Why Conference delegates won’t sign final report - Investigatation

Delegates at the National Conference are planning not to sign the final report of the conference unless they are given copies to read before they would append their signatures on it.

Investigations by our correspondent in Abuja on Wednesday showed that the delegates felt that they needed to see the details of the reports.

Already, some of the delegates were said to have agreed that this condition must be met before they would append their signature to the conference’s final report.

It was leant that the promoters of this demand might have been influenced by some delegates who were not happy with some of the decisions arrived at during the debates on the reports of the 20 committees of the conference.

Some of the delegates were afraid that some contentious issues that were not agreed on or not favourable to them, could be inserted in the final report.

One of such decisions was the issue of derivation, which spilt the delegates during the plenary, as those from the northern part of the country said they would not support its increment from 13 to 18 per cent.

The northern delegates were asking that five per cent from the Federation Account be also set aside as National Intervention Fund for the reconstruction of the northern part of the country, which they said had been destroyed by the activities of terrorists.

While the northern delegates insisted that the fund must be enjoyed by the three zones in the region, which are North-East, North-West and North-Central, the southern delegates were of the opinion that the fund must be made available to all the zones in the country.

They also said the administration of the fund must start with the North-East, a proposal that was not favourably disposed to by the southern delegates.

This division made the Chairman of the conference, Justice Idris Kutigi, to announce on the day the plenary closed, that the issue of derivation and the intervention fund would be left for the Federal Government to determine.

“Conference therefore recommends that government should set up a technical committee to determine appropriate percentage for the three issues and advised government accordingly,” Kutigi had said.

It was issues like this that made the northern delegates to say that they would insist that the complete report must be made available for them before they would agree to sign it.

The spokesperson for the delegates, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, who spoke with our correspondent in Abuja on Wednesday, said there was no way the delegates would be forced to sign.

He said, “Up till now, they have not told us how the report would be. They just asked us to report, like school children, on August 4. The leadership is so disorganised and may not know what to do.

“There are issues we did not agree on apart from the issue of derivation, and I’m saying that nobody can force us to sign what we have not read or go through or issues we even disagreed on substantially.

“Neither Kutigi nor Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi can force us to do that. We are waiting for them to bring their joker.”

A delegate from the South-South region, Mr. Paul Enebeli, also said that the delegates were yet to be briefed on the way the report would be presented.

But he said the delegates might demand for the records of proceedings at the plenary to enable them to study issues that were discusse and were agreed on or rejected.

“We need sufficient time to go through the reports. But we have requested for verbatim reports of the proceedings during the plenary,” he added.

Another delegate, who is a former President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Mr. Lanre Arogundade, said it would be wrong for the northern delegates to insist on the five cent intervention fund.

He said the money for the reconstruction of the zone was the one the Federal Government had asked the Gen. Theophilus Danjuma committee on Victims Support Fund to raise.

He also added that the intervention fund been demanded by the delegates from the North could also make their counterparts from other parts of the country to make similar demand.

Arogundade said, “What do they want to do with that again? The N30bn that the Danjuma Committee has been charged to raise is enough. We should not encourage all these kinds of issues to be coming up. Why did you think our brothers from the eastern part of the country are also asking for money to be paid for the victims of civil war?”

Why Conference delegates won’t sign final report - Investigatation

Be a leader, swallow insult, stop engaging governors - Confab delegates tell Jonathan

BY HENRY UMORU & JOSEPH ERUNKE

THERE was a mild drama on Wednesday at the National Conference when President of the Court of Appeal and a delegate representing Katsina State, Justice Mamman Nasir urged President Goodluck Jonathan to see himself as a leader, who should swallow insults and stop engaging state governors in war of words.

Justice Nasir, raising a motion of national interest, advised the President to concentrate and focus on how to address the current security challenge in the country rather than answering the governors who insult him.

Speaking shortly after the commencement of the session , Justice Nasir, who urged the governors to stop abusing the President, said that the President must show leadership and avoid engaging in tirade with governors, adding that both the President and the governors should join forces and find an end to killings and other security challenges.

Noting that the growing killings and bombings in the country called for a synergy between the President, the governors and other leaders, he said: “What we are witnessing in the country at the moment does not call for verbal attacks between our President and governors.

He should show leadership, he should focus on the security challenge facing our dear country”.

Objecting to what the elder statesman said, Chief  Sergeant Awuse, a delegate representing the South-South geo- political zone, said the President cannot sit and watch some governors abuse him publicly and argued that not responding to criticisms from governors would send a wrong message to the public.

He said: “It is wrong for governors to be abusing the President.

Everybody has some madness in him, the President is a human being, he cannot continue to keep quiet and watch the governors abuse him. He needs to respond to these unguarded utterances. Governors should show respect to the President. No governor would tolerate that from council chairmen.”

- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/04/confab-stop-engaging-governors-concentrate-delegate-tells-jonathan/#sthash.T50OQvNx.dpuf

Be a leader, swallow insult, stop engaging governors - Confab delegates tell Jonathan

Discard Presidential System - CAN tells confab delegates

The Christian Association of Nigeria has called on members of the National Conference to discard the present presidential system of government and replaced with parliamentary system forthwith.

This was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of a meeting of the National President of CAN, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor and the South-West leaders of the body, led by Archbishop Magnus Adeyemi Atilade, held at the weekend in Ikeja, Lagos.

CAN in the communiqué signed by Archbishop Atilade, said the presidential system was too costly for Nigeria to bear.

According to the body, the nation’s resources were being wasted on recurrent expenditure that had not been beneficial to the generality of Nigerians.

CAN observed that churches in Nigeria were under intense attack from what it called “the forces of evil, with Christians being killed daily in the northern part the country.

“Christian schools are being closed down and churches are not being given approval or certificate of occupancy for development of churches,” it stated.

