Confab in rowdy session over ‘new Constitution’

By Emeka Nze
Abuja

Controversy virtually took over the greater part of the National Conference’s morning session yesterday, following accusations the leadership was involved in a hidden agenda to smuggle into the conference a new constitution to replace the 1999 Constitution.

But the representative of the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON), High Chief Raymond Dokpesi, later explained that it was a working document on the contentious reports and other issues that some delegates wanted the conference to discuss.
Dokpesi, the chairman of DAAR Group which owns Africa Independent Television (AIT), insisted there was nothing secret about the document as it was circulated to all the leaders of the six geo-political zones at the conference.
He blamed Prof. Auwalu Yadudu for what he described as storm in the teacup and for writing a letter for the withdrawal of the northern delegates from the National Consensus and Bridge Building Group convened by Prof Ibrahim Gamabari and himself.

Arguments had started when Malam Ishaq Modibbo Kawu, representing the Nigeria Guild of Editors at the conference, requested that the Deputy Chairman of the conference, Prof. Bolaji Akiyemi, clear himself of a newspaper report which alleged that the deputy chairman was lobbying northern delegates to accept the new constitution.
Kawu, whose observation was based on the article entitled “National Conference Hidden Agenda Exposed” published by the Sunday Trust of June 29, 2014, stated that the conference had nothing to do with a new constitution as their mandate did not include writing a constitution for the country.

The controversy was heightened by motions and counter-motions to ignore or answer to the accusation against Akinyemi, moved by Chief Mike Ahamba, as well as former President of the Senate, Ken Nnamani.
For Ahamba, the conference must always act in accordance with “what we know,” saying that many people had predicted that the conference would come to nothing even before its commencement.
He informed the delegates that the anti-conference elements were still present at the conference and must not be given the chance to succeed.

“They have failed; we have a duty to disappoint them. We know our procedure. How can anybody lobby on an issue that is not under discussion?”
Nnamani, who raised a counter-motion, said the deputy chairman of the conference should be allowed to clear his name.
But Dokpesi said there was an agenda by Yadudu to tear the conference apart.
He said Yadudu was amongst the 19 delegates who had been attending the meeting to fashion out a work plan for the conference, only for him to disagree on the allegation of a hidden agenda.

Alhaji Ibrahim Coomasie, a former Inspector General of Police, had explained to the plenary that he was invited to the meetings but because he fasted on that Monday he raised a team to represent him, adding that Akinyemi had earlier explained the agenda of the meeting as bordering on the constitution.
He said a former President of the Senate, Prof. Iyorchia Ayu, led those Coomasie had appointed to be at the meeting, explaining further that he was subsequently approached to sanction the formation of a technical committee to help the conference and three delegates from each zone was nominated for the purpose.
Coomasie said he was informed last Thursday that a new constitution had been written and that he was handed a letter from Yadudu that northern delegates would no longer participate and gave his explanations and the documents regarded as the new constitution.

Reacting, Dokpesi told the conference that he and Gambari convened the National Consensus and Bridge Building Group which had the objective of closing difficult issues in the conference.
He said the membership of the group was extended to as many delegates as possible and they met regularly.
Speaking in an interview later, Is’haq Modibbo Kawu, the delegate who challenged the Confab leadership to make full disclosure on their role in the controversy, expressed dismay at the turn of events.
“We cannot be here doing things in the open and some people will try to manipulate us in a subterranean way. It is unacceptable,” he said.

He added that as a representative of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, he merely performed his role as a journalist by questioning an emerging ugly trend at the Confab.
Kawu said: “You know, the South-south lost in almost all their demands at the committee level; but by the time the Deputy Chairman, Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, was helping to push and lobby delegates to support the South-south’s 50 percent derivation, and a new constitution in line with their sponsors, it  had to be exposed.”