Thursday 10th July 2014
Conference resumed sitting at 09:20am.
Votes and processing of the previous day were read, amended and adopted as amended.
Motion of Urgent National Importance:
A delegate moved a motion, drawing the attention of the conference to the death of Barr. Bamidele Aturu, a Human Right activist. He urged the conference to observe a minute's silence in honour of the deceased and also commiserate with his family.
The Chairman ruled against the former prayer as the deceased was not a delegate to the conference, but approved the latter prayer to send a letter of condolence to the family of the deceased.
Another delegate also informed the conference that Delegate Dr Abdu Bulama has been sworn in as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He urged the conference to congratulate the newly sworn in minster. The Chairman ruled that conference will congratulate the delegate when official communication is received by conference.
The Deputy Chairman informed the conference that the members of the group finding reconciliation over the matter of derivation are yet to iron out the grey areas of the report read by Professor Gambari Yesterday - You can find the detail of the report on my last post. Conference then gave the consensus group an hour to go and iron out and reconcile the grey areas while the conference adjourned temporally at 10:30 to resume at 11:30.
However, a debate was opened on the floor of the house on the issue.
Some said they are unaware of the existence of
any group like the special committee, because it is not one of the standing committees of the conference; it is rather a self-appointed committee and will not represent the views of the larger house.
Others said the Conference had agreed from the onset that only the recommendations of the Standing Committees would be thrown up for approval or rejection. Anything other than that is not going to be acceptable to most.
Another said since the leadership have already made provision for ballot boxes "we will not on this matter agree to a voice vote". We must vote!
The chairman of the conference rebuked all the agitations and explained that, this is not the first time such groups would be intervening in contentious matters.
So we took the hour break while we waited for the consensus group to come up with their report.
On resumption at 11:30, the Consensus Group was yet to come up with any resolution on the issue of derivation, so the conference resolved to adopt proposed amendments and additional recommendations to the report of the Committee on Devolution of Powers, leaving out those amendments bordering on Derivation Principle and Revenue Sharing Formula until the Consensus Group come with their report.
Some of the recommendations made by the committee and additional recommendations adopted included:
- Granting public holidays should be moved from the Exclusive to the Concurrent Legislative List. This would give states the latitude to declare holidays reflective of the values of their own people.
- Management of prison services be retained in the Exclusive Legislative List as specified in the 1999 Constitution. The same was done to fishing and fisheries other than those in rivers, lakes, waterways, ponds and other inland waters within Nigeria.
- Insurance, stamp duties and formation, annulment and dissolution of marriages other than marriages under Islamic Law and Customary Law including matrimonial causes were also retained in the Exclusive legislative list.
Moved from Concurrent to the Exclusive Legislative List included:
- The first item on the Concurrent Legislative List which deals with allocation of revenue and division of public revenue between states and federation, between states and states and between states and local governments.
-The merger of Items 6, 15, and 24 which all relate to banks, banking, exchange control, bills of exchange, currency, coinage, legal tender and promissory notes, was also approved and adopted for placement in the Exclusive Legislative List.
- Taxation of income, profits and capital gains; trade and commerce were left in the Exclusive legislative list while other aspects of Trade and Commerce particularly, registration of business was moved to the Concurrent List.
- The Committee also recommended that regulations of political parties be retained in the Exclusive Legislative List as specified in the 1999 Constitution as amended. Pensions, gratuities and other-like benefits payable out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other public funds of the federation are to be split between the Exclusive and Concurrent Legislative Lists.
- Retirees previously employed by the Federal Government are entitled to payment of their benefits by the Federal Government while state governments shall have exclusive jurisdiction over the pension matters of their own employees and retirees.
- Retention of Traffic on Federal Trunk roads in the Exclusive Legislative List as specified in the 1999 constitution.
- Granting public holidays should be moved from the Exclusive to the Concurrent Legislative List. This would give states the latitude to declare holidays reflective of the values of their own people.
- Management of prison services be retained in the Exclusive Legislative List as specified in the 1999 Constitution. The same was done to fishing and fisheries other than those in rivers, lakes, waterways, ponds and other inland waters within Nigeria.
- Insurance, stamp duties and formation, annulment and dissolution of marriages other than marriages under Islamic Law and Customary Law including matrimonial causes were also retained in the Exclusive legislative list.
Moved from Concurrent to the Exclusive Legislative List are:
- The first item on the Concurrent Legislative List which deals with allocation of revenue and division of public revenue between states and federation, between states and states and between states and local governments.
-The merger of Items 6, 15, and 24 which all relate to banks, banking, exchange control, bills of exchange, currency, coinage, legal tender and promissory notes, was also approved and adopted for placement in the Exclusive Legislative List.
- Taxation of income, profits and capital gains; trade and commerce was left in the Exclusive legislative list while other aspects of Trade and Commerce particularly, registration of business was moved to the Concurrent List.
- The Committee also recommended that regulations of political parties be retained in the Exclusive Legislative List as specified in the 1999 Constitution as amended. Pensions, gratuities and other-like benefits payable out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other public funds of the federation are to be split between the Exclusive and Concurrent Legislative Lists.
- Retirees previously employed by the Federal Government are entitled to payment of their benefits by the Federal Government while state governments shall have exclusive jurisdiction over the pension matters of their own employees and retirees.
- Retention of Traffic on Federal Trunk Roads in the Exclusive Legislative List as specified in the 1999 constitution.
Well finally members of the special committee comprising of leaders of the six geopolitical zones appeared and a members of the special committee, Chief Raymond Dokpesi brought the report of the special committee to the Deputy Chairman of the conferene.
A memeber of the special committee, Alhaji Ibrahim Coomasie, immediately stood up and informed the chairman that he was involved in the discussions of the committee and up to this evening they have not reached an agreement and therefore "any report submitted to you is null and void,” he announced.
Chief Olu Falae stood up to read the report submitted to the management by Chief Raymond Dokpesi which was termed null and void by Alhaji Commasie amidst boos and shouts by a number of delegates who do not even want to listen to the report.
Falae said the committee came with the following resolution:
- Principle of derivation shall be constantly reflected in any approved formula as being not less than 18% of the revenue accruing to the Federation Account directly from any natural resources.
- Not less than 50% of the total derivation fund accruable to a mineral bearing state shall be due and payable to the host communities within the state where the resources are derived in accordance with the production quota contributed by such communities.
- There shall be established a Solid Mineral Development Fund which is currently 3% but which would be increased to 5% of the revenue accruing to the Federation Account.
- A National Intervention Fund which would be 5% of annual revenue accruing to the account of the Federal Government for the stabilization, rehabilitation and reconstruction of areas affected by terrorism and insurgency, starting with the North east, and then any other part of the country affected.
Faced with obvious rowdiness from a cross-section of the delegates who variously disagreed with the presentations by both Coomasie and Falae; and applause from another section that seemed to also variously agree with the two presentations.
Since obviously the special committee was unable to come up with an agreeable resolution the chairman, after a brief consultation with the principal officers, announced that the leadership of the Conference would meet with selected delegates referred to as the 50 Wise Men, co- chairmen, chairmen and deputy chairmen of the twenty committees of the conference at 11 am on Friday, 11th July 2014 for further consultation on the matter relating to Revenue Allocation which was deferred till Monday.
We adjourned early that day at 2:15 pm, to resume on Monday 14th July 2014 at 9:00am.
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