UNILORIN HONOURS CRESCENT VARSITY PROPRIETOR
>> As Kano donates more computers to students
   
NEWS GROUP.
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>> Crescent University Founder and Proprietor, Judge Bola Ajibola has been honoured with the 19th Edition of The Jurist, an annual publication of the Law Students' Society of University of Ilorin.
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>> In his welcome address, the Vice chancellor of University of Ilorin, Prof. Abdul Ganiy Ambali said it was the pleasure of the university to Honour Judge Ajibola by students of "our faculty of law", thanking him for the " ray of royal highnesses" in his entourage to the institution.
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>> In his address, the Dean of Faculty of Law, University of Ilorin, Dr Ibrahim Yusuf related his encounter with Judge Ajibola few years back at International Islamic University, Malaysia where the Judge Ajibola's "quest for a standard model of university education revealed his patriotic concern to ensure that young Nigerians can boast of standard tertiary education at an affordable cost".
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>> The president of the association, Mr Mubarak Mustapha, in his speech described Judge Ajibola as an international adjudicator, an ambassador and peace negotiator, adding that he had contributed " in no small measure to the growth and development of the law, legal education and jurisprudence all around the world".
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>> In a related development, Kano State government has donated another batch of laptops to its scholarship students at Crescent University, Abeokuta in fulfillment of its pledge to the institution.
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>> The state had earlier donated 80 sets of laptops to its returning students last year and has now donated 100 to the first-year students this year.
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>> Presenting the HP wireless computers, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Hassan Okeleye congratulated the lucky beneficiaries, urging them to make good use of the computers.
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>> Prof. Okeleye said it was time for the scholarship students to appreciate their state government by getting serious with their studies, urging that they should all work hard to get first-class by the end of their programmes.
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>> He also told the students to explore the opportunity of different packages installed on the computers to aid different academic programmes they studied.
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>> The vice chancellor extended Crescent University's appreciation to Kano State governor,Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso for his bold steps at making sure that students from his state benefited from scholarship programmes in different courses.
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>> Also expressing appreciation to Kano State government,president of Kano State Students' Association of the institution, Muhammed Sani advised fellow students to guard their laptops ad their wives.

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>> (from left) VC,UNILORIN,PROF. ABDUL GANIYU AMBALI GIVING THE AWARD TO JUDGE BOLA AJIBOLA

