Why Buhari needs to consider National conference recommendations

A member of the 2014 National Conference, Akin Oyebode has stated it would be irrational for President Muhammadu Buhari to discard recommendations from the confab report, recommending that an executive committee be mandated to implement vital components of the report.

Oyebode gave this warning during an interview with Daily Trust, warning of an imminent danger if the report is jettisoned on the basis that the conference was initiated during the tenure of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

He said insinuations that the report would be discarded by the Buhari-led administration would be disastrous to the nation.

“It would be injudicious to throw away the report of the confab even though it was allegedly convened to promote and project the second term agenda of the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
But when you look at the personalities that attended that conference, it will be difficult to have an election to throw off such an assembly.
“It’s true that many pro-Jonathan personalities were at the confab, that PDP dominated the confab but there were also people like us there who were never card-carrying members of PDP and we expressed our positions.


“The confab produced more than 600 recommendations. I served on the Foreign Affairs and Diasporas committee with about 15 former ambassadors; very high-powered committee. There were many other committees like that which presented their reports which were then aggregated.
“At the end of the confab, the final report was massive. I will not advise Buhari to jettison the report; you don’t throw away the baby with the bath water. He can set up a small committee just like the Itsay Sagay Committee to go through the report and synthesise; as well as extract from the report things that are doable.
“Why should we spend so much money and throw the report in trash bin? It would be injudicious and unwise to throw away the report of the confab.”
Shortly before ex-President Jonathan left office, he forwarded copies of the confab report to the National Assembly for action and also informed Buhari that the confab report was more important than his handover note.
Following discontent tunes on the implementation of the confab reports, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian National Summit and also member of the 2014 National Conference, Tony Uranta beckoned on Buhari to urgently initiate steps towards implementing recommendations from the report in the interest of Nigerians.
“So Mr. President cannot but, immediately, step up to the plate and fulfill his Oath of Office to serve Nigerians by guaranteeing our Welfare to the very best of his ability and opportunities.
“We must not think that Somalia, Yugoslavia or Syria are mirages….if Nigerians do not calculatedly put an end to this national drift towards madness, we will have ourselves to blame.”
This view has also been corroborated by other members of the national conference who have also warned Buhari against discarding recommendations of the confab report.
Credit -post-nigeria.com
This is more imperative now with rising ethnic discontent occasioned by a largely divisive election and 'sharing of spoils of APC's victory' among the geo-political zones. So many issues need to be addressed or redressed for the good of Nigeria.