Confab: Northern delegates demand withdrawal of ‘draft constitution’ August 14, 2014 Leave a Comment Cross-section of the confab delegates. Northern delegates on Wenesday took their anger against the ‘draft constitution’ by the National Conference farther by writing a protest letter to the Chairman of the conference, Justice Idris Kutigi. In the letter dated Wednesday, they asked Kutigi to withdraw the document from circulation because its content should not be debated . The letter titled, “’New Constitution, referendum and adoption of conference report: Issues of serious concern,” was signed by the Chairman and Co-Chairman of the Northern Delegates Forum, Alhaji Ibrahim Coomasie and Gen. Jeremiah Useni (retd.). The letter reads in part, “We call upon the leadership of the conference to discountenance and withdraw the ‘draft Constitution’ and the accompanying bills which have been circulated. “We urge the conference leadership to table the draft conference report which contains only the resolutions openly and officially sanctioned and adopted by delegates for validation and adoption as provided for under the National Conference Procedure Rules, 2014 and as envisaged in the Work Plan adopted. “For the avoidance of doubt, we shall not be a party to the adoption of the report or any part thereof by voice vote. We urge the leadership of the conference to be strictly guided by the Conference Procedure Rules, 2014.” They said they were shocked when the Secretary of the Conference, Dr. Valerie Azinge, distributed some documents, including one entitled, “Report of the National Conference, 2014 draft constitution” which they said was also accompanied by draft bills to promulgate into law the “constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2014.” The Northern delegates claimed in the letter that none of them was privy to any decision and did not participate in any processes or proceedings that led to the emergence of the ‘draft constitution’ or bills. The delegates added that they had previously expressed their objections to any such project under any guise. “Moreover and to the best of our knowledge, we are unaware that the conference has, whether at plenary or committee stages of its work, taken a decision to draw up a draft Constitution, authorized or tasked any of its Committees, delegates or the conference secretariat to do so,” they said. They, therefore, described the origin of the documents as dubious and questionable. The aggrieved delegates wondered why the ‘suspicious document’ contained extraneous issues. Such issues, according to them, were various provisions pertaining to state creation , boundary adjustment, referendum to adopt constitution, funding of local government areas, and deletion of Land Use Act as well as the abrogation of all existing laws, which were contained in the contentious draft. During plenary on Wednesday, which lasted for only 14 minutes, Kutigi announced plans for accelerated handling of all draft resolutions. The Chairman, flanked by his deputy, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, Azinge and the other three principal officers, welcomed the delegates back to the conference. He apologised for the postponement of resumption from August 4 to August 11, explaining that it was due to the enormous work that needed to be done to ensure the completion of the draft resolutions. Kutigi reassured delegates of the inviolability of the draft resolutions; adding, “If there are any errors, they are human errors and not an attempt by the leadership to play any game” He further stated that the draft reports of the conference were done “to the best of our ability and with all honesty and diligence.” Copyright PUNCH.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 05:41:48 +0000
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