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Tag: National confab

  • Nigerians to determine outcome of national confab – Jonathan

    Nigerians to determine outcome of national confab – Jonathan

    President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday promised that the proposed National Conference will be conducted transparently and the “will of Nigerians” will determine the final outcome of the process.

    Speaking while receiving the report of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Conference, headed by Dr. Femi Okuronmu, he said the discussion process is for the benefit of the entire nation.

    Denying the allegation that he has a personal agenda to achieve through the conference, the President said that every Nigerian, whether as individual or as a group, has an important role to play to ensure its success.

    He said the committee was created to advise government on a framework for Nigerians to review and discuss and proffer sustainable way forward as a nation following issues that have challenged the unity of the nation in the last few decades.

    The outcome of the conference, according to him, will add value to the process of building a stronger, united, more democratic and stable Nigeria.

    He directed the Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to ensure availability of fund for the conference to start early next year.

    Jonathan said: “You have done the job very well, you have shown commitment and love for your country as good citizens of this great country. So all Nigerians owe you that appreciation and I believe that the world is watching us. Whatever we will do, we will be very very transparent. And let me also repeat myself again that I have no personal interest in this dialogue or conversation or the conference. I will allow the will of Nigerians to prevail.

    “I believe that by the time we conclude this conference, there will be fewer open letters that Nigerians will read. I have already directed the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance to make adequate financial provisions so that this conference will take off immediately we enter next year.”

    Stressing that the government will partner with all stakeholders to convene the dialogue, he said: “Our democracy is still young and for us to provide life’s abundance for our people and play a noble role in world affairs, we must nurture and cultivate correct democratic values. The proposed dialogue offers this unique opportunity for us to deepen our democracy and strengthen our nation, rather than to destroy or weaken our union.”

    He went on: “Nation-building, always comes with challenges defined by the prevailing political, economic, social and cultural mood of the people. We cannot ignore such challenges; rather we must realistically address them.”

     

     

     

  • FG won’t interfere with national confab – Jonathan

    FG won’t interfere with national confab – Jonathan

    President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday insisted that the Federal Government has no intention of interfering with the structure and processes of the proposed national dialogue.

    He made the remark while speaking with leaders of Ohaneze Ndigbo and the South-East Geo-Political Zone at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    Jonathan, according to a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, said that his administration had left it to Nigerians to determine the framework, content and process of the dialogue.

    He said: “If you listen to the radio, watch television and read online, you will realize that Nigerians are talking. We listen and read the commentaries. But all the discussions and ideas need to be harmonized. We must come to a point where we can move in one direction.’’

    On worries expressed in some quarters over the time-frame for the national dialogue, he said the process would definitely be completed well before the 2015 elections.

    According to him, the Presidential Advisory Committee on the National Dialogue will soon present its report to him having concluded its nationwide consultations

    .The President and ministers, who were in attendance at the audience, also briefed the South East leaders on his administration’s developmental efforts in various sectors including aviation, agriculture, transportation and power.

    He assured the delegation that his administration will do all within its powers to ensure that projects such as the Second Niger Bridge, the rehabilitation of South East roads and expansion of the national rail network to the zone are completed on schedule.

    The President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Gary Enwo-Igariwey, congratulated the President for initiating the upcoming national dialogue.

    He pledged the South East’s support for the process and assured the President that Ndigbo will make meaningful contributions to move the country forward in unity.

     

  • National confab will enhance development – Okurounmu

    The Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue, Sen. Femi Okurounmu, on Friday said the proposed national dialogue was for the good of all Nigerians.

    Okurounmu said this in Calabar when he paid a courtesy call on Dr. Thomas Ika Ika Oqua, the Ndidem of the Quas and Paramount Ruler of Calabar Municipality.

    He said the 13-man committee for the national conference was set up to hear the people’s agitations and make them an agenda for the national dialogue.

    “The government does not want to impose anything on the people, that is why the committee is set up to hear the views of Nigerians,’’ he said.

    In his welcome address, Oqua pledged his support for the national dialogue aimed at promoting national unity.

    He called on all Nigerians to support the dialogue, adding that it would foster national unity, while enhancing the country’s development.

    The traditional ruler urged the team to hear the people’s agitations and take them into consideration.

    He thanked President Goodluck Jonathan for initiating the national dialogue to hear the views of all Nigerians on nation-building issues.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the committee is in Calabar for the South-South Zonal Conference on the national dialogue.

    People, delegates and interest groups from Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Cross River made presentations at the forum held at the Cultural Centre in Calabar.

