Chief Chekwas Okorie, Chairman,  UPP


By Onyebuchi Ezigbo

The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) and United Peoples’ Party (UPP) have asked the federal government to ensure that the outcome of the national conference is subjected to a referendum for an endorsement and ratification.

However, while APGA commended the wisdom of government in widening the scope of participation at the conference to include virtually all segments of the society, UPP said the slots offered ethnic nationalities at the talks were very limited.

While welcoming the programme released by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, the Leadership of APGA, under Chief Victor Umeh, said the party is impressed by the move to make the talks an all-inclusive venture.

Umeh told THISDAY on telephone that the party has welcomed the decision to cede ten delegate slots to the five political parties with representation at the National Assembly.
According to Umeh, the guidelines show that all the segments of the Nigerian society are to be represented at the conference, adding that the party is commending the President for making it a broad-based conference where all issues would be discussed except anything that will divide the country.

Umeh however advised that the conference be used as an opportunity to re-write the constitution in order to achieve a people’s oriented constitution, adding that its outcome should be ratified through a referendum, rather than subjecting it to the whims of the National Assembly.

On its part, the UPP said the schedule of modalities for the National Conference as announced by the federal government fell short of the expectations of most Nigerians.
The national chairman of the party, Chief Chekwas Okorie, said the expectation of all well-meaning Nigerians and groups are that the delegates to the conference shall be dominated by representatives of various ethnic nationalities drawn from the six geo-political zones of Nigeria on the basis of equality of the zones.

“This country is made up of ethnic nationalities, who were clobbered together by the British Colonial Masters without any form of consultation. The National Conference that will restore peoples’ confidence in a united Nigeria ought to have been convened around the ethnic nationalities as major and critical stakeholders.

“I am worried at the government’s approved method at arriving at decisions at the conference. government approved that where there is no consensus on any particular issue, 75 per cent of the delegates to the conference shall be the required number to pass such issue at the conference. This is not satisfactory at all.”

Okorie said the implication is that if majority of the delegates want a particular decision adopted by the conference, that majority would lose out to the minority simply because they do not number up to 75 per cent.

“The President on his October 2013 Independence broadcast promised Nigerians that there will be no No-Go areas during the conference. What we have seen is that, that commitment to Nigerians has been reneged on.”


Source: This Day