Confab Extends till July 17; Resumption Time Now 9AM Due to the workloads of the National Conference, the presiding officers have received the nod of the Secretary of the Federation to extend the confab till July 17. The extension will enable the conference to thoroughly debate the reports of the 20 committees. Contributing to this development, Dr. Bello Mohammed suggests that if delegates keep to time and the confab session is anchored with discipline and recommendations are taken one by one, sittings can be finished before the end of June. On her own part, Mrs Esther Gonda from Plateau State suggests that the 2hours lunch break should be shortened to one hour. Mr. Mike Ozekuome (SAN) concurs that the break time should be shortened by one hour and resumption time should now be 9am. He also calls for the reduction in the timing of each speaker from five minutes to three minutes. Arch. Ibrahim Bunu, an elder Statesman from Borno State argues that some of the committees’ reports are contentious; therefore, contentious issues should be taken back to the committee for resolutions. Senator Nnamdi Eriobuna from the Senators Forum observes that the issues before the conference are critical and there is need to take time to exhaust the issues. He said, “We are not here to play with it. It is in the best interest to find solutions to those issues. We should work judiciously to work it out. We must make sure that all the work is done properly. Hurrying up will not help us.” Mr. Fola Adeola raised a point of order from Order 9 of the confab procedure rules which states that “at plenary sessions each representative body shall speak through a Delegate nominated by the representative body through its leadership.” He argues that delegates should abide by that provision in the rule book and speak through their leaders saying that would reduce the time of the conference. Hon. (Chief) Obi Anoliofo of the House of Reps Forum argues that the conference is not in need of need extra time. “If we work assiduously and dedicatedly we can exhaust all the contentious issues,” he submits. In her contribution, Chief (Mrs) Felicia Sanni suggests that conference should start by 9am and end by 7pm. To save time, the conference chairman rules that the conference will start sitting from 9am starting from Monday.
Posted on: Thu, 22 May 2014 11:59:31 +0000
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