OPPONENTS OF CONFAB SENT MEMORANDA SECRETLY —OKUROUNMU

Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue, Senator Femi Okurounmu, on Wednesday, said that key opponents of the national conference have started to embrace the dialogue and sent memoranda secretly.
He did not name the key opponents who have now had a change of heart but told participants at the grand finale of the committee’s nationwide consultative fora in Abuja that no one can stop Nigerians from airing their views through a national dialogue.
He told the participants that, “the train of the national conference has become unstoppable and irresistible,” and further noted that the citizens have already keyed into and are optimistic that the conference would give birth to a new era of peaceful co-existence and national development.
He pledged that the conference would be different from the past ones and assured that President Goodluck Jonathan has so far given his committee free hand to operate.
According to him: “As children of this nation, we want to give everyone a sense of belonging and this is the goal of this conference. Even initial sceptics are beginning to have a second thought and some of them have began to send us their memoranda secretly.”
During the submission of its position paper through the former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and former chairman, FCT Steering Committee on National Dialogue, Dr Modibbo Umar, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) made a case for the establishment of a House of Assembly for the territory.
It argued that the current situation whereby the National Assembly assumed the role of a legislative house for the FCT was confusing, retrogressive and unproductive.
The FCTA maintained that the National Assembly was preoccupied with national issues and hardly found enough time to make laws for effective governance of the territory.
Justifying the impact of inadequate laws for administration of the area, the FCTA hinted that the Abuja Project, which was supposed to have been completed within 25 years, was only 25 per cent completed, 37 years after.
To the administration, the current funding plan for the territory remained grossly inadequate and required a review.
Making his personal presentation, former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Victor Attah, cautioned against forwarding the recommendations of the conference to the National Assembly for ratification.
He argued that it was wrong to subject the aggregate views of citizens to the lawmakers and suggested a referendum instead.
Source: Tribune