The body urged the Federal Government to address problems that could lead to religious uprising in the country.

Discard Presidential System - CAN tells confab delegates

Lashes and praises for Jonathan over confab delegates

A mix of thumps up and thumps down yesterday greeted the quality of the 492 delegates nominated on Thursday by President Goodluck Jonathan as members of the National Conference.

National conference

The list contains the names of eminent Nigerians many of whom have served the country in different capacities in the past,some since indepenence.

Mr. Abubakar Tsav, a retired police commissioner said the list is full of President Jonathan’s supporters .

“Nigerians should not expect anything special from them. They will only end up paving the way for the president’s second term ambition.

“The confab will ultimately not produce any meaningful result. It will be a jamboree at the end of the day,” he said.

Jos-based human rights activist and director, League for Human Right, Comrade Nankin Bagudu, dismissed the list as elitist.

He said there are too many “government agents” on the list although he conceded that it “has a mixture of good selections and weak representations.

“It is a good idea to have the dialogue, but this list has confirmed some fears that the dialogue is not people- oriented and the outcome will not reflect the wishes and aspirations of commoners like me. We of the cultural Middle Belt who have been bored with ethnic crisis, problems of insurgencies and terrorism have not got the correct representations that will speak for the people.To me the list is too elitist.”

Chief Chidi Ndu of Network of Nigerians in Internal Diaspora (NNIDA) said: “This list has excluded some critical stakeholders, especially my group. If government can give recognition to Nigerians in UK, US, Asia, etc, what about us who reside outside our state of origin across the country? We are the most marginalized, we are not recognized in our state of origin and we are not accepted as stakeholders in the state we reside, we have suffered marginalisation for too long. We ought to have been included for us to make our case, we demanded for that, but we have been ignored”

Mr. Stephen Sariki of the Association of Middle Belt Ethnic Nationalities said: “As far as we are concerned, we have been short-changed by this list. This is not what we sent to the Conference Organising Committee because we called a meeting of leaders of ethnic nationalities in North Central and a list was compiled based on membership of the different ethnic groups. But the names we are seeing now are a big surprise to us and a huge disappointment. The names we are seeing are not even recognised members. Government has simply hijacked our slots.”

The Interim Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State, Prince Olu Adegboro, said although the Presidency picked some credible people for the conference, such nominees may lose their credibility because the conference would end up a failure.

Adegboro argued that President Goodluck Jonathan is organising the conference with a view to distracting Nigerians from some critical challenges ravaging the nation.

His words: “I have never followed up the process of the confab because I know it will not bring out any positive result. They are only using it to distract the attention of the people. Some credible people have been chosen, but I am afraid they will lose their credibility at the end of the event.

“There is no sincerity about the conference; it will add no value to our society. We are watching them and we know their mission and why this conference is coming up at this present time”.

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, Mr. Ayo Fadaka, disagreed with Adegboro, saying this is the right time when Nigerians need such conference.

Fadaka stressed that President Jonathan has a vision for the people, adding that this is the right time we address the issue of federalism.

He, however, frowned on the selection of the Vice-Chancellor of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko (AAUA), Prof. Femi Mimiko, brother of Governor Olusegun Mimiko, as one of the representatives of the state at the conference.

According to him, “we are not saying Femi Mimiko is not qualified to represent the state, but the idea is nepotism. Mimiko’s family members are not the only ones who are brilliant and intelligent in the state. He should have given the slot to another credible person, and I believe we have enough in the state. It is cheap and pedestrian for selecting your younger brother.

The Chief Whip of the Ondo State House of Assembly,Hon Tunji Dairo, described the nominees as qualified and credible.

Professor Itse Sagay, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), is impressed with the quality of the nominees, saying, “I think the quality of the delegates is quite impressive. They should be able to provide solution or formula that will help us live harmoniously together.”

He added: “The most obvious thing I look forward to when the confab begins is the restructuring of the federation. There should be devolution of power so that we can have a true federal system. The power of states in regard to finance should be increased. The states should not hand over their natural resources to the Federal Government. They should only pay a percentage of what they make to the centre for the running of the central government.

“I also look forward to having railway, energy and other like that taken away from the exclusive list and placed on the concurrent list. There should not be a federation account anymore. Everybody should have its own account.

Col David Dungs (rtd), a former military administrator, and now a politician also hailed the list.

He said: “I stand for the national conference, and I pray for them to achieve the purpose of the conference. Whether they are pro-conference or not, let’s give them a chance to deliver on our collective wish.

“I believe that whoever you pick as delegate, there will still be complaints.So, since those who made the list are Nigerians, let’s support them and wish them well.

“The list is a mixture of the young, the old, technocrats, traditional rulers, retired military officers and so on. Let us pray for them to represent us well; they are all capable if we support and pray for them.”

Former governor of Ogun State,Aremo Olusegun Osoba, who will be representing the forum of ex-governors at the conference told The Nation yesterday that he is looking forward to “discussion on every issue affecting the country. The listed delegates are decent and knowledgeable people.”

He has no reservation about the list. “The list is full of people that are experienced in and out of government. They are people who have had exposure and experience in their different endeavours.”

Another nominee and former Finance Minister, Chief Olu Falae, prayed for “divine guidance to do what is right and best for Nigerians. We expect different interests to be vigorously canvassed, but at the end of the day, there must be negotiation. There must be a give and take so that the outcome can be satisfactory to the overwhelming majority of Nigerians.”

He said: “I don’t know half of the delegates, but from those that I know, it appears as a qualitative assemblage of Nigerians. You have legal luminaries, retired ambassadors, bureaucrats, captains of industries and so on. Under divine guidance, a good job should be done.” (0)

Lashes and praises for Jonathan over confab delegates