Restructuring: APC c’ttee welcomes PDP, northern govs contributions
The 22-member Committee on True Federalism constituted by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) says it welcomes contributions from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The committee also said it appreciated the intervention of the Northern Governors Forum/Northern Traditional Rulers Council Committee on Restructuring.
The secretary of the committee, Senator Olubunmi Adetunmbi, who addressed journalists, yesterday, in Abuja at its secretariat, said the PDP and the governors’ forum were part of the stakeholders.
Senator Adetunmbi stated this in reaction to questions that sought to know the way and manner the committee would handle contradictory submissions, taking cognizance of the position of the APC to the 2014 National Conference convened by then President Goodluck Jonathan-led PDP federal government.
He said the report of the 2014 conference would be “available as literature” for the ongoing effort aimed at building the nation.
The former senator also said that the committee would not sieve out any reports on “referendum” if submitted during the forthcoming zonal public consultations scheduled to hold between September 18 and 28, 2017.
He said the committee, split into three teams, will have each team handling two geo-political zones of the country.
Team 1, which will cover states from South South and North Central zones, will be led by Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano State.
Team 2, which will cover states from South East and North East region, will be headed by Professor Oserheimen Osunbor.
Team 3, which will move to the states in the South West and North West regions, will be headed by Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State.
Senator Adetunmbi said the committee had already teased out 12 issues that would form part of the interactions at the zones. The issues highlighted, he said, included creation/merger of states; derivation principle, devolution of powers, federating units, fiscal federalism and revenue allocation, form of government, independent candidacy, land tenure system, local government autonomy, power sharing and rotation, resource control and type of legislature.
He said the entire team would converge in Abuja to cover special clusters made up of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) citizens, youths, National Assembly, civil society organisations and professional groups between October 3 and 9, 2017.
The Director General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Salihu Mohammed Lukman, in his contribution during the question-and-answer session, said the APC could direct its representatives in the National Assembly to support the outcome of the consultations if a national consensus was struck on the raging issues.
Lukman said the essence of the various consultations was to find a lasting solution to the nation’s multi-faceted challenges.