     

  • Confab findings should be implemented – Jang

    Confab findings should be implemented – Jang

    The Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang, has said the findings of the National dialogue, when concluded should be implemented and not abandoned like many findings from past conferences.

    Jang said this when the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue, paid him a courtesy call on Monday in Jos.

    Jang lamented that Nigeria has had so many conferences whereby the results of such confabs were never implemented.

    “If conferences were a successful way of running a country, we would have been the best country in the world.

    “Unfortunately, once such confabs are over we push it to the archives without ever implementing them,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the governor as saying during the visit.

    He said that national dialogue was very timely; however, the results from it “must” be implemented this time around.”

    Jang appealed that, as we dialogue, Nigerians must first embrace each other and do away with their various differences.

    He said the conference would help solve some of the disagreements we have.

    The governor further said that for a balanced federation, the disparity in revenue sharing must be addressed so that all states could be fully developed.

    The Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Femi Okurunmu, told the governor that the committee’s mission was to consult widely with the people.

    He urged that people should be free to air their views to the committee.

     

  • North ready for national confab – Niger governor

    North ready for national confab – Niger governor

    The Governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, on Saturday said the north is ready for the proposed national conference.

    Aliyu made the declaration in Yola during the conferment of the traditional title of Talban Adamawa to Mr Daniel Mustapha, at the palace of the Lamido Adamawa, Dr. Barkindo Mustapha.

    The governor, who is also the Chairman, Northern Governors Forum, said the region was prepared to participate in the conference without any fear.

    “The north is ready for the conference, no matter what happen, we will come up better, more developed and indeed more united.

    “And I believe what will come out from the conference is for the advantage of Nigeria and its unity.

    “There is no doubting the fact that all parts of Nigeria need unity,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the governor as saying at the event on Saturday.

    Aliyu also defended the decision of the seven Peoples Democratic Party governors to challenge the national leadership of the party, saying it was in Nigeria’s best interest.

    “Many people in the country did not understand why we came out to challenge the leadership style of the Bamanga Tukur-led National Working Committee.

    “All we are saying is that we wanted democracy, because whatever happens in PDP affect Nigeria and Nigerians.

    “The reason for our action was that we were looking for true democracy, justice, equity and fairness in our great party, the PDP.”

    Earlier, the Lamido, had while conferring the title on Mustapha, appealed to Nigerian leaders to be more committed to the unity and development of the country.

     

    Suicide bomber kills 13 in Somalia

     

  • Niger governor commends Jonathan’s decision on national confab

    Niger governor commends Jonathan’s decision on national confab

    Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger on Thursday commended President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to send the outcome of the National Dialogue to the National Assembly.

    Aliyu spoke at his residence in Minna when intending Christian pilgrims to Israel led by Mr. Abraham Isah paid him Sallah homage.

    “The President is right that everything discussed at the forum must go to the National Assembly.

    “Sending the report of the dialogue to the National Assembly will be in line with the prevailing political arrangement in the country where there is presently sovereignty,’’ the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the governor as saying during the visit.

    He was optimistic that the final document that would emerge from the National and State Assemblies after the national dialogue “would be a Nigerian constitution made by Nigerians.’’

    The governor said the country would remain as one even after the dialogue, adding that the nation would be better strengthened democratically.

    Aliyu promised to continue to give equal treatment to Christians and Muslims in the state.

    He urged the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and its members to continue to pray for the peace of the country and live in harmony with other religious groups in the state.

    Isah commended the governor for his non-discriminatory attitude.

     

  • David-West to Jonathan, NASS: You can’t amend the constitution

    David-West to Jonathan, NASS: You can’t amend the constitution

    A former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Prof. Tam David-West, has faulted plans by President Goodluck Jonathan to send recommendations of the proposed national conference to the National Assembly, saying they lack the power to amend the constitution.

    David-West, who spoke to our correspondent in Ibadan on Wednesday, said both the President and the lawmakers seem not to understand the constitution they are using for governance.

    He said Section 9 of the 1999 constitution is clear on the procedure involved in the amendment of the constitution, adding this is contrary to the current amendment plans.

    He described their efforts as a mere “waste of time.”

    David-West said, “I am concerned and very much worried for some time now over how the amendment of the constitution is being discussed by the National Assembly. I was one of the few people that drafted the 1979 constitution and it is almost the same thing as the 1999 constitution. It is clear to me that neither the National Assembly nor the President had any power to alter or add one word to the constitution. I am surprised that they have not been called to order by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) or any of the numerous legal luminaries in the country.

    “I am saying this because Section 9 of the constitution clearly provides for how the constitution can be altered or changed. All what they have done so far are completely at variance with what is provided for in the constitution. It is an exercise in futility!”

