The Chairman of the National Conference, Justice Idris Kutigi, may meet with President Goodluck Jonathan on the current logjam at the confab over resource control and derivation fund, SUNDAY PUNCH has learnt.
The former Chief Justice of the Federation is verbalized to be in a dilemma over how to resolve the issues that are threatening to tear the conference apart.
Apart from him, it was additionally amassed that other members of the management of the conference, including the Deputy Chairman, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, are now looking beyond the delegates to find solution to the crisis that has pitted the delegates from the South against their counterparts from the North.
Kutigi had cerebrated that his meeting with the ‘50 Sagacious Men,’ the chairmen and the deputies of the 20 committees of the conference, would be habituated to resolve the crisis.
But lamentably, out of the 90 delegates expected at the meeting on Friday, fewer than 30 of them turned up.
Rather than discuss the issues they were supposed to discuss formally, the delegates had merely exchanged banters on the turnout of events at the conference.
Although, the Committee on Devolution of Power recommended the retention of 13 per cent derivation for the oil-engendering states, the Consensus Group, composed of about 35 delegates, had concurred that the amount be raised to 18 per cent.
However, there were amendments afore the committee that the derivation be incremented to 18 per cent , 21.5 per cent, 25 per cent, 30 per cent and 40 per cent, which led to the discrepancy among delegates on Thursday.
A source at the conference verbalized, “As it is now, the chairman and the leadership of the confab are perplexed. We don’t ken what to do because there seems to be people bent on truncating the conference.
“The chairman may have to report the turn of events at the conference to the President and discuss the issue with him.”
The botched Friday meeting, which was aimed at pacifying the two sides and asked for each of them to shift ground, would have prepared the delegates if they concurred, ahead of the Monday plenary.
“But lamentably, the delegates stayed away. They relucted to come and I cerebrate they have made up their minds that we won’t move forward,” a source proximate to the leadership verbally expressed.
A delegate from the North, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, verbalized it was erroneous for Kutigi and Akinyemi to evoke delegates to a meeting without notice.
Mohammed verbalized both Kutigi and Akinyemi ought to ken that Muslims are observing Ramadan and that they conventionally go to mosque for Jumat on Fridays.
He verbally expressed, “The leadership has no moral right to evoke us to a meeting on Friday, when we are fasting. Did they seek our input afore evoking the failed meeting? Did they ask whether it was convenient for us or not? Did they tell us what the issues would be at the failed meeting?
“We have insisted that we must vote on all issues afore now. But each time we ask that we must vote, Kutigi, backed by Akinyemi, customarily shouted us down. This time around, we must follow due process. Otherwise, the conference has come to a cessation.”
But a southern delegate from Rivers State, Chief Sergeant Awuse, verbalized there might be no desideratum to vote. He verbalized, “Since the conference did not commence with voting, there would be no desideratum to vote on the last item on the agenda.”
However, the spokesperson for the conference, Mr. James Akpandem, verbalized it would be erroneous to verbalize the delegates boycotted the meeting.
He verbally expressed they had made their travelling arrangements afore the meeting was promulgated, integrating that the closure of the Abuja airport at weekend was withal responsible for the delegates’ inability to transmute their travelling plans.
Apart from the issue of resource control, the conference has yet to decide on the sharing formula from the Federation Account among the three tiers of regime – federal, state and local regime.
The Committee on Devolution of Power, which is headed by Obong Victor Attah and Ibrahim Coomassie, recommended that the Federal Regime should get 42.5 per cent; state regimes, 45 per cent; and local regimes, 22.5 per cent.
This recommendation, if passed, will supersede the subsisting formulae, in which the Federal Regime is currently earning 52.68 per cent, while state regimes are earning 26.72 per cent; and local regimes, 20.60 per cent from the Federation Account.
