Wednesday’s allegation by President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Okey Wali that President Goodluck Jonathan refused to receive a minority report of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the proposed national conference has been described as untrue and incorrect.
According to a statement from the Presidency on Thursday, President Jonathan is, in fact, unaware of the existence of the said minority report, supposedly prepared by a member of the Committee, Chief Solomon Asemota.
Dr. Reuben Abati, the special adviser to the president on media and publicity, who released the statement, said it is also a verifiable fact that Chief Asemota himself was present at the submission of the committee’s report to the President on 18th December 2013 when the chairman, Senator Femi Okurounmu spoke as follows in his address to President Jonathan:
Before concluding my address, Mr. President, I want to make one or two comments about some newspaper reports to the effect that there is a minority report of our Committee. We have so far refrained from commenting on these reports because we consider it politically indiscreet and a grave violation of protocol for anyone to be commenting on a report that is yet to be formally submitted. Now that our report is before you, Mr. President, I say quite emphatically, that we have no minority report.
“As everyone, including representatives of the media who were present at the occasion will attest, Chief Asemota raised no objection to the foregoing comments by Senator Okurounmu and made no effort whatsoever to present any dissenting minority report to the President”, Abati said.
“There was therefore never any issue of President Jonathan refusing to receive such a minority report from Chief Asemota and the Presidency is completely unaware of any factual basis for the claim by the NBA President to that effect.
“Mr. Wali’s castigation of President Jonathan’s purported rejection of a minority report is consequently unfair, based as it is, on a wrong premise. President Jonathan did not at any time interfere in the deliberations of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the National Conference and he had no reason to reject a minority report, if it exists and was ever offered to him”.
The Presidency therefore reassured the NBA that the Jonathan administration is guided in all instances by democratic principles, the idea of a National Conference being, in itself, a loud evidence in this regard.
“We invite the Nigeria Bar Association and other professional bodies to support the administration’s efforts to strengthen our democratic process”, Abati, said, adding that “criticisms of such efforts can only be useful when they are constructive and based on facts”.