Decisions At National Conference Will Be Forwarded To NASS..Goodluck

President Goodluck Jonathan insisted on Tuesday that he decided to organise a national conference in order to give the disparate views expressed by Nigerians on the polity a definite focus to enable the country to move towards a more equitable and united future.

He also said the outcome of the planned confab would be forwarded to the National Assembly to aid the constitution amendment process.

Receiving the Nigerian Muslim community led by Vice President Namadi Sambo who paid him a Sallah homage at the Presidential Villa, he told them that he would do his best to ensure that this generation of leaders bequeath to young Nigerians a country they would be proud to call their own.

Jonathan remarked that the decisions of the national conference would be forwarded to the National Assembly for consideration for possible inclusion in the constitution since the legislature was in the process of constitutional amendment.

He recalled that some of recommendations of the Justices Mohammed Uwais and Alfa Belgore Committees have since been put in the form of bills and forwarded to the National Assembly for their consideration.

Jonathan stated: “Even the Justice Uwais committee that was set up, that report was passed on to the National Assembly. In 2010, we brought Belgore and others and I said in 2005 Nigerians discussed somethings, why don’t we begin to implement some of them?

“So, we need  to come up with some bills in those areas we have agreed and we push it to the National Assembly. Of course, some of those bills have not come out from the national Assembly but we believe that even in the constitutional amendment that is going on, some will be useful.

“And this national dialogue is even critical and is coming at the right time because the National Assembly is thinking about how they will amend the constitution. So, the results of the discussion of course will be passed to the National Assembly.

“It is only left for all of us who are Nigerians to impress it on our representatives, those in National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly because our state and federal parliaments must work together to ensure these are properly enshrined in our constitution so that as a nation, we will hand over a country that is better than what we have met to our children.

“I assure you that myself, my Vice President and our team will continue to do our best for Nigeria so that our children will be happy in the end.”

In his remarks earlier, Vice President Sambo praised the president for his leadership and for transforming the country, observing that President Jonathan has ensured economic and political stability in the country.

He observed that Nigerians have been talking in the media about what was best for the country, but these views were largely scattered and uncoordinated and therefore have not had any effect, adding that the national conference would provide a direction for such discussions.

He said: “At times, when you listen to radio and read in the papers and you see sometimes even our elders that are supposed to give us leadership quarreling over nothing, sometimes even insulting themselves and even making provocative statements that will sometimes instigate one group against the other.

“We decided that we cannot continue that way, the talking must have a direction. What has been happening on the pages of newspapers are discussions that have no direction.”

Recalling his elementary physics, the president likened the ongoing debates to scalar quantity defined only by magnitude but without direction, saying that the national conference would bring the discussion to the standard of vector, which in physics, is defined by both quantity and direction.

Jonathan noted: “So, we want a country that will have a direction. So, the discussions must have a direction, the discussion must lead Nigeria to where we want to be, not a divided Nigeria, not a Nigeria that is sown with hate, not a Nigeria that will be based on acrimony, ethnicity and tribal sentiments in the way we conduct ourselves.

“That is a reason we set up that committee and we have given them the free will. Some people are still instigating others that the president is doing this, the government does not have the capacity to do that. We are totally committed to do what is right. We don’t need to carry a cane to flog Nigerians to show that we are determined.”

The president, who noted that in spite of the current challenges facing the nation it was still able to celebrate Sallah and express gratitude to Allah, vowed that his administration would create a peaceful Nigeria.

According him, “that is why we are totally committed to do our best to ensure that we pass a Nigeria to our young people that are coming up, a Nigeria where people will live in peace, a Nigeria that wherever you go, you call the next person your own brother or sister, a Nigeria that our young children who will become adults will say that I am proud to be a Nigerian. Not a Nigeria that people will kill them probably because they don’t recognize them.

“The killings that have been going on in some parts of the country have nothing to do with religion and ethnicity. That is why I asked those who killed those 50 students (recently); did they even bother about their religion or ethnicity?

“It has nothing to do with religion, it has nothing to do with ethnicity, it is because the world generally is experiencing terrorism.

“But in Nigeria, we must work very hard, we must talk to ourselves the way that our children will not develop hate among themselves. And that is one of the key reasons  that we decided to have a conversation as a nation.”