The issue of a new constitution for the country has started to tear apart the ongoing National Conference.
Some delegates from the South and the Middle Belt on Wednesday kicked against allegation of the Northern delegates that the Confab secretariat has drafted a new constitution.
Conference delegates from the North had on Tuesday rejected the draft new constitution prepared by the Confab secretariat, saying it was part of a plot to give some elected public officers, including President Goodluck Jonathan, the legitimacy to stand for a third term.
The new constitution was circulated to delegates on Monday and they are expected to debate it along with the report of the conference when they reconvene on Wednesday (today).
But when the Chairman of the National Conference, Justice Idris Kutigi, read the mood of the delegates that the atmosphere was tensed, he adjourned the sitting till Thursday for the debate.
However, briefing newsmen after the plenary session, delegates from South, led by Chief Edwin Clark, said there was no issue in the circulated documents that is controversial, dispelling the idea that there is confusion in the document circulated by the secretariat.
Clark said it is not wrong if it is called a new constitution, adding that if the resolution is implemented by the government of Nigeria, there is going to be a new Nigeria.
He described the position of the Northern delegates as unfortunate.
According to Clark, there is no issue that is controversial in the report.
Various issues in the report were debated by the Conference and all the resolutions in the report were agreed on by all delegates in the conference.
He said: “I can assure you if the resolutions in this report are implemented by the government, a new Nigeria has been birthed.
“What I learnt within four months of this conference is fantastic.
“It was unfortunate that some delegates addressed a press conference on the new constitution.”
Clark said by Thursday, the conference would adopt the report and end its sitting.
Speaking in support of the position of Chief Clark, another delegate from South, Chief Olu Falae, said the allegation by National Conference delegates from the 19 northern states, under the aegis of Northern Delegates Forum, accusing the confab leadership of harbouring a third term agenda for President Goodluck Jonathan and other present political office holders with the introduction of a purported new constitution for Nigeria, is false.
Chief Falae explained that six years single tenure is not in the report, saying that what the Northern delegates are trying to do is to mislead the public.
He added that what was in the document is not different from the resolutions of the Conference.
Retired General Ike Nwachukwu added that the report should be placed in the public domain so Nigerians will understand what the Confab has done so far.
Delegate present at the briefing were Chief Edwin Clark, Chief Olu Falae, General Ike Nwachukwu, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, Anko Briggs, Yinka Odumakin, Senator Femi Okunronmu and others.
On Tuesday while briefing the press, the Northern Delegates Forum said the document was a plot to leverage on a court ruling in 2003 that said governors who had served during the aborted Third Republic were eligible to seek another term in the 2003 election since they were serving under a different constitution.
That judgment was delivered in a case affecting the then governors of Kogi, Yobe, Taraba and Ogun States, who had also been civilian governors between 1992 and 1993.
It was based on this court decision that Abubakar Audu, Bukar Abba Ibrahim, Jolly Nyame and Segun Osoba ran again for election as governors for what was seen as third tenures in 2003.
The Northern delegates said on Tuesday that if the confab draft was to be approved, serving elected office holders who are ineligible to seek another term in 2015 elections under the 1999 constitution would then be eligible under the new constitution.
“Adopting a new constitution is therefore calculated to enable incumbent elective office holders who are statured barred from going for third term at both federal and state levels, to run for offices again under the guise of running under a new constitution,” said co-Chairman of the forum, Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie, who read a text on behalf of the Northern delegates.
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