National Conference ends, delegates adopt final report

The National Conference officially ended its plenary on Thursday
amidst solidarity songs by delegates who adopted its final report.

Thursday's plenary drew the curtains on the almost five-month
conference which was characterised by heated debates, political
maneuvering and caucus meetings by various interest groups.

President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the conference on March 17, 2014.

The peaceful end to the conference came as a surprise to many as
northern delegates who had maintained a hard stance on some aspects of
the report, , especially the 'draft constitution, participated fully
in adopting the document .

The opinion during the plenary was that the political maneuvering by
the Chairman of the conference, Justice Idris Kutigi , made the angry
delegates to sheath their swords.
Sources said that Kutigi had meetings with the leaders of the various
zones on Wednesday where several issues were addressed.

One of the sources said it was during the meetings that a decision was
reached that a motion should be moved at the plenary to change the
title of one of the volumes of the reports from 'draft constitution"
to " proposed amendments to the 1999 Constitution."

At the plenary on Thursday, a delegate from Yobe State, Alhaji Maina
Waziri, therefore moved the motion for this correction.

Waziri's motion read, "To cultivate a conducive environment for
delegates to validate and adopt the final report of the conference, we
the undersigned delegates, hereby offer and endorse the following
observations and recommendation that seek to facilitate the process
and lead to amicable ending of the conference proceedings.

"We note that the secretariat of the conference on August 11, 2014
tabled before delegates a draft report contained in three volumes that
are broken down in seven chapters

"In particular, we observed that volume III titled draft constitution,
conveys an attempt to insert various resolutions and recommendations
of a constitutional nature that were adopted by the conference as
proposed amendments to the appropriate sections of the constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.

"We recall and welcome the clarification and confirmation offered by
conference chairman at plenary on August 13, 2014 that indeed Volume
III contains proposals for the amendment of the 1999 Constitution.

"We urge the leadership of the conference, in collating the final
report, to more appropriately designate Volume 111 as: Draft Proposals
to Amend the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.