>> FOUR SCORES FOR JUDGE BOLA AJIBOLA
>> NEWS GROUP.
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>> Scientists attribute a number of factors to longevity or life expectancy : genetics, healthy lifestyle, culture, exercise, positive thinking, apt diet and maintaining good health care. To the longest serving Nigerian Attorney-general and Minister of Justice in Nigeria, Judge Bola Abdul Jabbar Ajibola, it comes with the grace of God. Having now attained 960 months, that is 4,174 weeks or 29, 219 days which are the equivalent of 42, 075,901 minutes on the surface of the earth globe, the former Judge of the World Court in The Hague is worth celebrating. This time- and as usual- not with drums and all paraphernalia of musicals but with chronicles of his positive contributions  to humanity and history.
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>> We are informed in the Creationist Theory that in the estimation of our Creator's time, a period of humans' one thousand years is only a day of His reckoning. Therefore, a period of 80 years of any human's existence is only comparable to a flash or a blink, talking about period with God. Looking back, to the octogenarian, eighty years is just like yesterday or a day's recording and playback of events!
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>> Words of elders are words of wisdom. What a young boy cannot see climbing a tree, an old man will see sitting down. This comes from experience and knowledge of the aged because they have gone through thick and thin in life. They have witnessed the proverbial downpours and showers of life. Elders are teachers, philosophers and seers because they have witnessed many pasts. They have seen green and dry vegetation. However, there are elders of substance and those of straw. The former are elders who have been grossly favoured in their existence. They have risen to the pinnacle of their trade and profession.They are recognized by destiny. But elders of straw are those who do not make it in life however hard they might have striven. Judge Ajibola is an elder of substance who has been recognized by God and humanity.
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>> Early in life, he was unconsciously learning, in the palace, the art of law, arbitration and justice under the tutelage of his father,HRM  Oba Abdul Salam Gbadela, the Olowu of Owu Kingdom who reigned between 1949 and 1972. It was more of a rote learning of the blue-blooded young Adesumbo Ajibola than the formal classroom knowledge of the law. And consciously, at a point, his father encouraged him to tow the line of arbitration and law when he noticed his son's preference for farming and acting.
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>> The road to The Hague is narrow. Only the destined would thread it. By a dint of hardwork and providence combined, Judge Ajibola was destined for the most prestigious legal assignment in the world court. He had steadily threaded the road behind Late Judge Elias whom he had understudied as a guide. He had applied the golden nights rule of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "the heights that great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, when their companions were slept, kept toiling on through the night", to proactively trace his steps to The Hague. He was forced to memorise this quotation in elementary standard 5 and that was the beginning of his "golden nights" rule. It is on record that he used to write not less than 80 pages of judgement per night as a world court judge. Within three months, he was able to read a boxful of books meant to tutor him, by late Justice Elias, for the daunting job of the International Cout of Justice.
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>> As a writer, Judge Ajibola is dexterous with the use of words. He is a maverick of idioms and proverbs. He had used the Yoruba traditional proverbs to solve problems among his colleagues at ICJ. His firm belief according to Yoruba tradition, that when words are lost only proverbs are used to locate them, afforded him the wherewithal to solve problems at the ICJ.
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>> Oftentimes, his dissenting opinions/judgements were backed by proverbs and it so happened at a time all the judges had to vote on a contending issue. His was the only dissenting voice backed by the rich Yoruba proverbs. There was a recess and afterwards, all other judges gave their consensus to Ajibola's dissent, having realized the richness in his forefathers' proverbs. Just as Chinua Achebe succinctly captures in Things Fall Apart that "proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten". Judge Ajibola was a good cook of words with proverb recipe for other judges to relish!
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>> Ajibola as a speaker carries his audience along. You cannot be bored with his delivery as he garnishes issues at stake with humour and rib-cracking jokes. His reading speed, although with good pace and pitch that blend well with the delivery, is amazing. Even with age, he reads a typewritten page of A4 paper within three minutes and he will not exceed the time given by any moderator or play to the gallery.
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>> He traverses history, blended with philosophy, science and logic. He treats issues frankly and fairly. When impressed, he falls in love with the word "effective" or "efficient"; when planning he adores adjectives such as "pro-active" and "proficient"; when irked, he employs a phrase like "patent anomalies" or " incongruous situation". When surprised, he first and foremost whistles like a singing bird and then applies the contextual, gargantuan vocabulary.
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>> Judge Ajibola's most cherished legacy is Crescent University, Abeokuta, a private university he founded in 2005 through a parent body, Islamic Mission for Africa, to impact not just knowledge but good moral conduct on our youths. When he retired from the ICJ, there were about 17 private universities majorly owned by Christians. Then he asked himself "where is our own?". Since, according to him, a bird does not fly with one wing he though there should also be universities founded and owned by Muslims.

APC APPOINT LOCAL GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

All progressive congress (APC) political party in Ogun state went to poll to appoint local government officials who will paddle the affairs of the party for state and national primaries around the corner. The congress was peaceful and orderly. The governor eulogized the party members’ peaceful conduct. Adeleke Caleb

PDP BLAME APC OVER ABUJA BOMB BLAST

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has blamed the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC) for the bombs that rocked Abuja on Monday in which over 71 people were killed and 124 injured. In a statement by its National publicity secretary, chief Olisa Metuh, the PDP condemned the incident as barbaric, monstrous and extremely, the blasts which occurred at Nyanya on the outskirts of the federal capital territory. The party said the blasts could not be justified under any guise, maintaining that they are politically motivated and can be traced to the utterances and comments of desperate persons who seek to undermine and discredit the present administration and make the nation ungovernable for the president Goodluck Jonathan by instituting a reign of terror against the people.   

