The delegates representing Ondo State at the National Conference on Wednesday distanced themselves from any plot to guarantee Third Term for President Goodluck Jonathan or any other political office holders in the country as alleged by the Northern Delegates.
Leader of the delegation and the State Commissioner for Vocational and Technical Education, Mr. Remi Olatubora in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja, said the allegation was an attempt to smear the good work done by the delegates and leadership of the conference in trying to re-engineer the country.
“We read in some national dailies that a draft New Constitution has been surreptitiously brought into the report of the confab and that there is a plot for third term for President Goodluck Jonathan or tenure elongation,” Olatubora said.
“Let me state clearly that we as delegates of Ondo State are not part of third term agenda. We came to represent the government and good people of Ondo State and we have no mandate on the third term or tenure elongation. We are basically asked to come here to be part of the process of re-engineering and re-constructing Nigeria.”
He said the delegation he is leading came with our position paper, touching on issues of structure of government, the possibility of devolution of power and some other critical national issues that touch on the continued existence and the fundamental basis of the Nigerian union.
“These are the issues we had table and networked with other zones to realise even though we knew that our position was not going to be absolute,” he said.
Olatubora, said the leadership and secretariat should be commended for the meticulous job they have done in preparing the amendments and draft copy of a new Constitution in line with the resolutions of the conference and its mandate in the first place.
He maintained that there was no surreptitious inclusion of what was not decided and agreed by the delegates during the plenary, saying what the Conference Secretariat has done in addition to compiling the reports of the proceedings and recommendations is to make suggestion by way of draft constitution on how those things we have agreed on would affect the existing 1999 Constitution as amended.
“It is because the 1999 Constitution did not meet the yearning and aspirations of Nigerians that people have been clamouring for a National Conference over the years and we have an ample opportunity at this conference to address those challenges,” Olatubora emphasised.