Saturday Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
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April 5, 2014
Saturday Starter
Confab: When will real business start? The National Conference has been inaugurated. Three weeks into its existence, many Nigerians are still wondering whether or not it has actually started. Reason: they are not sure when delegates really want to commence the business for which they were nominated. K AYODE FALADE
W
hen President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the ongoing National Conference on March 17, 2014, many Nigerians were of the opinion that the gathering would hit the ground running. But more than three weeks after its start-off, the confab is yet to stand up not to talk of walking.
Right from inception, it has been a beleaguered entity. First to raise its head even before its inauguration was the composition of its members. Then came that of allowance. While many Nigerians were scandalized by the N12 million allowance for three months, some of the delegates rejected it outright claiming they are doing it gratis. Some delegates have, however, demanded for perks for their aides too. Other issues taking the front stand more than three
Bakare rejects N12 m confab pay
Ogun State representative at the National Conference, founder of Latter Rain Assembly and former running mate to Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari on the platform of Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, in the 2011 presidential election Pastor Tunde Bakare, said that he would not accept the proposed N12 million earmarked to be paid to each member of the National Conference which was inaugurated by President Goodluck Jonathan on March 18, 2014. But Pastor Bakare said he decided to be part of the delegates as part of his service to his country and as such, he sees no reason why he should collect such huge sum to render a service for his fatherland. He told members of his church during a service: “A friend of mine called me that he heard on the radio that ‘Pastor Bakare had accepted to go, that his own fee is
weeks after the take-off of the hotly demanded for confab included food, its monetization or not, lunch break, what pronoun to use and not to use for male and female among others. Questions pestering the minds of many now are but not limited to these: when will this long train start its engine, when will it take-off, when will it arrive at its many stops and will it finally make its proposed destination?
“This is the moment we have been waiting for; for this end I was born. “Nigeria will be saved, Nigeria will be changed, and Nigeria will become great.”
...Kicks against Arabic chants by Kutigi Bakare
N12m’. Pastor Bakare will not take a kobo in the National Conference. “I will not take a penny. It has nothing to do with others; that is by choice. We go with integrity of heart, it is not money. The God of heaven will prosper us. “What I say here is what I will do there. I do not say others should do it, but I intend to do that so that our heart can remain pure. That does not mean the hearts of others are not pure but I don’t want anybody to think in any slight manner that the motive is this.
“Mr. Chairman, yesterday you said something at the inauguration of the Conference and I did not understand. “Today again, you said it. I think you should pray in the way all of us understand because if I stand up and say, ‘Praise the Lord somebody,’ we will turn this place into a church service.”
I won’t forfeit my confab allowance – Ozekhome
A Federal Government delegate and human rights lawyer, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), said that his N4 million monthly allowance would go to charity and other destitute homes.
Ozekhome
“Whilst commending my good friends, Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, and Pastor Tunde Bakare for rejecting their own monthly take home of the alleged 12m allowance at the national conference, my own approach will be quite different. I will collect the money and distribute it to the less privileged and needy members of the society, the holoi- poloi, the vast majority of the “Frantz Fanon’s of the wretched of the earth” that populate the nooks and crannies of Nigeria. CONTINUED ON PAGE 4