President Goodluck Jonathan had promised last October to convene a national conference early this year. Even though he received the report of the National Dialogue Committee headed by Senator Femi Okorounmu three weeks ago, there has been little progress so far towards the conference’s take off.
Daily Trust had asked sources familiar with the arrangements to confirm the veracity of an online news story last Sunday which said President Jonathan was unhappy with the report submitted to him and was demanding sweeping powers to appoint delegates to the confab.
Denying that there was such a problem, the sources said it was technical hitches to do with two of the Okorounmu panel’s recommendations that necessitated the president’s meeting with the committee members at the State House last week.
The president met all the committee members together with Secretary to the Government of the Federation Anyim Pius Anyim and National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki. He told them that he did not want to do what other rulers did in the past, namely accept a committee’s report and then go ahead and do something else, which was why he convened the meeting to brief them on problems that arose with some of their recommendations.
The first area of problem had to do with delegate election. The committee had recommended that confab delegates be elected on the basis of equality of federal constituencies. It took this decision having rejected demands for representation based on states, local governments or ethnic nationalities. Sources said the president informed the committee members that he had asked chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] Professor Attahiru Jega to organize elections for the confab delegates but that INEC raised three issues. It said such an election must be backed by a law; that it will cost N20 billion and that the earliest date it could be conducted is in April.
According to the sources, this stance unsettled other plans because the Okorounmu committee had proposed that the confab should last between three and six months and should be held before preparations get underway for the 2015 elections. This will not be possible if the delegates are elected in April, the sources said, and there will be no time afterwards to incorporate the confab’s decisions into the constitution before the 2015 polls.
The second major problem had to do with the committee’s recommendation that the conference’s conclusions should be subjected to a national referendum. According to the sources, legal authorities consulted by the panel as well as by the government pointed out this will not be possible unless the constitution is amended. They pointed out that the constitution and Electoral Act provide for a referendum in only two cases, creation of states and local governments and recall of elected legislators. The constitution must therefore be amended in advance before the confab’s report can be subjected to a referendum, sources familiar with the meetings said.
Daily Trust also learnt that the meetings with the president were heated as committee member Solomon Asemota, SAN insisted that he submitted a minority report, a claim that other members rejected. They pointed out that Asemota was chairman of the committee’s legal drafting sub-committee and that he was the one who submitted the sub-committee’s report to the full committee, which was adopted. It was only afterwards, sources said, that he was pressured by his Pronaco allies to submit a “minority report” essentially setting out Pronaco’s ideas on the conference.
In rejecting his demand, other committee members pointed out that his paper was already contained as a memorandum in the full committee report.
Daily Trust further learnt that the president suggested either that the committee members take another look at the areas of problem or they sit with a government team to iron them out. The committee members agreed to take another look at the problem areas and are expected to meet on this tomorrow. Another source told Daily Trust that President Jonathan could not be demanding “sweeping powers” to appoint confab delegates because the Okorounmu panel recommended that, in addition to the elected delegates, he should appoint additional delegates to represent women, youth, labour and business.
Asked what is likely to become of the confab, another source familiar with the issues said it is either government abandons the plan completely or it should smooth over the two major problem areas.
This means to abandon the idea of electing delegates and instead appoint them and to submit the final conference report to the National Assembly and urge it to incorporate it into the constitution. Anything short of that could amount to a breach of the constitution unless it is amended, the sources said.
Source: Daily Trust
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