The committee on national dialogue
SIR: Nigerians from all facets of life should stand up for their rights by speaking up against the eight-man committee appointed to fashion out a political agenda for the country.
I strongly criticise the manner in which the president hand-picked members of the committee from his party, the PDP. The committee is not broad-based enough to handle such an important national assignment. The main people in the fore-front of the demand for a National Conference like the Patriots, Clerics, Students and Labour activists, market women and Civil Liberty activities should have been appointed into the committee.
It is not proper to put government and political appointees and advisers into an assignment which had taken so long to procure. Previous committees set up under similar circumstances to regulate prices and carry out reforms in the local government system did not perform up to expectation.
The president should learn to delegate duties as he already has enough to cope with in petroleum matters, sports and appointment of vice-chancellors in federal universities. The president should dissolve the committee and allow a more credible body to be established if he wants Nigerians to take the exercise serious.
Gabriel Osu,
Director, Social Communications,
Lagos Archdiocese of the Catholic Church,
Lagos