Political Group 

STOP ATTACKING GOVERNMENT, PDP TELLS NYAKO

Stop attacking government, PDP tells Nyako. By Henry Umoru. Abuja National leadership of the people’s Democratic Party. PDP yesterday took a swipe at Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa states, describing his letter to the governors of the 19 northen states as shocking especially as it comes from an elected person just as it warned the governor against what he described as his unguarded utterances and emulate other governors and leaders who have started guiding their negative comments. The PDP in a statement by its National publicity secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh also warned politician and stakeholders against comments that were capable of instigating violence and insurgence and urged President Goodluck Jonathan and the 36 states of the federation to come up with a resolution of curtailing what it described as ugly trend. Culled from Vanguard Newspaper. April 23^rd, 2014

Malomo Olanrewaju

Let’s postpone 2015 presidential poll

Opinion

By Nnamdi Nwigwe

Our beloved country, Nigeria, would be a more peaceful place if statesmen among us would bestir themselves now to do something tangible to forestall the political paroxysms that await our nation in the year 2015.

The forebodings are getting truly worrisome. The Presidential election that is scheduled to take place next year seems like an election to end all elections.

A study of the vituperations of many unthinking political actors would reveal a people tumbling down a bottomless precipice and hell-bent to take everybody along.

The soothing and stabilising voices of our statesmen are deafeningly silent on the din and cacophony of the so-called politicians across the country.

The more responsible sections of the media are also being sucked into the centrifuge of irresponsible rantings by fellow compatriots whose only concern is to be heard or to be seen as vocal or radical elements in the polity.

Let’s go into specifics: Our President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, would have done  six years on the job by the end of his current tenure in 2015.

He got into office in 2007 as Vice President to Alhaji Musa Yar’Adua who died midway into their tenure.

Jonathan served out the remaining two years with Arc. Namadi Sambo who came from his gubernatorial office in Kaduna to take up the job of Vice President.

As another Presidential election approaches in 2015, the polity is agog with high tension horse trading as to who runs for the office from the ruling People’s Democratic Party, (PDP).Some people say Jonathan should go ahead and vie for the office and thus do a second four-year term as he is constitutionally entitled. It probably doesn’t occur to such advocates that Jonathan would have done a total of 10 years as President when the law says eight years maximum.

Those within PDP who demand the withdrawal of Jonathan from the contest say he would be flying against the party’s unwritten agreement that it is now the turn of the “North” to rule since Jonathan, a “Southerner,” virtually appropriated “their” entitlement after the death of Yar’Adua, and again in 2011. From both sides of the advocacy have come threats that Nigeria would cease to exist if they do not have their way.

Indeed, the media has reported some deranged views to the effect that Jonathan must return to Aso Villa after the 2015 polls or else Nigeria will be Nigeria no more.

Such a threat came even when Jonathan has not signified interest in continuing in office after his current tenure.

As a counter, those who say Jonathan will only rule over their dead bodies, come 2015, are alleged to be stoking the fires that have begun raging across the country, apparently to try the resolve of the President to maintain security in the country.

Providentially, there have been some statesman-like suggestions to steer the ship of the nation away from the impregnable rock against which she is speeding to crash.

Most prominent is the proposal that President and Governors should begin to serve for only one tenure beginning from when the last Governor completed a second term of four years.

As for President Jonathan, the nature of his ascendency would suggest that he does eight years until 2017 when he quits for another presidential election to usher-in a President who would now serve for one tenure of either five years or six, depending on what Nigerians prescribe in an amended Constitution.

This sounds both innovative and commonsensical. Can we give it a try? There are so many advantages to this proposition if we can avert our mind to it.

