Culled from Saturday Mirror
by TEMITOPE OGUNBANKE on Oct 26, 2013 |
When President Goodluck Jonathan publicly declared his intention to organise a national dialogue, many people, especially advocates of national conference received the news with joy and they showered encomiums on him for a wise decision. It was to them, yielding to the yearning and aspirations of the people of Nigeria.
This, is however, not to say that many others are not in the least impressed by the action of the president. While some people see the inauguration of the Senator Femi Okurounmu-led Advisory Committee on National Dialogue as the beginning of a process and sincerity of the current administration to bring Nigerians to a round-table to discuss and proffer solutions to the myriad of problems facing the country, some consider it a mere diversionary tactics.
The mixed reactions were yet to abate when the president declared that the report of the conference would be sent to the National Assembly for consideration. The president made the declaration while receiving the Muslim community in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), led by Vice President Namadi Sambo and the Minister of State for FCT, Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide, on the occasion of the traditional Sallah homage at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, last Tuesday. According to the president, the visit would be sent to the National Assembly for consideration and for possible inclusion in the constitution since the legislature was in the process of constitutional amendment.
His words: “This National Dialogue is critical and is coming at the right time because the National Assembly is thinking about how they will amend the constitution. So, the results of the discussion of course will be passed to the National Assembly.
“It is only left for all of us who are Nigerians to impress it on our representatives, those in National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly because our state and federal parliaments must work together to ensure these are properly enshrined in our constitution so that as a nation, we will hand over a country that is better than what we have met to our children.” If there was anything the president’s declaration achieved, it was stoking the fire of controversy.
To some Nigerians, the decision of the president to send the conference report to National Assembly, is justifiable since the National Assembly is saddled with the responsibility of making laws and amending the constitution, but some believe that doing so would make nonsense of the National Dialogue, since the major aim of the conference is to provide a platform for Nigerian people to determine their faith and how they want the country to be governed. Some political analysts, lawyers and human rights activists have argued that the outcome of the national dialogue should be subjected to a referendum by the people on the account that sovereignty lies on the people.
Many are also of the view that what Nigeria needs is a Sovereign National Conference (SNC), which report cannot be tinkered with without subjecting it to a referendum. Therefore, the decision to send the report to National Assembly is seen by many as a departure from the main goal of the conference. Former Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, believes that the report of the national confab should not be handed over to the National Assembly. Continue reading “National dialogue: When president stirred dust of controversy”