     

     

  • National confab: Jonathan admits failure

    National confab: Jonathan admits failure

    It’s a cop-out. Finally, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has (perhaps unbeknown to him!) openly admitted that he is not the man for these times. He is not the game changer; he is not the great Nigerian who would lead us into that glorious modern nation we all yearn for. He is neither a man of history nor for the history books. After four year in Aso Rock, four years of commanding the Nigerian Armed Forces, four years of presiding over the Federal Executive Council and four years of shepherding over 150 million of the world’s largest and most dynamic Black race, calling for a national dialogue certainly cannot be the best option available either to the president or for the people.

    A RASH OF WORTHLESS CONFERENCES: Between the London conference prelude to independence in 1960, through Aburi down to the sham conferences of Babangida, Abacha and Obasanjo, any discerning mind would know that we have had enough national dialogue to solve our problems if the intent is to build a modern nation. President Jonathan by virtue of his learning, prominence and roles in national affairs in the past four decades is aware of this rash of conferences; and if not, he has access to them – the procedures and outcomes. Running through these conferences are the agitations, hopes and desires of Nigerians and the various ethnic groups. Some of them would also contain a notation of all the ills afflicting the country and some of the immediate and long-term actions required.

    IF JONATHAN WAS A BIT PERSPICACIOUS: If President Jonathan had it to give or if he was given to be the one to lead us into the new land he would have attended to some of the most pressing issues blighting the country by now. Do we need another national conference to realize that we are running a terribly skewed and unsustainable federalism? There are a slew of issues that the president could have attended to by merely pushing executive bills through the National Assembly or by taking advantage of the on-going attempt at constitution review.

    Who would quarrel with the president if he had for instance, started a gradual whittling down of the powers at the centre for the overall good of the country? Who would resist if he had made a moved to restructure of the Federal Revenue Allocation formula by conceding a little more to the states and local government areas? By the same token, he could have achieved immense result if he had allowed some partial autonomy to the states to control the police, collect some sales taxes (like VAT), run primary and secondary education fully among sundry other trivia that the federal government dissipate so much energy and resources upon yet does so badly.

    President Jonathan needs no national dialogue to bring his mind to bear on the question of statutory allocation to local councils which is perhaps one of the problems ravaging the polity at the moment. The rash of malcontents, social dissonance and a seeming state of unyielding poverty is not unconnected to the fact that huge funds meant for the third tier of government never gets there. This sad turn of event which has gone on since 1999 is obviously unsustainable considering its untold economic and socio-political costs to the nation. One expects the president to be at home with the import and magnitude of this grave national problem and to have proceeded to initiate policies to change it.

    CONFERENCE WITH AN AGENDA: It is amazing how naïve Nigerians can be especially when they choose to; how come everyone is singing alleluyah as if the mere act of calling for a conference has resolved all the problems buffeting the country. From the chairman of the agenda panel, Senator Femi okunrounmu to Father Matthew Kukah it is as if Nigeria has suddenly reached Eldorado. “Jonathan has just successfully carry out a bloodless ideological coup against the agitators and his enemies”, crooned eminent clergyman Kukah in an interview.

    But I put it on notice today that this dialogue is not unlike the contrivances of President Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and Olusegun Obasanjo which were just devices to buy time, deceive the populace and distract attention from their obvious leadership failures. Like these former leaders, Jonathan has failed woefully and now at the crossroads, he reaches for the old trick. Like these previous failed leaders and at least for self-preservation (that is what the so-called dialogue is all about anyway), the conference will be lined with all sort of landmines and hidden agenda. Would President Jonathan initiate and supervise a talk that will banish the centre and grant the ethnic nationalities their desire to live along regional and zonal lines?

    WHO PAYS FOR THE JAMBOREE? We do not require any special clairvoyance to see that Jonathan’s dialogue will end in disarray like Obasanjo’s or the report would be left to gather dust till post Jonathan. But the question we have not asked is who is paying for this folly? Government would shell out billions of naira for a talk jamboree yet it cannot fund our universities, most federal roads are in utter disrepair and capital expenditures are not being released to MDAs. We hope that the Okunrounmu panel in working out the agenda would also work out the cost of organizing the talk. Nigerians deserve to know and they must be told this time around, the cost of staging this show.

    Apart from the fundamental questions of our federation, will this conference lead to the creation of more jobs, to better funding of our education and improvement in our facilities? The answer is no. We all, including the president knows what Nigerians need – it is good, sincere leadership.