To begin with, the war chest already being assembled by aspirants for the Presidential battle in 2015 would have been rendered redundant. Secondly, it would be better utilized to set up honest enterprises to employ jobless youths. Thirdly, the idea of an incumbent running for a return and using public funds against fellow contestants would not be there.

The suggestion for one term tenure was actually mooted by President Jonathan himself some time last year. So strident was the vocal opposition to it  that Mr. President had to confess that the idea was actually not his but that of the Council of State at their last meeting.

“Tenure elongation” is a phrase many Nigerians don’t want to hear because of their nasty experience of pre-2007 Presidential poll with former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

But Jonathan’s or Council of State’s suggestion is very far from tenure elongation. The brilliant brainwave of letting Jonathan remain in office till 2017 satisfies those who insist on his doing eight years as well as those who say he shouldn’t contest in 2015.In 2017, the stage would be clear for all those who want to occupy Aso Villa, to throw their hats into the ring. And as they emerge, their states of origin would not matter. The President surely has to come from somewhere in Nigeria. We are 14 years into 21st century.

Source: The Sun Newspaper, posted by Crescent University Mirror (Editorial Team )

Nigeria: Alarming descent into anarchy

Editorial

For some months now, the story of Nigeria has been that of a state that is fast descending into anarchy.  Hardly any day passes without reports of horrendous monstrosities claiming tens, and sometimes, hundreds of lives in the country.

Even though some parts of the country continue to maintain a façade of normalcy, other areas, especially in northern Nigeria, appear to have since become bound to violence, as rampaging terrorists rile against the government and security agencies, maiming and killing innocent people at will. Overall, the picture of Nigeria that is fast emerging is that of a country that is dangerously and irretrievably adrift, with its ship of state rapidly approaching a precipice.

If there had been any doubt at all that the nation’s authorities had lost grip of their most critical responsibility, which is the security and welfare of the people, the recent brazen bombing at the Nyanya Bus Terminal close to the seat of power in the country, and the abduction of over 100 girls from the Government Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State, should clear it.

The dastardly bombing incident elicited the characteristic pathetic whimper that has followed all other such incidents in the past, and which Nigerians have become all too familiar with. President Goodluck Jonathan told a mourning nation that the Boko Haram issue was a temporary problem that we will soon overcome. But how? What is on ground to make Nigerians believe this? It is this questionable optimism that appears not to be backed by reality that has been brought to bear on all the nation’s problems, including the Boko Haram imbroglio, in the past few years.

O

ur dire circumstances are worsened by the apparent inability of our leaders to appreciate the seriousness of the nation’s problems and the proper attitude that is required of them at this time.

While the nation was still mourning and trying to determine the number of the dead in Nyanya, the president went to a rally of the Peoples Democratic Party in Kano, smiling, dancing and accusing the state governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, of squandering campaign and local government funds. He was politicking while others, including foreign diplomats, were busy donating blood for the treatment of the wounded.

Apart from the insecurity in the North and other parts of the country, the all important power supply is at its lowest ebb, despite privatisation and the billions of naira sunk into the sector over the last 10 years. The unemployment situation is scary. Road and basic infrastructure are collapsing, in spite of the determined efforts of many state governors. Public education and healthcare are on life support. The economy, which we are told is on a growth trajectory, is not reflecting on the populace. The growth and benefits therefrom have continued to circulate within the small group of the rich and those who have access to government. Petroleum products have remained forever scarce in a country touted as the sixth largest exporter of crude oil. Much of the revenue that accrues from its sale has vanished into private pockets. Otherwise subsidized kerosene, used by most poor homes, remains scarce and even more expensive than petrol. Even at that, the voodoo accounting system in our oil industry insists that no money is missing. Corruption and graft are walking on all fours.  Poverty and hunger are ravaging the land, with over 70% of us living below poverty line. Our rich country has some of the poorest people on earth. While we were rebasing our economy and declaring ourselves the strongest economy in Africa (which, by the way, is not untrue), the World Bank President, Jim Kim, was declaring that Nigeria is one of the five countries in the world with the worst form of poverty. Rich country, poor people!

