands for the creation of states by ethnic nationalities that have made submissions to the National Assembly, but which were omitted by the National Conference, in the interest of equitable development.