PREMIUM TIMES investigation shows that delegates from the South are more than their counterparts from the North.
The fear of gang up by majority Southern delegates against entrenched Northern interests has been identified as reason for the failure of members to agree on a voting procedure to be adopted at the ongoing National Conference.
Debates on the draft Rules of Procedure at the Conference turned rancorous on Monday when some delegates insisted on amending the three-quarter voting procedure contained in the document.
While delegates agreed on the need for consensus, nearly all the Southern delegates who spoke on the matter canvassed that a two-third majority voting procedure be adopted at the Conference whenever members were unable to reach a consensus.
This did not go down well with their Northern counterparts, who insisted that the Rule should be retained as proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan, who convened the Conference.
It was Mike Ozekhome, a Federal Government’s delegate from Edo State, who stirred the hornet’s nest when he started the argument that it would be near impossible for any meaningful decision to be taken based on the three-quarter voting system.
Based on the 492 delegates invited to the Conference, three-quarter votes translate to 369 delegates.
Mr. Ozekhome said, “My Lord, 75 per cent is bogus, it is ‘elephantide’ and very unattainable by every standard. I know a lot of issues will draw emotions and primordial sentiments in this hallowed chamber.
“When issues like state police, regionalism, devolution of power and others come up as they will; it will be difficult to get 75 percent to agree. The second problem is that we will be creating a tyrannical minority.
“It simply means that the minority could defeat a major decision and make it impossible for us to take any meaningful decision on any matter.”
Instead of retaining that voting procedure, Mr. Ozokhome moved that a two-third majority vote that is used in global legislative practice be adopted.
Conference Chairman, Idris Kutig, immediately overruled Mr. Ozokhome and attempted to move to the next Order on the Rules paper.
But shouts of “No, no, no,” echoed all over the gallery, as delegates protested the Chairman’s unilateral decision on the matter.
For three days, the Conference could not resolve the issue until the situation degenerated to the point where the Lamido of Adamawa, Aliyu Mustapha, threatened that if the North was pushed to the wall, it would pull out of Nigeria.
The visibly angry monarch explained that he had been trying to speak on the floor of the Conference for three days but was not recognised by the leadership.
He, therefore, used the opportunity to advise delegates to jettison what he described as “so-called Western Conference,” because such would not do Nigeria any good.
Mr. Mustapha said he was surprised at the behavior of some delegates who were trying to overstep the bounds set by President Goodluck Jonathan.
He said, “Some so-called elders who claim to be supporters of the President are causing problems at this Conference.
“There is a state in Cameroun called Adamawa and if I run to that place, I can easily be assimilated. If you push us to wall, we can easily walk out of this country. Jingoism is not the preserve of anyone.”
To forestall a walkout, Mr. Kutigi, on Wednesday, called out names of 50 delegates representing various delegations to meet and find solution to the lingering crisis.
Investigation by PREMIUM TIMES revealed that members of the group opened up and freely discussed their fears during their meetings which held behind closed-doors.
We learnt that Northern delegates feared that the majority delegates from the South could use their numerical advantage at the Conference to effect changes which may ultimately hurt the North.
A source from the Consensus Group said it was this fear that made some Northern leaders call for the boycott of the Conference so the region would not walk into a possible booby-trap.
According to him, it took repeated assurances from Mr. Jonathan for leaders of the North to make a u-turn on their previous decision to stay away from the Conference.
The source, a northern delegate, who pleaded not to be named, because he is not authorised to speak on the matter, said Northern leaders are not sure of the support of delegates from the North-Central and would not take chances.
He explained that the crises that played out during plenary sittings were orchestrated by fears that the majority Southern delegates would dominate their Northern counterparts.
He said, “We did not want to attend the Conference until Mr. President gave us assurance that we would be protected. You know that there are more delegates from the South than from the North and we don’t want a situation where the North will be taken for granted.
“We even presented some of the concessions we are ready to make to our colleagues from the South to show that we are ready to build a united country for the good of all Nigeria. They also discussed their fears.
“As far as I am concerned, we are making progress and by Monday when we resume, we will have something to present to all the delegates. We (Consensus Group) have been meeting since the Chairman constituted the group. We met yesterday (Thursday) and will meet again during the weekend to resolve other outstanding issues.”
PREMIUM TIMES investigation shows that delegates from the South are more than their counterparts from the North.
It was also found that the selection of the delegates might not have been deliberately skewed by the government to favour any part of the country.
The reason for the South having more delegates than the North is caused by the fact that majority of the delegates representing professional and other interest groups at the Conference are from the South.
For instance, under representatives of retired police officers, the North has only two delegates while the South has four. In the retired civil servants category, the North has two delegates while the South has four.
Out of the 12 delegates from the Nigeria Labour Congress, the North has four while the South has eight; the National Youth Council has two Northern delegates and four from the South, National Youth Association of Nigeria has six delegates and only one is from the North.
The South also enjoys a majority among the delegates representing professional bodies in the Conference, a situation which has further angered delegates from the core North.
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