It is, however, on account of insecurity that dark clouds are now gathering in the country. The very raison d’être of government, which is to ensure the security of lives and property of the citizens, no longer holds. If it is not daredevil kidnappers today, then it’s daylight armed robbery and barefaced gunrunning in the south of the country. In the north, when insurgents get tired of bombing mosques, churches, police stations, army barracks, markets, schools and motor parks, they resort to outright sacking and annihilation of entire communities, and abduction of girls.

Of course, it will be unfair to suggest that all these started with the present administration, but our current leaders appear particularly clueless when it matters most. Like Emperor Nero, our leaders, most often, fiddle while Rome burns. That bombings are taking place in any part of the country at all is bad enough, but that this is happening so close to the seat of Nigeria’s federal power is unacceptable and gives cause for serious concern. If this massive attack could take place in Abuja, where our security should be on the highest alert, we are then not surprised that Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, and other states of the North West and North Central have been hit on a daily basis with relative ease.

Much as we appreciate the fact that the current Boko Haram insurgency is akin to a guerrilla war and, therefore, attacks can spring from anywhere; much as we are aware that several other planned attacks have been aborted by security intelligence, we find this latest bombing close to the seat of power, uncomfortable.

But, it would appear that our leaders are not on the same page with other Nigerians on this reality. For instance, we find the attribution of the bombing to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) by Barrister Olisa Metuh, National Publicity Secretary of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), out of place. That the PDP could make this public statement, even before the security operatives      commenced serious investigations, is unreasonable.  It underscores the political mindset that has, so far, made it impossible for us to think outside the box and properly address the Boko Haram insurgency. The result is that Boko Haram has continued to hold our country at the jugular while we are busy playing politics.

We, however, feel that the time has come for us to change the narrative and take the battle against Boko Haram more seriously. The time has come to put whatever we want to do in 2015 on the back burner and focus every effort at rescuing our country, feeding our people, restoring sanity in the land and giving our people a fresh sense of belief in the oneness and continued survival of our country.

If the approach we have used up to this time on the Boko Haram problem is not working, can we not try something different? Can we dry up the pool of illiterate, hungry and angry Nigerians from which Boko Haram get its footsoldiers?  If the carrot-and-stick approach has not worked, can we now try more of stick than carrot, or vice versa? If we say many of the insurgents, and their supply of arms and ammunition, come from neighbouring countries, how much co-operation have we extracted from such countries in this fight? And if they are not forthcoming, have we considered severing relations with them? Have we considered shutting our borders with them? Have we considered better policing the porous borders? Or, getting foreign   assistance? Is it not time we reviewed the unbridled influx of undocumented foreigners?

But, most of all, isn’t it also time we buried our selfish political, religious and regional differences and resolve to tackle this insurgency as a matter of urgent national importance? Isn’t it about time President Jonathan, governors and political leaders in the affected areas summoned the political will to confront this Boko Haram menace frontally?

Now is the time for a change in approach. This might be our last chance to fix this problem and this nation for good. Nobody should think that Somalia cannot happen here. It can. The poverty, hunger, anger, impunity, greed and corruption in the land today provide all the ingredients of a state about to fail. We charge the authorities not to allow this to happen.

Source: The Sun Newspaper

posted by Crescent University Mirror (Editorial Team)

The INEC/Fresh Party tangle

Editorial

For some weeks now, the matter of the refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to reverse its deregistration of the Fresh Democratic Party (FDP), despite a court ruling to that effect, has been generating ripples in political and legal circles in the country.

The FDP, formed by musician turned cleric, Pastor Chris Okotie, had approached the Federal High Court 5 in Abuja to challenge its deregistration by the electoral agency in December 2012. The court, presided over by Justice Gabriel Kolawole, upturned the  deregistration in a landmark verdict on July 29, 2013, giving FDP the right to participate in subsequent elections.

