Ahead of tomorrow’s planned presentation of its report to President Goodluck Jonathan, the leadership of the National Conference has begun a last ditch effort to stave off moves to discredit the document by some delegates.
To this end, the Chairman, Justice Idris Kutigi and his deputy, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, have taken over the supervision of correction of errors identified in the report.
The decision to directly supervise the effecting of correction to the errors by Kutigi and Akinyemi followed a suspicion that a senior official of the conference was allegedly working with some delegates from the core North to sabotage the efforts of the leadership to produce an error free report. The aim is to ensure that the report is discredited and rendered impotent.
A total of 85 errors and complaints by delegates regarding the report which has three volumes were sent to the conference’s secretariat last week shortly after the chairman closed the parley’s plenary. The submission of the errors to the secretariat was in compliance with Kutigi’s directive that delegates were free to channel their concerns about the report to the secretariat for correction.
The errors ranged from the removal, omission and addition of some items agreed upon during the plenary. Some of the mistakes are constitutional while others are grammatical and factual.
The Northern Delegates’ Forum (NDF) had in a memo signed by its Chairman,
Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie, raised the alarm over the errors in the report claiming that the situation was a threat to the constitution.
Coomassie later told an Abuja-based newspaper that the report would be rejected if the corrections were not effected to the satisfaction of the delegates.
However, Daily Sun learnt that the move to effect correction of the identified errors has polarized the secretariat forcing Kutigi to adopt a new measure to handle the issue. The chairman’s decision is to avoid a stigma that would haunt him if the report is rejected on account of a shoddy handling of the report.
A prominent delegate from the North- Central, who doesn’t want to be named, said that one of the management staff has sabotaged efforts to correct the mistakes.
He said: “The secretariat is divided right now. There is the allegation that one of the officials is frustrating efforts of the leadership to correct the mistakes in the report. I don’t know the reason for that, but I want to agree with people who are saying that the man may be working with delegates who are desperate to dent the report so as to throw it into the dustbin.
“It is unfortunate that some people would serve as tools for such devious agenda . I know that some delegates especially some of my colleagues from the core north ,after failing to stop the conference from holding want to discredit the report. I am certain that they will also fail”.
Daily Sun findings reveal that Kutigi, in what seemed a show of distrust for the conference officials earlier handling the job of correcting the errors, have taken over the assignment alongside Akinyemi. Both now resume at 10am and close at 10 pm daily.
Apart from personally supervising the correction of errors , Kutigi has ordered the printer to relocate to his office . According to the source, the printer is compelled to print all the corrected pages in the presence of the chairman.
The source said, “because Kutigi has lost confidence in the handling of the exercise by the management official I told you about, he has taken over the supervision of every correction. He compelled the printer to print the corrected pages in his presence. He is not leaving anything to chance”.
To ensure a tidy handling of the assignment, Kutigi split the job into two. While he is supervising errors that bothered on constitutional and legal issues Akinyemi is handling mistakes identified in the main report.
On why some delegates are plotting to discredit the report, the delegate said, “the fight is about some decisions and resolutions taken. First, some of my colleagues are still not ready to take the resolution of local governments and state police. They wanted the conference to reverse the decision removing local government from the federating unit. The new move is to discredit the report and force the Presidency to reject it.
“Unfortunately, the division between delegates from parts of the North and South on these issues crept into the secretariat of the conference. Some members of the secretariat are seen as being pro-Jonathan while some from the North see the position of their brothers and sisters on local governments, state police etc as being in order. I think that is the challenge that the secretariat is grappling with right now. Until the report is presented to Mr President, the fight will continue”.
In a recent chat with Daily Sun, a vocal delegate from the North, Buba Galadima, said: “I object to the issue of the dissolution of local government. I don’t believe that it is in the interest of Nigeria that we dissolve the local governments. We should rather maintain the local governments as a third tier of government. I will continue to say and defend at any level that we need the local government as presently constituted. If there are inequities in the distribution of local government we must find a way of addressing these inequities and inequality in the number and size of councils.
Some people out of hate and spite tried to compare lagos and Kano without looking at the parameters that were used in creating local government areas in these two states”.
The presentation of the conference’s report to President Jonathan is expected to take place tomorrow. The delegates are to hold a parting dinner today.
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Fate of confab report divides secretariat |
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