Some delegates planted to scuttle confab, says Idris Kutigi

The Chairman of the National Conference, Justice Idris Kutigi, said on Tuesday that there were indications that some delegates were planted at the conference to scuttle its outcome.

Kutigi, a former Chief Justice of the Federation, expressed worry that some delegates could agree on issues and decision taken only for them to return and start discussion on already closed matters.

The chairman was particularly furious that delegates could return to plenary on Tuesday and rejected a decision they had jointly taken at the close of work on Monday evening.

Kutigi had ruled on Monday that there would be no debate on any committee report, and that what delegates would do was to read the reports and submit amendments they wanted to make to the secretariat for action.

This action, he said, was aimed at speeding up the work of the conference, which has about five weeks left, yet the conference had yet to debate reports of about 13 committees.

Because of the agreement, which Kutigi spoke about, the conference adjourned for about 30 minutes before 6pm on Monday to enable delegates to go home and prepare their amendments to the report meant to be debated.

But before that was done, a delegate, Ms. Annkio Briggs, said she was not sure that the conference had adopted the issue ruled upon by the chairman.

The issue came up at the plenary on Tuesday as some delegates opposed Kutigi’s ruling, which prompted him to express his frustration on the issue.

The former CJN said, “Some people are planted here to scuttle this conference. We sit here and take decisions, we all agreed.

“Then someone would come back and say there was no decision at all. We agreed that we should listen to the chairman of any committee to read his report; we would then look at the recommendations and make amendments.

“Yet, some of you came back here and said there was no decision. That’s not right. Something had been done; you will come back and say it was not done. That’s not true.”

Some delegates protested by calling his attention to the word “planted,” which he used but he (Kutigi) ignored them.

Kutigi later had a short discussion with his deputy, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi and the secretary, Dr. Valerie Azinge, before announcing his decision on the matter.

“After listening to what we have been saying, it is my ruling that we go back to the old procedure,” he said.

When he realised that some delegates were not happy with this, he adjourned for 10 minutes.

Even when a delegate, Mr. Dan Nwanyanwu, attempted to re-open the issue after resumption by saying that the ruling was not popular, Kutigi ignored him.

Nwanyanwu also hinted that some delegates from the North were meeting “somewhere” and that the conference should take this into consideration so that an unpopular decision was not taken in the absence of the delegates.  (Punch)

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Some delegates planted to scuttle confab, says Idris Kutigi