INEC, probably relying on the fact that other deregistered political parties which earlier took it to court lost the battle to make the court overturn their deregistration, ignored the ruling on FDP. Instead of vacating its delisting  of FDP, it merely sounded notice of its plan to appeal the Abuja High Court judgement, but failed to follow it through.

Since that time, contradictory statements have been emanating from INEC on the registration status of FDP, even as other registered parties prepare to hold primaries. The recent cloudy pronouncement by INEC’s South- West national commissioner, Prof. Lai Olurode, that all deregistered parties should seek re-registration to be able to participate in the 2015 elections is also not helping matters. There is no reason why a party like FDP which has a subsisting court order that mandates INEC to restore it to its former status as a registered political party should have to undergo another registration process. And, INEC should be clear on the status of the party on this matter.

The strange silence of INEC on this matter has since become resounding, and it has become necessary to hold INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to account, on this apparent flagrant disregard of the court order on FDP. The situation, which is being interpreted in some quarters as a sign of his disdain for the deregistered parties, is unhealthy for our democracy. If INEC has anything against the court order to have FDP continue as a registered party in the country, it must go to a higher court to vacate it,. The present rigmarole on this matter is not in the best interest of justice and fair play in the country.

For us, the controversy on FDP is needless. Justice Kolawole, in his ruling, was unequivocal that INEC had no power to deregister any political party. He proclaimed that the idea of deregistration of a political party is “strange” and “alien” to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He averred further that “when section 78(7) (ii) of the Electoral Act 2011 is considered alongside Section 222 of the Constitution, which sets out the qualifications for the registration of political parties “it would appear that the legislative decision of the National Assembly to limit political parties to only those that won state and national elections is nothing but an arbitrary rule of the thumb.” Although INEC had said the 28 parties were axed from the register of political parties for failing to meet certain registration requirements, it apparently failed to convince the court that FDP failed to meet the specifications required to exist as a political party in Nigeria, which are listed in Section 222 of the Constitution, thereby necessitating its deregistration

Our view is that it is wrong to delist any political party which has not been proven to have failed the criteria for registration of political parties in the constitution.  It is also wrong to deregister parties because they did not win any elective position, since this is not demanded as a condition for their continuing existence as parties in the constitution. Moreover, a party that does not win any elective office now can win even the presidency in future elections, if it gets its acts right.

On the FDP affair, it is common knowledge that any pronouncement of a court on a matter is law, unless it is appealed against and set aside by a higher court, or a stay of execution is obtained. In the present instance, INEC is neither known to have appealed the court ruling on FDP, obtained a stay of execution nor implemented the court verdict. This is a decidedly untidy situation that does not portray the electoral agency as a respecter of the rule of law. Certainly, INEC cannot be above the law. Even if the ruling of the Abuja court in the FDP suit was delivered in error, it is only a superior court that can vacate it.

Our submission on this matter is that it is only a court of law that can interpret Section 222 of the constitution and deregister a party when necessary, if it is approached by INEC to do so. The electoral agency has no authority to do that.

All agencies of government should be subordinate to the constitution and the courts. Whatever are INEC’s grievances with the deregistered parties, especially FDP that has a court ruling against its deregistration, let it go to a higher court to vacate Justice Kolawole’s ruling. An agency that is charged with the conduct of elections in the country should not be seen to be operating with impunity.

Source: The Sun Newspaper

posted by Crescent University Mirrow (Editorial Team)  

Emerging media phobia at national confab

With delegates to the ongoing National Conference having spent almost a whole month discussing the speech deliv­ered by President Goodluck Jonathan on their inauguration, it is now very clear that they must speed up their deliberations if they are to make a success of their brief within the stipulated three-month time frame. However, rather than focus all their efforts on the job at hand, it would appear certain delegates are more interested in gagging the media and keeping journal­ists out of whatever is going on there.

