Leaders renew agitation for national conference

[TGD]

 AT various fora yesterday, some Nigerian leaders revisited the endless clamour for the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference and a new constitution to address the country's unresolved problems.

The proponents of the confab insisted that it is only through the two initiatives that Nigeria can wriggle out of the myriad of problems confronting it.

The agitation has arisen against the background of the new moves by the National Assembly to amend the 1999 Constitution.

At the 80th birthday anniversary of former Special Adviser on Information to President Shehu Shagari, Olu Adebanjo, at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos, Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye, said it is expedient on the Federal Government to listen to reasoning voices by organising the conference where critical issues of governance and the best constitution would be discussed.

He said failure to address the request might lead to chaos in the country, adding that no amount of amendment to the 1999 Constitution "which was decreed on us by the military can produce the needed change without Nigerians going to the round table."

Durojaiye said that based on the 1999 Constitution, "the Nigerian President remains the most powerful Executive in the world. This is one of the effect of long military rule on the country."

The guest lecturer, Prof. Adele Jinadu, in his paper titled: "Strengthening Nigeria's federalism: Revisiting the presidential versus parliamentary government debate," took a different position. He stated that it would be difficult to organise a SNC under the current system as it would be for the National Assembly to draft a new constitution, "because there is no provision for such in the current constitution."

He however said any reform should aim towards appropriate separation or division of powers and functions between the federal and unit level government.

Jinadu called for appropriate political party reform to discourage creeping authoritarian tendencies, reflected in centralisation of powers at the national executives of all parties and that the reform must address issue of corruption and abuse of the power of incumbency by redesigning the architecture of horizontal institutions.

The Deputy Governor of Ogun State, Segun Adesegun, said neither the presidential nor parliamentary system of government is bad but the way it is applied in the country is the problem.

Adesegun suggested that the system should be moderated to give the National Assembly more powers instead of the present system where the Legislature operates as a subordinate organ of the Executive.

Others, who spoke on the issues at a forum in Ondo State, are the founder of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr. Fredrick Fasehun and spokesman Pro-National Conference Organisation (PRONACO), Wale Okuniyi.

At the function in Akure organised by Integrity Icon Organisation, Fasehun said the convocation of the confab would address the myriad of problems facing the nation. "That is the only panacea for socio-political and economic growth of the country."

He urged the National Assembly to act, as catalyst for the convocation of the conference, which he said, should be based on ethnic representations.

In a statement, Okunniyi said the Nigerian people at a constitutional dialogue held in Port Harcourt last month have already reached a consensus that the 1999 Constitution was decreed on the nation by the military as decree No 24 in 1999 and "that the document can never become their own no matter how beautifully amended as the origin and source of the constitution makes it completely irredeemable."



The Guardian