    LAST MUG: WHERE IS THE WORKS MINISTER? Yours truly travelled through the Lagos- Benin highway to Owerri last weekend and it was a patented nightmare of a journey. On the outward journey we were still for about two hours between Ijebu –Ode and Ore thus reaching Owerri late at night. The journey back to Lagos took a bizarre turn when Ijebu-Ode-Ore road was declared near impassable and we had to do a merry-go-round through Ondo, Ife, Ibadan to Lagos. We were on the road for 15 hours for an eight –hour journey. It is obvious that this Minister is incapable of repairing this stretch of road he has been joggling with for nearly two years. It is the same story in many other areas across the country commuters are going through hell on our highways. Who will show some compassion?

  • MEND: no confidence in national confab

    The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has passed a vote of no confidence in the National Conference initiated by President Goodluck Jonathan.

    The group said it was contacted by a member of the National Dialogue Advisory Committee, Tony Uranta, soliciting understanding and support of its members for the dialogue.

    It quoted Uranta as saying that a rejection by a body from the South-south would be an embarrassment to the Presidency.

    MEND, in an online statement yesterday by its spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, expressed shock that the call for support was coming from the same person (Uranta), who it said had been campaigning that the militant group ceased to exist after the Niger Delta Amnesty “fraud”.

    It said: “Our scepticism and suspicion of the so-called National Dialogue may also have to do with the antecedents and lack of integrity of Mr. Uranta himself.

    “Some hours after we took responsibility for our symbolic October 1, 2010 twin car bomb blasts in Abuja, Mr. Uranta sent a text message to Mr. Henry Okah (MEND leader), asking him to reach out to me (Gbomo) to retract our earlier claim of responsibility.”

    MEND also alleged that Uranta claimed that the Jonathan administration wanted to blame some northerners, like former military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, for the explosion.

    It said: “It was in anticipation that MEND was contacted by Mr. Okah, that President Jonathan confidently came on national television that night to absolve our group of the attack.

    “Mr. Uranta was also involved in collecting $50,000 bribe, on behalf of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), which led to an embarrassing scandal at the time.

    “The same people, who managed to hoodwink an entire nation into believing that over 30,000 men and women in the Niger Delta – now requiring an annual training/rehabilitation budget of over N30 billion – took up arms.

    “How can the government correlate its display of less than 3,000 weapons, most of which were donated by the military for the disarmament show, with over 30,000 so-called repentant militants? Were the rest fighting with sticks?

    “Millions of hard-working Nigerians remain unemployed, our educational system is going down the drain with strikes and the country is getting increasingly full of educated derelicts. The government still shares out billions of naira monthly to miscreants, criminals and conmen, who claim to have been freedom fighters.”

    MEND also alleged that the amnesty scam was designed by some people in government, who created ghost freedom fighters, with the connivance of those at the highest level.

  • Senate backs Jonathan on national confab

    Senate backs Jonathan on national confab

    The Senate on Wednesday said that it welcomed the announcement of convocation of a National Conference made by President Goodluck Jonathan in his national broadcast to mark the country’s 53rd Independence Anniversary.

    The upper chamber said in a statement issued by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Media and Public Affairs, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, that it welcomed the convocation of a national conference which is limited in scope where the sovereignty of the country is not in any way called to question.

    It noted that it is equally important that the conference would be organized with due regard and respect to the 1999 Constitution (as amended)

    It added that it had always been Senate’s stand that there cannot be two sovereign processes at the same time.

    The Senate said that it believes that the conference would offer Nigerians the opportunity to address all the country’s structural problems that keep agitating the mind of her ethnic nationalities.

    It said, “The Senate notes also that the national confab as announced is limited to the scope where the sovereignty of Nigeria is not called to question.

    ”It is therefore given that the proposed conference is in tandem with the time tested stand of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and as enunciated by the President of the Senate, Senator David A. B Mark in his address at the last Nigerian Bar Association Conference in Calabar and to Senators penultimate week.

    ”The Senate has always canvassed the position that it will always welcome a conference where all ethnic nationalities would converge to discuss all critical issues and proffer the very best way that will enhance national unity.

    ”The Senate red-line and for which was aptly factored in the President’s broadcast is the conferment of a sovereign status to the conference.

    ”The Senate is happy that it is a conference that will hold with due respect to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended. It has always been Senate’s considered stand that there cannot be two sovereign processes at a time.

    ”The Senate is therefore gratified with the development and sees it as an opportunity to address all of Nigeria’s structural problems that keeps agitating the mind of her ethnic nationalities.

    The Senate is confident that the conference’s final outcome would go a long way to cement Nigeria’s unity.”