About a fortnight ago, former Minister of Justice and a one-time member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Musa Elayo, urged the confab to adopt the Ex­ecutive Session approach of the legis­lature, at which issues are discussed in secrecy and away from the prying eyes of the media.

Soon after, there was also a fresh de­mand to amend Order 14 Rule 7 of the conference to empower the confab to re­voke the accreditation given media hous­es to cover its proceedings. This was tar­geted at media houses adjudged to have published “unfair and offensive” stories about the confab. Although this aspect of the order was eventually expunged and amended to restrict the confab to accred­iting journalists to cover its proceedings, the proponents of the press gag move have yet to give up.

Many of them were particularly piqued by the embarrassing photographs, pub­lished by some newspapers, of delegates who were sleeping during the plenary sessions at the National Judicial Institute. Others expressed reservations over the way the press was reporting just about everything happening at the conference – including delegates’ bickering over food, toiletries, sundry allowances and other is­sues of personal welfare.

The confab leadership finally suc­cumbed. It ruled that some of the issues would henceforth be discussed in secre­cy, away from the prying eyes of the media and the public. Last Tuesday, journalists were barred from the sittings of ten com­mittees at the National Judicial Institute.

The resolution on secret sessions raises serious questions of transparency and the real motive of some of the 492 delegates. In a country where there had been wide­spread complaints about the absence of transparency in the conduct of govern­ment business and the need to let the people know what their representatives are doing, it is almost unthinkable that those whom we have chosen to straighten things out and help open up the process are the ones now canvassing secrecy.

The questions to ask are: were those photographs of sleeping delegates man­ufactured by the media? Was a delegate not playing Scrabble on a laptop while the session was on? Most of all, has any media report been found to be false? Why would delegates come into the pub­lic space to do what they do not want the public to know about? As some of the confab delegates have said, the antidote to being reported sleeping is not to sleep. Also, those who feel sleepy have been ad­monished to leave the chambers so as not to cast the confab in bad light.

Certainly, barring the media from some sessions will not do the confab any good. It smacks of a hidden agenda and will only leave journalists with no other choice than to rely on insider sources for news of what happens in those sessions.

With 492 delegates at the conference, it is unlikely that reporters covering the con­fab and their editors would not cultivate one or two sources that would always up­date them with exclusive stories of what goes on behind closed doors at the secret sessions. The danger in this approach is that some delegates could genuinely be misrepresented in the media, as stories might be embellished – a situation that would not have arisen if the sessions were open to the media.

It is also by going into secrecy, like se­cret cults, that the confab would begin to face the same media/image problem that the legislature is currently facing, with al­legations of corruption, jumbo pay, pad­ding up of the national budget for selfish reasons, among others, regularly leveled against lawmakers.

Of course, what some of these anti-me­dia delegates are calling for runs in the face of Section 22 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), which guarantees the right of the press to report the government to the governed.

Apart from the point of law, the press is like the oxygen which the confab needs to fully actualise its mandate and the sooner the delegates begin to see the media as partners, the better for the country. We have already wasted one month trying to get started.

The time for the conference is running out. It will amount to a colossal waste of time, and of the N7 billion taxpayers’ mon­ey voted for the confab, if some delegates are only interested in reining in the press.

This confab is one in which Nigerians of all shades of opinion represented at the discourse should open up – warts and all, and tell one another the bitter truth. It is for this reason that the country is paying almost N4 million to each delegate. If possible, everything that they have to say should be said in public, to everybody’s hearing. There is no need for some del­egates to try to hide anything. Whoever is not comfortable with that should do the honourable thing and leave the confer­ence.

What Nigerians want is a robust, no-holds-barred discussion of their many problems, with a view to the adoption of new ideas that will be proposed to resolve them. The confab should, therefore, not gag the press.

Source: The Sun Newspaper; posted by Oguntayo Ezekiel