Afenifere Group Rejects Okurounmu’s Confab Recommendations
Category: Nigerian National News
The Afenifere Renewal Group, ARG, has restated its objection to the
recommendations of the Femi Okurounmu’s Presidential Advisory Committee
on National Dialogue for its inability to “engender the type of confab
that Nigeria needs”.
The Yoruba socio-political group in a statement signed by Kunle
Famoriyo, its Publicity Secretary on Sunday, said that any conference
convened based on the recommendations of the committee cannot meet the
yearnings of Nigerians.
“ARG maintains its stance that the proposed conference must be a
conference of ethnic nationalities in Nigeria”, the group said, adding
that “We found the recommendation that representation should be based on
federal constituencies distasteful because this political structure has
been used as veritable tools of injustice, social, and political
discriminations that have held this country bound”.
The Okurounmu-led committee submitted its report to President Goodluck Jonathan on December 18, 2013.
The ARG insisted that delegates to the conference must come from each
of Nigeria’s six geo-political regions and they must be equal in
number, noting that the regions had become a defining structure for
almost any national issue.
“Our recommendation therefore is that equal number of delegates
should come from each administrative zone and these delegates should be
selected by ethnic nations within each zone”, the statement continued.
The group also kicked against the recommendation that conference
delegates be saddled with the responsibility of determining how
decisions and outcomes of the proposed conference would be integrated
into the Constitution and Laws of Nigeria.
“This committee could not come up with any recommendation on this
particular Term of Reference, despite the avalanche of historical
antecedents in other countries, more than 1,000 presentations and
memoranda, technical presentations from renowned experts and leaders,
and several other consultations available to it. This is, to say the
least, an evasion of responsibility and rejection of popular desire for a
new Constitution”.
According to the group, a cursory look at the 38 issues recommended
for discussion by the committee is a confirmation that Nigeria needs a
new Constitution, which it (dialogue committee) “surprisingly shied away
from recommending”.
“Resolving constitutional problems in Nigeria cannot be the most
difficult in the world and certainly, not as difficult as the committee,
in its recommendation, want us to believe”, the statement noted.
“ARG, in coalition with many Yoruba groups have recommended that the
decisions and outcomes of National Conference should only be subjected
to a referendum and this process should produce a brand new Constitution
for Nigeria.”
ARG also noted that the national conference becomes more unfair and
unjust when one third of the delegates are to be nominated by the
president.
“We therefore kick against the nomination of any delegate, whether
from any public official or from special interest groups. Our stand is
that every Nigerian belongs to an ethnic nation and in fact, the
presidency of Nigerian Bar Association is already pre-determined on the
basis of ethnicity and this has worked for them. We therefore see no
reason why selection of delegates cannot be devolved to ethnic
components of Nigeria.
“We believe that the proposed conference is a make or mar issue for
President Jonathan that initiated it and for Nigeria – for the president
because it will be the most defining legacy of his administration and
for Nigeria because only a complete restructuring can save the country
from the gradual collapse buffeting all its public institutions”,
Afenifere stated.
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