Delegates warn Jonathan against dumping confab report

Some delegates to the just-concluded National Conference have admonished President Goodluck Jonathan against dumping the final report of the confab to eschew national crisis.

The delegates, who verbalized with our correspondent in separate interviews on Friday, admonished that the latest report should not be left unimplemented like those from precedent conferences, as it would transmute the country for the more preponderant.

The Chairman of the conference and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Idris Kutigi, had submitted the final report of the confab in 22 volumes of 10,335 pages to President Jonathan on Thursday.

At the handover, the President had verbalized, “As I receive the report of your painstaking deliberations, let me assure you that your work is not going be a waste of time and resources.

“We shall do all we can to ascertain the implementation of your recommendations which have emerge from consensus and not by divisions.”

A bellwether of the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, told our correspondent it would be counter-productive for the Jonathan-led administration, if the report was forsook.

He verbally expressed, “I cerebrate he (Jonathan) will get it implemented. He verbalized that many times, both in private and publicly. If he does not implement it, then he is integrating to the injury on the polity. And it is he who will lose in that regard because he realises that many Nigerians are in favour of the confab; many more than those who are sceptical.”

Similarly, a human rights lawyer, Dr. Tunji Braithwaite, urged President Jonathan to implement the report afore the 2015 general elections. He verbalized that it would be erroneous to conduct another round of elections on the 1999 Constitution that had been faulted.

He verbalized that the confab report should be treated as a matter of national exigency in the interest of the country.

Braithwaite integrated that a failure to implement the report could lead to “a national crisis.”

Also verbalizing with our correspondent, a former Minister of Health, Prof. Alphonsus Nwosu, recalled that fears and pessimism about a prosperous convocation of the confab had been surmounted, verbalizing, “Everybody thought we would have killed one another.”

Similarly, the Northern Delegates’ Forum, however, verbalized that the confab could not insist on monitoring the implementation, as it remained an advisory body.

The spokesperson for the forum, Mr. Anthony Sani, noted that the trepidation that the implementation of the recommendations may suffer the fate of the antecedent reports was “well grounded and legitimate.” He, however, verbalized it did not mean the report would not be implemented.

He verbalized, “As Mr. President has verbalized; past experiences are not compulsorily the same with the current ones. He is not identically tantamount to past presidents. So, let Nigerians give Mr President the benefit of the doubt, when he verbally expresses the executive, the judiciary, the legislature and even the political parties have their roles to play in the implementation of the reports.

The former Anambra State Commissioner of Health and ex-President-General of the Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, verbally expressed, “We are hoping that the energy from the conference, which led to the fact that we didn’t vote on any of the 600 decisions and recommendations, will flow to the executive and the legislature. And they will ken what to do precisely.

“Of course, there will be follow-ups and follow-throughs to ascertain it is implemented.”

In his submission, former military Governor of the defunct Bendel State, Gen. Jeremiah Useni, verbally expressed that the enforcement of the report was left to President Jonathan.